Vis and Ramin

103 a |
92 VISRAMIANI
woe and unhappiness ; make me live that I may spend my
days in thy service and at thy will. If thou desirest me to
give up the ghost, what can be easier ? And if thou dost
not show me mercy, I am even now become powerless. I
cannot endure thy wrath, t will cast myself from a great
rock or into a great stream, that I may free myself from
being. In yonder world it is thou that shalt be asked con-
cerning my fault, 1 and it shall be exacted from thee, for I
have spoken to that God, the Creator and Judge of all, and
Him have I appointed my witness."
After this discourse he lost consciousness through excess
of weeping, he entreated the nurse, and the nurse yet again
had pity on him. She went to Vis, for her heart was still
more pained for Kamin. She went and sat down with
boiling heart, she calmed herself, and in her heart prepared
a speech concerning Eamin's affair. Thus she spoke :
"
sovereign of all beauties ! For thy
sake die alike
those who are near and those who are afar off. I have
secret from thee, and my tongue is bound from shame
of thee. I fear also Shah Moabad, for from the wicked
everything is to be feared. I protect myself
from shame
and reproach lest ill should befall me. I fear hell, too,
lest I should burn guilty in it ; but what can I do ? When
I think on Eamin's affair, and his face sometimes yellowed
and sometimes reddened, ever bathed in tears, for his sake
the eye of my conscience is continually closed and my
heart is inflamed. He has adjured me by such an oath
that fear has forsaken me, and the world is become hateful
to me for pity of him. I pity him so much that I would
not grudge my life to help him. I have seen many a
wretched lover, with fire in his heart and tears of blood in
his eyes, but I have never seen lover wretched after his
pattern. 2 His moan alone consumes a thousand lovers.
His words cut me, and his ever-tearful eyes. My endurance
is cut off by his sword, and by the flowing of his tears my
house is overthrown. I very much fear even that he may
1 For suicide cf. R., 728, 768, 815, 854, 945, 1169, 1278a, 1279.
2 Aracad, 143.