Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6)
Science
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
Then said she:--I have heard, O auspicious King, that tongue of
man can never describe the magnificence of that room in which
bands of virgin Peris, loveliest of forms and fairest of
features, garbed in choicest garments played on sweet-toned
instruments of mirth and merriment or sang lays of amorous
significance to strains of heart bewitching music. Then they
twain, to wit the bride and bridegroom, sat down at meat, ever
and anon delaying to indulge in toyings and bashful love-play and
chaste caresses. Peri-Banu with her own hands passed the choicest
mouthfuls to Prince Ahmad and made him taste of each dish and
dainty, telling him their names and whereof they were composed.
But how shall I, O auspicious King Shahryar, avail to give thee
any notion of those Jinn-made dishes or to describe with due meed
of praise the delicious flavour of meats such as no mortal ever
tasted or ever beheld? Then, when both had supped, they drank the
choicest wines, and ate with relish sweet conserves and dry fruit
and a dessert of various delicacies. At length, when they had
their requirement of eating and drinking, they retired into
another room which contained a raised dais of the grandest,
bedecked with gold-purfled cushions and pillows wrought with
seed-pearl and Ach menian tapestries, whereupon they took seat
side by side for converse and solace. Then came in a troop of
Jinns and fairies who danced and sang before them with wondrous
grace and art; and this pretty show pleased Peri-Banu and Prince
Ahmad, who watched the sports and displays with ever-renewed
delight. At last the newly wedded couple rose and retired, weary
of revelry, to another chamber, wherein they found that the
slaves had dispread the genial bed, whose frame was gold studded
with jewels and whose furniture was of satin and sendal flowered
with the rarest embroidery. Here the guests who attended at the
marriage festival and the handmaids of the palace, ranged in two
lines, hailed the bride and bridegroom as they went within; and
then, craving dismissal, they all departed leaving them to take
their joyance in bed. On such wise the marriage-festival and
nuptial merry-makings were kept up day after day, with new dishes
and novel sports, novel dances and new music; and, had Prince
Ahmad lived a thousand years with mortal kind, never could he
have seen such revels or heard such strains or enjoyed such
love-liesse. Thus six months soon passed in the Fairy-land beside
Peri-Banu, whom he loved with a love so fond that he would not
lose her from his sight for a moment's space; but would feel
restless and ill-at-ease whenas he ceased to look upon her. In
like manner Peri-Banu was fulfilled with affection for him and
strove to please her bridegroom more and more every moment by new
arts of dalliance and fresh appliances of pleasure, until so
absorbing waxed his passion for her that the thought of home and
kindred, kith and kin, faded from his thoughts and fled his mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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