Mantic uttaïr, The princess in love with her slave

A king whose empire extended to the horizons had a daughter, fair as the moon, who dwelt in his palace. By her beauty she put the fairies themselves to shame. Her wondrous chin resembled Joseph’s well; the curls of her hair wounded a hundred hearts; each of her hairs seized upon a living vein. The moon of her face was like paradise, and her eyebrows resembled two bows. When she shot arrows from those bows, the space between them itself recited her praises. Her eyes, languorous as narcissi, cast the thorns of their lashes into the path of many a sage. The face of this beauty, like the sun’s face, put the moon of the firmament to shame. The angel Gabriel was in constant admiration of the pearls of her teeth and the ruby of her lips, which were the soul’s nourishment. When a smile stirred her lips, the water of life dried up and perished, so parched was it, begging alms from those very lips. Whoever gazed upon her chin fell headlong to the bottom of the well within it, and, prey to her moonlike face, reached the bottom of that well at once, without a rope.

There was also, in the king’s service, a slave fair as the moon: but what a slave! for his beauty was such that the sun and moon suffered eclipse and decline. He had no equal in the breadth of the world, and no fame for beauty was like his. In the streets and markets, thousands stood amazed at the sight of the sun of his face.
It happened that one day the fair princess caught sight of this young slave of the king; her heart slipped from her grasp, and she fell into a swoon. Her reason left her and went away: love took dominion over her. Her gentle soul (Schérin), like Schérin, was troubled by bitterness. For some time she pondered within herself, and at last made impatience her occupation. Her heart, full of longing, was at once melted by love and burned by absence.

She had ten young ladies-in-waiting, skilled musicians, who sang admirably; they all played the pipe, had the voices of nightingales, and their song, worthy of David, expanded the soul. She at once confided her state to them, and told them that she was ready to renounce her renown, her honour, and her life. Of what use could life be here to one in whom sensible love had manifested itself? “If I speak to this young man of my love,” she added, “he will become guilty of some fault, for he will not act prudently. My honour, too, will suffer harm, for how can a person such as I enter into relations with a slave? But, on the other hand, if I do not make known to him the feeling I bear, I shall die groaning behind this harem curtain. I have read a hundred volumes on patience; yet I am without patience and disheartened. What am I to do? What I would wish is to enjoy the presence of this slave, this lofty cypress, without his knowing it, so as to attain my end and bring the affair of my soul to pass according to the desire of my heart.”

When the sweet-voiced handmaids had heard these words, they all said to their mistress: “Do not grieve thy heart; we shall bring this slave by night in secret, in such a manner that he himself shall know nothing of it.”

One of these young girls came secretly to the slave and asked him, as if to amuse herself with him, to bring her two cups of wine. She cast a narcotic drug into one of the cups, and indeed, when the slave had drunk this wine, he lost consciousness, and the pretty lady-in-waiting was thus able to carry out her enterprise. From that moment of the day until nightfall, this slave with a silver breast remained intoxicated and knew nothing of either world. When night came, the other young girls went carelessly to the slave, then placed him on his bed and secretly carried him before the princess. They at once seated him upon a golden throne and placed pearls upon his head. At midnight, when this young man, still half drunk, opened his narcissus-like eyes wide, he saw that he was in a palace as beautiful as paradise, and that golden seats surrounded him. Ten candles scented with amber were alight; fragrant aloeswood burned in censers like ordinary wood. These beautiful ladies-in-waiting began together a song that dismissed reason from the mind and soul from the body. That night, the sun of wine circled in the candlelight. Amid all this joy and the desires that stirred him, the young slave lost his reason; he was wholly dazzled by the beauty of the princess’s face. Confounded and astonished, he was left with neither reason nor life; he was truly no longer in this world, and yet he was not in the other. His heart full of love and his tongue mute, his soul fell into ecstasy amid the delights. His eyes were fixed upon his beloved’s cheeks, and his ears upon the sound of the flute. His nostrils breathed in the scent of amber, and his mouth found in the wine a fiery liquid. Indeed, the princess offered him a cup of wine, and as she handed it to him, she gave him a kiss. The slave’s eye remained fixed upon the beautiful princess’s face; he was filled with wonder at the sight. Since his tongue could not express what he felt, he shed tears and struck his head. At every moment, this princess, beautiful as a painting, shed thousands of tears upon the slave’s face. Now she pressed upon his lips a kiss sweet as sugar; now she cruelly sprinkled salt upon them; now she disordered his long hair; now she lost herself in his beautiful eyes! This young man, drunk, was therefore before the charming princess, eyes open, neither master of himself nor beside himself. He remained thus in a kind of vision until dawn appeared fully in the east. At that moment, when the morning breeze blew, the handsome slave fell into a state of indescribable desolation; but when, under the effect of a fresh narcotic potion, he had fallen asleep again, they promptly carried him back to where he had been before. Then, when this slave with a silver breast had somewhat recovered his senses, he began to cry out, without knowing what it was all about. But, one might say: “It was over; what good was there in crying?” The blood seemed to have left his heart, and yet he was flooded with it, and it rose above his head. With his hand he tore the garment covering his body; he dishevelled his hair and cast dust upon his head. They asked this young man, like a candle, what had happened to him. “It is impossible for me,” he replied, “to express it properly, for what I positively saw, drunk and desolate, no one will ever see, even in a dream. What happened to me personally, to me who was astonished, has never happened to anyone. I cannot say what I saw; no secret is more astonishing.”

Yet each said to him, “Come to yourself a little, and tell us at least one of the hundred wondrous things you have seen.”
He replied, “I am bewildered, like a man beside himself, because I saw all this in another body. I heard nothing, although I heard everything; I saw nothing, although I saw everything.”
Someone said to him carelessly, “Did you then see all this in a dream, since you are so troubled that you seem to have lost your reason?”
“Ah!” he replied, “I know not whether what I saw, I saw in a dream or awake. I know not whether I saw it in drunkenness, or heard it recounted while in full possession of my faculties. There is no state of affairs in the world more astonishing than one that is neither manifest nor hidden. In this uncertainty, I can neither speak nor be silent, nor even wonder. What I saw is in no way effaced from my mind, and yet I can find no trace of it.

I saw a beauty whose perfection none ever attained. What is the sun before her face, if not an atom? But God, moreover, knows the truth. Since I am ignorant in this matter, what more can I say, save that I truly saw her? Yet, whether I saw her or did not see her, I am troubled amid all this.