Now when it was the Eight Hundred and Forty-sixth Night,
She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the merchant awoke, he strave with his yearnings till morning when he said to himself, “There is no help but that I go this day to some one who will expound to me this vision.” So he went forth and walked right and left, till he was far from his dwelling-place, but found none to interpret the dream to him. Then he would have returned, but on his way behold, the fancy took him to turn aside to the house of a certain trader, a man of the wealthiest, and when he drew near to it, suddenly he heard from within a plaintive voice from a sorrowful heart reciting these couplets:—
The breeze o’ Morn blows uswards from her trace ✿ Fragrant, and heals the love-sick lover’s case.
I stand like captive on the mounds and ask ✿ While tears make answer for the ruined place:
Quoth I, “By Allah, Breeze o’ Morning, say ✿ Shall Time and Fortune aye this stead regrace?
Shall I enjoy a fawn whose form bewitched ✿ And languorous eyelids wasted frame and face?”
When Masrur heard this, he looked in through the doorway and saw a garden of the goodliest of gardens, and at its farther end a curtain of red brocade, purfled with pearls and gems, behind which sat four damsels, and amongst them a young lady over four feet and under five in height, as she were the rondure of the lune and the full moon shining boon: she had eyes Kohl’d with nature’s dye and joined eyebrows, a mouth as it were Solomon’s seal and lips and teeth bright with pearls and coral’s light; and indeed she ravished all wits with her beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace. When Masrur espied her, he entered the porch and went on entering till he came to the curtain: whereupon she raised her head and glanced at him. So he saluted her and she returned his salam with sweetest speech; and, when he considered her more straitly, his reason was dazed and his heart amazed. Then he looked at the garden and saw that it was full of jessamine and gilly flowers and violets and roses and orange blossoms and all manner sweet-scented blooms and herbs. Every tree was girt about with fruits and there coursed down water from four daises, which faced one another and occupied the four corners of the garden. He looked at the first Líwán and found written around it with vermilion these two couplets:—
Ho thou the House! Grief never home in thee; ✿ Nor Time work treason on thine owner’s head:
All good betide the House which every guest ✿ Harbours, when sore distrest for way and stead!
Then he looked at the second daïs and found written thereon in red gold these couplets:—