Slim-waisted loveling, from his hair and brow ✿ Men wake a-morn in night and light renewed.
Blame not the mole that dwelleth on his cheek ✿ For Nu’uman’s bloom aye shows spot negro-hued.
When the slave-girl beheld Nur al-Din he interposed between her and her wits; she fell in love to him with a great and sudden fall and her heart was taken with affection for him;——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-third Night,
She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the slave-girl beheld Nur al-Din, her heart was taken with affection for him; so she turned to the broker and said to him, “Will not yonder young merchant who is sitting among the traders in the gown of striped broadcloth bid somewhat more for me?” The broker replied, “O lady of fair ones, yonder young man is a stranger from Cairo, where his father is chief of the trader-guild and surpasseth all the merchants and notables of the place. He is but lately come to this our city and lodgeth with one of his father’s friends; but he hath made no bid for thee nor more nor less.” When the girl heard the broker’s words, she drew from her finger a costly signet-ring of ruby and said to the man, “Carry me to yonder youth, and if he buy me, this ring shall be thine, in requital of thy travail with me this day.” The broker rejoiced at this and brought her up to Nur al-Din, and she considered him straitly and found him like the full moon, perfect in loveliness and a model of fine stature and symmetric grace, even as saith of him one of his describers:—
Waters of beauty o’er his cheeks flow bright. ✿ And rain his glances shafts that sorely smite:
Choked are his lovers an he deal disdain’s ✿ Bitterest draught denaying love-delight.
His forehead and his stature and my love ✿ Are perfect perfected perfection-dight;
His raiment folds enfold a lovely neck ✿ As crescent moon in collar buttoned tight:
His eyne and twinnèd moles and tears of me ✿ Are night that nighteth to the nightliest night.