wore a necklace of unions and her waist was clasped with a girdle of chrysolite bugles, with tassels of rubies and pearls. The damsels kissed ground before her, and, 'When I considered her" (quoth Ibrahim), "I took leave of my senses and wit and I was dazed and my thought was confounded for amazement at the sight of loveliness whose like is not on the face of the earth. So I fell into a swoon and coming to myself, weeping-eyed, recited these two couplets, 'I see thee and close not mine eyes for fear * Lest their lids prevent me beholding thee: An I gazed with mine every glance these eyne * Ne'er could sight all the loveliness moulding thee.'" Then said the old Kahramanah[FN#323] to the girls, "Let ten of you arise and dance and sing." And Ibrahim when looking at them said in himself, "I wish the lady Jamilah would dance." When the handmaidens had made an end of their pavane, they gathered round the Princess and said to her, "O my lady, we long for thee to dance amongst us, so the measure of our joy may be fulfilled, for never saw we a more delicious day than this." Quoth Ibrahim to himself, "Doubtless the gates of Heaven are open[FN#324] and Allah hath granted my prayer." Then the damsels bussed her feet and said to her, "By Allah, we never saw thee broadened of breast as to-day!" Nor did they cease exciting her, till she doffed her outer dress and stood in a shift of cloth of gold,[FN#325] broidered with various jewels, showing breasts which stood out like pomegranates and unveiling a face as it were the moon on the night of fullness. Then she began to dance, and Ibrahim beheld motions he had never in his life seen their like, for she showed such wondrous skill and marvellous invention, that she made men forget the dancing of bubbles in wine-cups and called to mind the inclining of the turbands from head[FN#326]-tops: even as saith of her the poet[FN#327], "A dancer whose form is like branch of Ban! * Flies my soul well nigh as his steps I greet: While he dances no foot stands still and meseems * That the fire of my heart is beneath his feet." And as quoth another,[FN#328] "A dancer whose figure is like a willow-branch: my soul almost quitteth me at the sight of her movements. No foot can remain stationary at her dancing, she is as though the fire of my heart were beneath her feet."