As though she smiled from strung pearls or hailstones, or camomile-flowers.
For it is original in the use of similitude which it contains." He said to him, "Here is a wonder! here is a lack of taste, Sir, thou hast taken for fat what is only swollen; thou hast blown on that which is no fuel: where art thou in comparison with the rare verse which unites the similitudes of the teeth?
My life a ransom for those teeth whose beauty charms, and which a purity adorns sufficing thee for all other.
She parts her lips from fresh pearls, and from hail-stones, and from camomile-flowers, and from the palm-shoot, and from bubbles.
Then each one approved the couplet and admired it, and bade him repeat it and dictate it. And he was asked, "Whose is this verse, and is its author living or dead?" He said, "By Allah, right is most worthy to be followed, and truth is most fitting to be listened to: Know, friends, that it is his who talks with you to-day." Said Al Harith: Now it was as though the company doubted of his fathering, and were unwilling to give credit to his claim. And he perceived what had fallen into their thoughts, and was aware of their inward unbelief; and was afraid that blame might chance to him, or ill-fame reach him; so he quoted from the Koran, "Some suspicions are a sin." Then he said, "O ye reciters of verse, physicians of sickly phrase!—Truly the purity of the gem is shown by the testing, and the hand of truth rends the cloak of doubt.—Now it was said aforetime that by trial is a man honored or contemned. So come! I now expose my hidden store to the proving, I offer my saddle-bag for comparison." Then hastened one who was there and said: "I know a verse such that there is no weaving on its beam, such that no genius can supply one after its image. Now, if thou wish to draw our hearts to thee, compose after this style:
She rained pearls from the daffodil, and watered the rose, and bit upon the 'unnab with hail-stone.
And it was but the glance of an eye, or less, before he recited rarely:
I asked her when she met me to put off her crimson veil, and to endow my hearing with the sweetest of tidings:
And she removed the ruddy light which covered the brightness of her moon, and she dropped pearls from a perfumed ring.
Then all present were astonished at his readiness, and acknowledged his honesty. And when he perceived that they approved his diction, and were hastening into the path of honoring him, he looked down the twinkling of an eye; then he said, "Here are two other verses for you"; and recited: