Mine eyes beheld two lying on the ground; ✿ Both had I loved if on these eyne they lay!
So Dahnash and Maymunah gazed on them awhile, and he said, "By Allah, O my lady, it is good! My mistress is assuredly the fairer." She replied, "Not so, my beloved is the fairer; woe to thee, O Dahnash! Art blind of eye and heart that lean from fat thou canst not depart? Wilt thou hide the truth? Dost thou not see his beauty and loveliness and fine stature and symmetry? Out on thee, hear what I purpose to say in praise of my beloved and, if thou be a lover true to her thou dost love, do thou the like for her thou lovest." Then she kissed Kamar al-Zaman again and again between the eyes and improvised this ode:—
How is this? Why should the blamer abuse thee in his pride?
What shall console my heart for thee, that art but slender bough?
A Nature-Kohl'd[[252]] eye thou hast that witcheth far and wide;
From pure platonic love[[253]] of it deliverance none I trow!
Those glances, fell as plundering Turk, to heart such havoc deal
As never havocked scymitar made keenest at the curve.
On me thou layest load of love the heaviest while I feel
So feeble grown that under weight of chemisette I swerve.