Vis and Ramin

292 VISRAMIANI
heart, nor child. I was once like thee, light-hearted, I led a
pleasant life in the company of my kinsfolk and friends.
Then, when I was in mine own house, it was pleasant for
me too ;
when some mischance from love befell me and my
friends reproached me, even the injury of their reproach
pleased me, because the narcissus was drunk and the rose
was willing. Sometimes I was heartsore from the narcissus,
and sometimes grieved by the rose. How pleasant was her
tenderness, and how pleasant was her wrath and caprice !
If one week she hid her face from me, she made a pitiful
prisoner, and a thousand vows (of mine) in exchange for
one pardon would have given me pleasure, How pleasant
was it when I complained a thousand times a day of her
temper, then repented of what I had done, and praised her
1 with a thousand eulogies, and mouth gave back caress to
mouth ! How pleasant was our behaviour in its :
diversity
sometimes tenderness 2 and sometimes sulkiness, sometimes
anger and sometimes playfulness, sometimes smiles and
sometimes tears, sometimes embracing and stroking of hair,
and sometimes desiring to renounce even religion because
of her wrath ! If I suffered torture from the shrewish
glances of her narcissi, afterwards I received compensating
joy from her roses. Nought save love oppressed me.
He who has the company of his beloved and such tenderness
as I, it is not fitting that he should have afterwards heart-
sighing nor backache. As long as I was light-hearted, I
was so that at catching the ball 3 at my will I excelled all
mouth I had roses in bundles, 4
and from the hair of my beloved I had a mass 5 of musk.
328 lovers. From my beloved's |
I complained of caprice, I said of tenderness that I was sick
and become feeble, become a coward from love, wretched
and miserable from the need of separation ; but now this is
all that afflicts me, that I have not the former wretched-
ness ;
wretched and pitiable am I even now."
1 Kebisa sliesltlima.
4
2 Lmobiereba. 3 Burt'hi.
Sapalne, 269. 6 Acumi (Arabic).