So if one enlarge in praise of a girl and wish to enhance her value by the mention of her charms, he likens her to a boy, because of the illustrious qualities that belong to the latter, even as saith the poet:
Boylike of buttocks, to and fro, in amorous dalliance, She sways as sway the nodding canes that in the north wind dance.
If boys, then, were not superior to girls, why should the latter be likened to them? And know also, may God the Most High preserve thee, that a boy is easy to be led, adapting himself to the wish, pleasant of commerce and manners, inclining to assent rather than difference, especially when the down on his face creeps lightly and the hair darkens on his lips and the vermilion of early youth runs in his cheeks, so that he is like the full moon; and how goodly is the saying of Abou Temmam: [FN#184]
"The whiskers on his cheek appear;" the slanderers said to me;
Quoth I, "That's none of his defect; so give me no more
prate."
What time he came of age to bear buttocks that here and there
Pulled him and over beads of pearl his lips' hair darkened
late
And eke the rose a solemn oath, full fast and binding, swore
Its ruddy marvels from his cheek should never separate,
I with my eyelids spoke to him, without the need of speech, And
for reply thereto was what his eyebrows answered straight.
His goodliness still goodlier is than that thou knewst of yore,
And the hair guardeth him from those his charms would
violate.
Brighter and sweeter are his charms, now on his cheek the down
Shows and the hair upon his lips grows dark and delicate;
And those who chide me for the love of him, when they take up
Their parable of him and me, say evermore, "His mate."
And quoth El Heriri[FN#185] and saith well:
My censors say, "What is this love and doting upon him? Seest
not the hair upon his cheeks that sprouts? Where is thy
wit?"
Quoth I, "By Allah, an ye chide at me, I rede you note The
exposition of the truth that in his eyes is writ.
But for the blackness of the down, that veils his chin and
cheeks, Upon the brightness of his face no mortal gaze
might sit.
A man who sojourns in a land, wherein no herbage is, Whenas the
very Spring arrives, shall he depart from it?"
And quoth another:
"He is consoled," say the censors of me; but, by heaven, they
lie! For solace and comfort come hardly to those for
longing that sigh.
When the rose of his cheek stood blooming alone, I was not
consoled; So how should I now find solace, that basil has
sprung thereby?
And again:
A slender one, whose glances and the down upon his cheeks Each
other, in the slaying of folk, abet and aid.
A sabre of narcissus[FN#186] withal, he sheddeth blood, The
hangers[FN#187] of its scabbard of very myrtle made.