Love is my health, my faith, my joy,
Public and private, wrong or right.
O happy eyes that sight thy charms,
That gaze upon thee at their gree!
Yea, of my purest wish and will
The slave of Love I'll aye be hight."
When the damsel heard this elegy in quatrains, she cried out
"Alas! Alas!" and rent her raiment, and fell to the ground fainting.
And the Caliph saw scars of the palm rod on her back and welts of
the whip, and marveled with exceeding wonder. Then the portress
arose and sprinkled water on her and brought her a fresh and very fine
dress and put it on her. But when the company beheld these doings,
their minds were troubled, for they had no inkling of the case nor
knew the story thereof. So the Caliph said to Ja'afar: "Didst thou not
see the scars upon the damsel's body? I cannot keep silence or be at
rest till I learn the truth of her condition and the story of this
other maiden and the secret of the two black bitches." But Ja'afar
answered: "O our lord, they made it a condition with us that we
speak not of what concerneth us not, lest we come to hear what
pleaseth us not.
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