"And fairest Fawn, we said to him 'Portray * This garth and
oranges thine eyes survey:'
And he, 'Your garden favoureth my face * Who gathereth orange
gathereth fire alway.'"
In that garden too grew citrons, in colour as virgin gold, hanging down from on high and dangling among the branches, as they were ingots of growing gold;[FN#405] and saith thereof the 'namoured poet,
"Hast seen a Citron-copse so weighed adown * Thou fearest bending
roll their fruit on mould;
And seemed, when Zephyr passed athwart the tree * Its branches
hung with bells of purest gold?"
And shaddocks,[FN#406] that among their boughs hung laden as though each were the breast of a gazelle-like maiden, contenting the most longing wight, as saith of them the poet and saith aright,
"And Shaddock mid the garden-paths, on bough * Freshest like
fairest damsel met my sight;
And to the blowing of the breeze it bent * Like golden ball to
bat of chrysolite."
And the lime sweet of scent, which resembleth a hen's egg, but its yellowness ornamenteth its ripe fruit, and its fragrance hearteneth him who plucketh it, as saith the poet who singeth it,
"Seest not the Lemon, when it taketh form, * Catch rays of light
and all to gaze constrain;
Like egg of pullet which the huckster's hand * Adorneth dyeing
with the saffron-stain?"
Moreover in this garden were all manner of other fruits and sweet-scented herbs and plants and fragrant flowers, such as jessamine and henna and water-lilies[FN#407] and spikenard[FN#408] and roses of every kind and plantain[FN#409] and myrtle and so forth; and indeed it was without compare, seeming as it were a piece of Paradise to whoso beheld it. If a sick man entered it, he came forth from it like a raging lion, and tongue availeth not to its description, by reason of that which was therein of wonders and rarities which are not found but in Heaven: and how should it be otherwise when its doorkeeper's name was Rizwan? Though widely different were the stations of those twain! Now when the sons of the merchants had walked about gazing at the garden after taking their pleasure therein, they say down in one of its pavilions and seated Nur al-Din in their midst.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When it was the Eight Hundred and Sixty-sixth Night,
She resume, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the sons of the merchants sat down in the pavilion they seated Nur al-Din in their midst on a rug of gold-purfled leather of Al-Táif,[FN#410] leaning on a pillow[FN#411] of minever, stuffed with ostrich down. And they gave him a fan of ostrich feathers, whereon were written these two couplets,