So I lingered there an hour of time, when a woman suddenly came out from one of the neighbouring houses and asked me, “What dost thou want, O asker; and what seekest thou?” I answered, “We are in quest of the owners of this mansion;” and said she, “Here they were in crowds and then they abandoned it, and may Allah have mercy upon him who spake these two couplets:—
“They fared and with faring fled rest from me ✿ And my parted heart no repose can see:
Have ruth on a wight with a heart weighed by woes ✿ Seest not how their door is without a key?”
Then indeed I repented, O Commander of the Faithful, over that I had done and regretted what had befallen me and what had proceeded from me of ill-deeds, and quoth I to the woman who had addressed me, “Allah upon thee, O my mistress, say me, hast thou of their traces any tidings?”——And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent, and ceased saying her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was
The Six Hundred and Forty-eighth Night,
Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night.” She replied:——With love and good will! It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that Manjab, speaking to the woman, said, “O my lady; say me, dost thou know of their traces any tidings, and hast thou come upon any manifest news?” Said she, “This thing was to befal thee of old, O thou poor fellow, even as quoth the poet in the following couplets:—
“My tears flow fast, my heart knows no rest ✿ And melts my soul and cares aye molest:
Would Heaven mine eyeballs their form beheld ✿ And flies my life, and ah! who shall arrest?
’Tis wondrous the while shows my form to sight, ✿ Fire burns my vitals with flamey crest!
Indeed for parting I’ve wept, and yet ✿ No friend I find to mine aid addrest: