The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
And when Kamar al-Zaman saw the Lady Budur, daughter of King Ghayur,
and her beauty and comeliness, she was sleeping clad in a shift of
Venetian silk, without her petticoat-trousers, and wore on her head a
kerchief embroidered with gold and set with stones of price: her ears
were hung with twin earrings which shone like constellations and round
her neck was a collar of union pearls, of size unique, past the
competence of any King. When he saw this, his reason was confounded and
natural heat began to stir in him; Allah awoke in him the desire of
coition and he said to himself, "Whatso Allah willeth, that shall be,
and what He willeth not shall never be!" So saying, he put out his hand
and, turning her over, loosed the collar of her chemise; then arose
before his sight her bosom, with its breasts like double globes of
ivory; whereat his inclination for her redoubled and he desired her
with exceeding hot desire, He would have awakened her but she would not
awake, for Dahnash had made her sleep heavy; so he shook her and moved
her, saying, "O my beloved, awake and look on me; I am Kamar al-Zaman."
But she awoke not, neither moved her head; where-upon he considered her
case for a long hour and said to himself, "If I guess aright, this is
the damsel to whom my father would have married me and these three
years past I have refused her; but Inshallah!—God willing—as soon as it
is dawn, I will say to him, 'Marry me to her, that I may enjoy
her.'"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.
When it was the One Hundred and Eighty-fourth Night,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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