"Go, visit her thou lovest, and regard not The words detractors utter, envious churls Can never favour love. Oh! sure the Merciful Ne'er made a thing more fair to look upon, Than two fond lovers in each others' arms, Speaking their passion in a mute embrace. When heart has turned to heart, the fools would part them Strike idly on cold steel. So when thou'st found One purely, wholly shine, accept her true heart, And live for her alone. Oh! thou that blamest The love-struck for their love, give o'er thy talk, How canst thou minister to a mind diseased?"[FN#262] Then he turned again to Maymunah and Dahnash and said to them, "By Allah, if you will have the truth, I tell you fairly the twain be equal in beauty, and loveliness and perfect grace and goodliness, nor can I make any difference between them on account of their being man and woman. But I have another thought which is that we wake each of them in turn, without the knowledge of the other, and whichever is the more enamoured shall be held inferior in seemlihead and comeliness." Quoth Maymunah, "Right is this recking," and quoth Dahnash, "I consent to this." Then Dahnash changed himself to the form of a flea and bit Kamar al-Zaman, whereupon he started from sleep in a fright.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. When it was the One Hundred and Eighty-third Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Dahnash changed himself to the form of a flea and bit Kamar al-Zaman who started from sleep in a fright and rubbed the bitten part, his neck, and scratched it hard because of the smart. Then turning sideways, he found lying by him something whose breath was sweeter than musk and whose skin was softer than cream. Hereat marvelled he with great marvel and he sat up and looked at what lay beside him; when he saw it to be a young lady like an union pearl, or a shining sun, or a dome seen from afar on a well built wall; for she was five feet tall, with a shape like the letter Alif[FN#263], bosomed high and rosy checked; even as saith of her the poet, "Four things which ne'er conjoin, unless it be * To storm my vitals and to shed my blood: Brow white as day and tresses black as night * Cheeks rosy red and lips which smiles o'erflood." And also quoth another, "A Moon she rises, Willow wand she waves, * Breathes Ambergris, and gazes, a Gazelle: Meseems that sorrow woes my heart and wins * And, when she wendeth hastes therein to dwell!"