Slim-waisted one, whose looks with down of cheek ✿ In slaughtering mankind each other hurtle:
With the Narcissus-blade he sheddeth blood, ✿ The baldrick of whose sheath is freshest myrtle.[[239]]
And again:—
Not with his must I’m drunk, but verily ✿ Those curls turn manly heads like newest wine[[240]]:
Each of his beauties envies each, and all ✿ Would be the silky down on side-face li’en.
Such are the excellencies of the youth which women do not own, and they more than suffice to give those the preference over these.” She replied, “Allah give thee health! verily, thou hast imposed the debate upon thyself; and thou hast spoken and hast not stinted and hast brought proofs to support every assertion. But, ‘Now is the truth become manifest;’[[241]] so swerve thou not from the path thereof; and, if thou be not content with a summary of evidence, I will set it before thee in fullest detail. Allah upon thee, where is the youth beside the girl and who shall compare kid and wild cow? The girl is soft of speech, fair of form, like a branchlet of basil, with teeth like chamomile-petals and hair like halters wherefrom to hang hearts. Her cheeks are like blood-red anemones and her face like a pippin: she hath lips like wine and breasts like pomegranates twain and a shape supple as a rattan-cane. Her body is well-formed and with sloping shoulders dight; she hath a nose like the edge of a sword shining bright and a forehead brilliant white and eyebrows which unite and eyes stained by Nature’s hand black as night. If she speak, fresh young pearls are scattered from her mouth forthright and all hearts are ravished by the daintiness of her sprite; when she smileth thou wouldst ween the moon shone out her lips between and when she eyes thee, sword-blades flash from the babes of her eyes. In her all beauties to conclusion come, and she is the centre of attraction to traveller and stay-at-home. She hath two lips of cramoisy, than cream smoother and of taste than honey sweeter,”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Four Hundred and Twenty-second Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the preacher-woman thus pursued her theme in the praise of fair maids, “She hath two lips of cramoisy, than cream smoother and than honey sweeter;” adding, “And she hath a bosom, as it were a way two hills between which are a pair of breasts like globes of ivory sheen; likewise, a stomach right smooth, flanks soft as the palm-spathe and creased with folds and dimples which overlap one another, and liberal thighs, which like columns of pearl arise, and back parts which billow and beat together like seas of glass or mountains of glance, and two feet and hands of gracious mould like unto ingots of virgin gold. So, O miserable! where are mortal men beside the Jinn? Knowest thou not that puissant princes and potent Kings before women ever humbly bend and on them for delight depend? Verily, they may say;—We rule over necks and rob hearts. These women! how many a rich man have they not paupered, how many a powerful man have they not prostrated and how many a superior man have they not enslaved! Indeed, they seduce the sage and send the saint to shame and bring the wealthy to want and plunge the fortune-favoured into penury. Yet for all this, the wise but redouble in affection of them and honour; nor do they count this oppression or dishonour. How many a man for them hath offended his Maker and called down on himself the wrath of his father and mother! And all this because of the conquest of their love over hearts. Knowest thou not, O wretched one, that for them are built pavilions, and slave-girls are for sale;[[242]] that for them tear-floods rail and for them are collected jewels of price and ambergris and musk odoriferous; and armies are arrayed and pleasaunces made and wealth heaped up and smitten off is many a head?” And indeed he spoke sooth in the words, ‘Whoso saith the world meaneth woman.’ Now as for thy citation from the Holy Traditions, it is an argument against thee and not for thee; in that the Prophet (whom Allah bless and preserve!) compareth the beardless with the black-eyed girls of Paradise. Now, doubtless, the subject of comparison is worthier than the object therewith compared; so, unless women be the worthier and the goodlier, wherefore should other than they be likened to them? As for thy saying that girls are likened to boys, the case is not so, but the contrary: boys are likened to girls; for folk say, Yonder boy is like a girl. As for what proof thou quotest from the poets, the verses were the product of a complexion unnatural in this respect; and as for the habitual sodomites and catamites, offenders against religion, Almighty Allah hath condemned them in His Holy Book,[[243]] wherein He denounceth their filthy practices, saying, Do ye approach unto the males among mankind[[244]] and leave your wives which your Lord hath created for you? Surely ye are a people who transgress! These it is that liken girls to boys, of their exceeding profligacy and ungraciousness and inclination to follow the fiend and own lusts, so that they say, She is apt for two tricks;[[245]] and these are all wanderers from the way of right and the righteous. Quoth their chief Abu Nowas:—
Slim-waist and boyish wits delight ✿ Wencher, as well as Sodomite,[[246]]
As for what thou sayest of a youth’s first hair on cheek and lips and how they add to his beauty and loveliness, by Allah, thou strayest from the straight path of sooth and sayest that which is other than the truth; for whiskers change the charms of the comely into ugliness; (quoting these couplets):—