I am the thrall of Love who keeps the troth of love to them[[301]] ✿ But oft they proved themselves ’Urkúb[[302]] in pact with me they made.

What in their camp remains? They bound their loads and fared away; ✿ To other feres the veilèd Fairs in curtained litters sped;

At every station the beloved showed all of Joseph’s charms: ✿ The lover woned with Jacob’s woe in every shift of stead.

When she had made an end of her song, she threw the lute from her hand and wept herself a-swoon. So they sprinkled on her musk-mingled rose-water and willow-flower water; and when she came to her senses, Al-Rashid said to her, “O Sitt al-Milah, this is not just dealing in thee. We love thee and thou lovest another.” She replied, “O Commander of the Faithful, there is no help for it.” Thereupon he was wroth with her and cried, “By the virtue of Hamzah[[303]] and ’Akíl[[304]] and Mohammed, Prince of the Apostles, an thou name in my presence one other than I, I will assuredly order strike off thy head!” Then he bade return her to her chamber, whilst she wept and recited these couplets:—

“Oh brave!” I’d cry an I my death could view; ✿ My death were better than these griefs to rue,

Did sabre hew me limb by limb; this were ✿ Naught to affright a lover leal-true.

Then the Caliph went in to the Lady Zubaydah, complexion-altered with anger, and she noted this in him and said to him, “How cometh it that I see the Commander of the Faithful changed of colour?” He replied, “O daughter of my uncle, I have a beautiful slave-girl, who reciteth verses by rote and telleth various tales, and she hath taken my whole heart; but she loveth other than myself and declareth that she affecteth her former lord; so I have sworn a great oath that, if she come again to my sitting-hall and sing for other than for me, I will assuredly shorten her highest part by a span.”[[305]] Quoth Zubaydah, “Let the Commander of the Faithful favour me by presenting her, so I may look on her and hear her singing.” Accordingly he bade fetch her and she came, upon which the Lady Zubaydah withdrew behind the curtain,[[306]] where the damsel saw her not, and Al-Rashid said to her, “Sing to us.” So she took the lute and tuning it, recited these couplets:—

O my lord! since the day when I lost your sight, ✿ My life was ungladdened, my heart full of teen;

The memory of you kills me every night; ✿ And by all the worlds is my trace unseen;

All for love of a Fawn who hath snared my sprite ✿ By his love and his brow as the morning sheen.