Vis and Ramin

148 VISRAMIANI
not forget thee. May thy heart always be merry, and may
Moabad's heart be burned by God for our sake."
but pretended he had
Moabad heard all this discourse ;
not heard he said nothing, he was calm. He said to the
nurse
"
: nurse, pour thou out wine for me." He said
"
to Ramin : Speak no more, take the harp and sing
to it."
The nurse began to pour out. Moabad and Ramin were
thus both mad for Vis. Ramin began a pleasant song :
" My face is become yellow for love. Now with wine I
have washed off the yellow, and rose-coloured wine will
remove the rust from my heart. My enemy sees my face
merry, he cannot understand my secret. I do all I can
that they may not see the burning of my heart. Day and
night I am drunk with it, it makes me better forget my
My beloved knows that for her I am cut to the
heart. If I have reft life from lions, love has reft my life
168 woe. |
from me. God, the power of the powerless
canst aid Thy creatures. As day brings light to a dark
night, even so may my heart be brought in joy from this
woe."
A long time Ramin sang so, that even a stone would
have melted with pleasure. Although he hid his love, his
! Thou
love appeared by many signs. Love cannot be hid : a
mortal in the fire cannot conceal the burning. If he,
being in such burning, drunk with wine, and a youth
singing such verses, gazing at his beloved, and she sitting
by his side, could not hide his love, it was not to be wondered
at. When a pool of water is full, surely it must
have some way to flow out ; so is it when love weighs
down the balance : instruction and knowledge are useless
against it.
When Moabad was drunk, he went to bed with the sun
(Vis). Ramin, cut to the heart, woefully went to his
abode; his couch seemed to him all serpents and toads,
and his coverlet thorns and burrs. 1 Moabad murmured in
1 Birciani.