mistress is the fairer and the sweeter." So saying the If rit flew away and Maymunah flew with him to guard him. They were absent awhile and presently returned, bearing the young lady, who was clad in a shift of fine Venetian silk, with a double edging of gold and purfled with the most exquisite of embroidery having these couplets worked upon the ends of the sleeves, "Three matters hinder her from visiting us, in fear * Of hate-full, slandering envier and his hired spies: The shining light of brow, the trinkets' tinkling voice, * And scent of essences that tell whene'er she tries: Gi'en that she hide her brow with edge of sleeve, and leave * At home her trinketry, how shall her scent disguise?''[FN#251] And Dahnash and Maymunah stinted not bearing that young lady till they had carried her into the saloon and had laid her beside the youth Kamar al-Zaman.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say. When it was the One Hundred and Eighty-first Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Ifrit Dahnash and the Ifritah Maymunah stinted not bearing Princess Budur till they descended and laid her on the couch beside Kamar al- Zaman. Then they uncovered both their faces, and they were the likest of all folk, each to other, as they were twins or an only brother and sister; and indeed they were a seduction to the pious, even as saith of them the poet Al-Mubín, "O heart! be not thy love confined to one, * Lest thou by doting or disdain be undone: Love all the fair, and thou shalt find with them * If this be lost, to thee that shall be won." And quoth another, "Mine eyes beheld two lying on the ground; * Both had I loved if on these eyne they lay!" So Dahnash and Maymunah gazed on them awhile, and he said, "By Allah, O my lady, it is good! My mistress is assuredly the fairer." She replied, "Not so, my beloved is the fairer; woe to thee, O Dahnash! Art blind of eye and heart that lean from fat thou canst not depart? Wilt thou hide the truth? Dost thou not see his beauty and loveliness and fine stature and symmetry? Out on thee, hear what I purpose to say in praise of my beloved and, if thou be a lover true to her thou dost love, do thou the like for her thou Lovest." Then she kissed Kamar al-Zaman again and again between the eyes and improvised this ode, "How is this? Why should the blamer abuse thee in his pride? What shall console my heart for thee, that art but slender bough? A Nature Kohl'd[FN#252] eye thou hast that witcheth far and wide; From pure platonic love[FN#253] of it deliverance none I trow! Those glances, fell as plundering Turk, to heart such havoc deal As never havocked scymitar made keenest at the curve. On me thou layest load of love the heaviest while I feel So feeble grown that under weight of chemisette I swerve. My love for thee as wottest well is habit, and my lowe Is nature; to all others false is all the love I tender: