Vis and Ramin

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CHAPTER XX
VIS SEES RAMIN IN MOABAD'S THRONE -ROOM AND BECOMES
ENAMOURED OF HIM
As Ramin's luck would have it, Shah Moabad gave orders
that courts should be held. He called Ramin, and all the
grandees and nobles were seated together to drink and
make merry. Minstrels 1
sang ; the court was filled like
heaven with sun, moon, and stars. There was great
merriment.
Among Moabad's generals 2 Ramin appeared like the
moon among the stars. Of set purpose he was adorned
extravagantly.
Musk and camphor mixed with roses added
to his beauty. By continual thought and grief his heart
was become like his waist in thinness, and Fate embittered
him. At the drinking, feasting, and jollity, sitting with the
singing damsels, 1 he seemed like one drowned in water.
He was drunk with both love and wine. From wine his
face was like a wild poppy, from love his heart was asleep.
The thought of Vis was seated in his brain, and her face
did not fade from his eyes. Vis herself was led thither by
the nurse, she made her look secretly through the window
at the drunken grandees and at Ramin. The nurse thus
addressed Vis :
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"
light of mine eyes ! Look
if there be any lovelier
than Ramin among the warriors ? Tell me, by thy sun, is
he not gracious and perfect ? Does not Ramin's face very
that Shah
much resemble Viro's ? Is it not by God's grace
Moabad's court is illumined by him ? Does it not behove
1
Mutribt'ha, 23, 164. R, 356, 470.
2 Amirspasalart'lia, 163. R., 40.
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