“It is true. Keep silence if you are my true lover, for the sake of my honour. For if your voice is heard I am a dead woman. But I too will be faithful to death.”
And he answered:
“On my head and eyes.”
And by her command I gave her water to drink and applied an essence to her nostrils, and we left the room, pulling the heavy curtains before it, and we returned to where the Padshah sat with the pale lady Imami reading aloud and he smiling in calm content. Seeing us return, he motioned my Princess to a seat on the divan saying:
“I would hear your verses of ‘The Lover.’
“What is the fate of a lover? It is to be crucified for the world’s pleasure.”
And taking the manuscript from the hands of Imami she read aloud:
“Dust falls within the cup of Kaikobad
And King Jamshid,
Nor recks the world if they were sad or glad,