I verily will counsel thee with rede the best to hear: ✿ Cut short this course ere come thou nigh sore risk, nay death, to dree!
If thou to this request return, surely on thee shall fall ✿ Sore punishment, for vile offence a grievous penalty.
Be reasonable then, be wise, hark back unto thy wits; ✿ Behold, in very truth I speak with best advice to thee:
By Him who did all things that be create from nothingness; ✿ Who dressed the face of heaven with stars in brightest radiancy:
If in the like of this thy speech thou dare to sin again! ✿ I’ll surely have thee crucified upon a trunk of tree.
Then she rolled up the letter and gave it to the old woman who took it and, repairing to Ardashir’s shop, delivered it to him,——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Seven Hundred and Twenty-third Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the old woman took that letter from Hayat al-Nufus she fared forth till she found the youth who was sitting in his shop and gave it to him, saying, “Read thine answer and know that when she perused thy paper she was wroth with exceeding wrath; but I soothed her and spake her fair, till she consented to write thee a reply.” He took the letter joyfully but, when he had read it and understood its drift, he wept sore, whereat the old woman’s heart ached and she cried, “O my son, Allah never cause thine eyes to weep nor thy heart to mourn! What can be more gracious than that she should answer thy letter when thou hast done what thou diddest?” He replied, “O my mother what shall I do for a subtle device? Behold, she writeth to me, threatening me with death and crucifixion and forbidding me from writing to her; and I, by Allah, see my death to be better than my life; but I beg thee of thy grace[[273]] to carry her another letter from me.” She said, “Write and I warrant I’ll bring thee an answer. By Allah, I will assuredly venture my life to win for thee thy wish, though I die to pleasure thee!” He thanked her and kissing her hands, wrote these verses:—
Do you threaten me wi’ death for my loving you so well? ✿ When Death to me were rest and all dying is by Fate?
And man’s death is but a boon, when so longsome to him grows ✿ His life, and rejected he lives in lonest state: