The oppressed Bedawee, having related these circumstances, fell down in a swoon, and lay on the floor senseless, coiled up like a dead snake. As soon as he recovered, the Khaleefeh wrote a poetical epistle to Marwán, severely reproaching him for his baseness, and commanding him, on pain of death, to divorce the woman and send her with his messenger. She was accordingly divorced and sent, with an answer composed in the same measure and rhyme, assuring the Khaleefeh that the sight of Soạdà would convince him that her charms were irresistible; and this proved too true. Mo´áwiyeh himself no sooner saw her than he coveted her, and offered to give the Bedawee, if he would resign her to him, three virgins from among his female slaves, together with a thousand deenárs and an ample annual pension. The Bedawee shrieked with dismay, as though he had received his death-blow, and indignantly rejected the offer. The Khaleefeh then said to him, "Thou confessest that thou hast divorced her, and Marwán has married her and acknowledged that he has divorced her: we will therefore give her her choice: if she desire any other than thee as her husband we will marry her to him, and if she prefer thee we will restore her to thee." She, however, had the merit to prefer the destitute Bedawee, and the Khaleefeh gave her up to him, with a present of ten thousand dirhems. Numerous instances of unreasonable love are recorded in the writings of Arabs. It is related that a man fell in love with a lady from seeing the impression of her hand upon a wall; and, being unable to win her, died. Many men are said to have conceived a violent passion for damsels seen in dreams; others, again, to have been affected thus merely by the ear. An author relates his having been acquainted with an accomplished schoolmaster who lost his heart from hearing a man sing the praises of a woman named Umm-´Amr, and two days after shut himself up in his house to mourn for her death, in consequence of his hearing the same man sing,-- "The ass went away with Umm-´Amr; and she returned not, nor did the ass return."[239]