Yea, grown a bye-word ’mid the folk but aye ✿ Spend life unwinning wish or night or day. “Ah say, wots she my love when her I spied ✿ At the high lattice shedding sunlike ray?” Her glances, keener than the brand when bared ✿ Cleave soul of man nor ever ’scapes her prey: I looked on her in lattice pierced aloft ✿ When bare her cheat of veil that slipped away; And shot me thence a shaft my liver pierced ✿ When thrall to care and dire despair I lay. Knowst thou, O Fawn o’ the palace, how for thee ✿ I fared from farness o’er the lands astray? Then read my writ, dear friends, and show some ruth ✿ To wight who wones black-faced, distraught, sans stay! And when he ended inditing, he folded up the letter. Now the merchant’s wife aforesaid, who was the nurse of the king’s daughter, was watching him from a window, unknown of him, and when she saw him writing and reciting, she knew that some rare tale attached to him; so she went in to him and said, “Peace be with thee, O afflicted wight, who acquaintest not leach with thy plight! Verily, thou exposest thy life to grievous blight. I conjure thee by the virtue of Him who hath afflicted thee and with the constraint of love-liking hath stricken thee, that thou acquaint me with thine affair and disclose to me the truth of thy secret; for that indeed I have heard from thee verses which trouble the mind and melt the body.” Accordingly he acquainted her with his case and enjoined her to secrecy, whereof she consented, saying, “What shall be the recompense of whoso goeth with thy letter and bringeth thee its reply?” He bowed his head for shame before her and was silent; and she said to him, “Raise thy head and give me thy writ”: so he gave her the letter and she hent it and carrying it to the Princess, said to her, “Take this epistle and give me its answer.” Now the dearest of all things to Mariyah was the recitation of poesy and verses and linked rhymes and the twanging of lute-strings, and she was versed in all tongues; wherefore she took the writ and opening it, read that which was therein and understood its purport. Then she threw it to the ground and cried, “O nurse, I have no answer to make to this letter.” Quoth the nurse, “Indeed, this is weakness in thee and a reproach to thee, for that the people of the world have heard of thee and commend thee for keenness of wit and understanding; so do thou return him an answer, such as shall trick his heart and tire his soul.” Quoth she, “O nurse, who may be the man who presumeth upon me with this correspondence? Haply ’tis the stranger youth who gave my father the rubies.” The woman said, “It is himself,” and Mariyah said, “I will answer his letter in such fashion that thou shalt not bring me other than it.” Cried the nurse, “So be it.”[383] Thereupon the Princess called for ink-case and paper and wrote these couplets:—