Would open wide, I’d sink below!”
At length, overcome by despair, he gave free vent to his tears, and finally returned home. For some days sorrow and hopelessness were his inseparable companions; but when he became convinced that another meeting with Bakáwalí could never take place, and that his grief was of no avail, he turned his attention to the enchanting conversation of Chitrawat, and then it was that the buds of her hopes expanded, touched by the zephyr of his love, and the shell of her desire was made fragrant with the pearls of his affection.
CHAPTER IX.
BAKÁWALÍ IS RE-BORN IN THE HOUSE OF A FARMER—WHEN SHE IS OF MARRIAGEABLE AGE THE PRINCE AND CHITRAWAT MEET HER AND THEY ALL THREE PROCEED TO HIS OWN COUNTRY, WHERE HE IS WELCOMED AFFECTIONATELY BY DILMAR AND MAHMUDA—BAHRAM, THE SON OF ZAYN UL-MULUK’S VAZÍR, FALLS IN LOVE WITH RUH-AFZA, THE COUSIN OF BAKÁWALÍ.
They say that the ground on which the temple of Bakáwalí once stood was tilled by a farmer, who sowed it with mustard-seed. Táj ul-Mulúk often repaired thither to gaze upon the fields, which were spread with carpets of the richest verdure. When the plants emerged from the soil and blossomed the prince visited the fields each morning and evening, and thus addressed them:
“Flowers of the field! how fare ye here?
Love’s fragrance in your bloom I find;
From earth emerging ye appear—
Say, where’s the charmer of my mind?”
In due time the mustard-plants ripened, and the farmer reaped his crop and put it in the oil press. Peasants are generally accustomed to try the first fruits of their fields themselves. Hence it happened that the farmer’s wife, partaking of a dish prepared with the oil thus produced, became pregnant, although she had hitherto been sterile. In due course she gave birth to a fairy-faced daughter, whose presence illumined the heretofore dark abode of the farmer. It was soon noised abroad that a hitherto sterile woman had brought forth a fair daughter through the virtue of some mustard oil. As for the infant, the neighbours all declared that, while even now the splendour of her countenance eclipsed that of the moon, when she should have reached her fourteenth year it would excel the glory of the sun itself.