I cried to the Night, whose glooms were like ✿ Seas that surge and billow with might, with might:
“O Night, thou art longsome to lover who ✿ Hath no aid nor help save the morning-light!”
She replied, “Complain not that I am long: ✿ ’Tis love is the cause of thy longsome plight!”
Now, at the first of the couplets, I sprang up and made for the quarter whence the sound came, nor had the voice ended repeating them, ere I was with the speaker and saw a youth of the utmost beauty, the hair of whose side face had not sprouted and in whose cheeks tears had worn twin trenches.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Six Hundred and Eighty-first Night,
She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Abdullah ibn Ma’amar al-Kaysi thus continued:—So I sprang up and made for the quarter whence the sound came, nor had the voice ended repeating the verses, ere I was with the speaker and saw a youth on whose side face the hair had not sprouted and in whose cheeks tears had worn twin trenches. Quoth I to him, “Fair befal thee for a youth!”; and quoth he, “And thee also! Who art thou?” I replied, “Abdullah bin Ma’amar al-Kaysi;” and he said, “Dost thou want aught?” I rejoined, “I was sitting in the garden and naught hath troubled me this night but thy voice. With my life would I ransom thee! What aileth thee?” He said, “Sit thee down.” So I sat down and he continued, “I am Otbah bin al-Hubáb bin al-Mundhir bin al-Jamúh the Ansárí.[[81]] I went out in the morning to the Mosque Al-Ahzáb[[82]] and occupied myself there awhile with prayer-bows and prostrations, after which I withdrew apart, to worship privily. But lo! up came women, as they were moons, walking with a swaying gait, and surrounding a damsel of passing loveliness, perfect in beauty and grace, who stopped before me and said:—O Otbah, what sayst thou of union with one who seeketh union with thee? Then she left me and went away; and since that time I have had no tidings of her nor come upon any trace of her; and behold, I am distracted and do naught but remove from place to place.” Then he cried out and fell to the ground fainting. When he came to himself, it was as if the damask of his cheeks were dyed with safflower,[[83]] and he recited these couplets:—
I see you with my heart from far countrie ✿ Would Heaven you also me from far could see
My heart and eyes for you are sorrowing; ✿ My soul with you abides and you with me.
I take no joy in life when you’re unseen ✿ Or Heaven or Garden of Eternity.
Said I, “O Otbah, O son of my uncle, repent to thy Lord and crave pardon for thy sin; for before thee is the terror of standing up to Judgment.” He replied, “Far be it from me so to do. I shall never leave to love till the two mimosa-gatherers return.”[[84]] I abode with him till daybreak, when I said to him, “Come let us go to the Mosque Al-Ahzab.” So we went thither and sat there, till we had prayed the midday prayers, when lo! up came the women; but the damsel was not among them. Quoth they to him, “O Otbah, what thinkest thou of her who seeketh union with thee?” He said, “And what of her?”; and they replied, “Her father hath taken her and departed to Al-Samawah.”[[85]] I asked them the name of the damsel and they said, “She is called Rayyá, daughter of Al-Ghitríf al-Sulami.”[[86]] Whereupon Otbah raised his head and recited these verses:—