UNS AL-WUJUD AND THE WAZIR’S DAUGHTER AL-WARD FI’L-AKMAM OR ROSE-IN-HOOD.[30]
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Nor find I any aid my passion, nor ✿ A friend to lighten load of bane and pain.
How great and many troubles I’ve endured! ✿ Fortune hath turned her back I see unfain.
Ah mercy, mercy on the lover’s heart, ✿ Doomed cup of parting and desertion drain!
A fire is in his heart, his vitals waste, ✿ And severance made his reason vainest vain.
How dread the day I came to her abode ✿ And saw the writ they wrote on doorway lain!
I wept, till gave I earth to drink my grief; ✿ But still to near and far[49] I did but feign:
Then strayed I till in waste a lion sprang ✿ On me, and but for flattering words had slain:
I soothed him: so he spared me and lent me aid, ✿ He too might haply of love’s taste complain.
O devotee, that idlest in thy cave, ✿ Meseems eke thou hast learned Love’s might and main;
But if, at end of woes, with them I league, ✿ Straight I’ll forget all suffering and fatigue.
Hardly had he made an end of these verses when, behold! the door of the cavern opened and he heard one say, “Alas, the pity of it!”[50] So he entered and saluted the devotee, who returned his salam and asked him, “What is thy name?” Answered the young man, “Uns al-Wujud.” “And what caused thee to come hither?” quoth the hermit. So he told him his story in its entirety, omitting naught of his misfortunes; whereat he wept and said,
“O Uns al-Wujud, these twenty years have I passed in this place, but never beheld I any man here, until yesterday, when I heard a noise of weeping and lamentation and, looking forth in the direction of the sound, saw many people and tents pitched on the sea-shore; and the party at once proceeded to build a ship, in which certain of them embarked and sailed over the waters. Then some of the crew returned with the ship and breaking it up, went their way; and I suspect that those who embarked in the ship and returned not, are they whom thou seekest. In that case, O Uns al-Wujud, thy grief must needs be great and sore and thou art excusable, though never yet was lover but suffered love-longing.” Then he recited these couplets:—
Uns al-Wujud, dost deem me fancy-free, ✿ When pine and longing slay and quicken me?
I have known love and yearning from the years ✿ Since mother-milk I drank, nor e’er was free.
Long struggled I with Love, till learnt his might; ✿ Ask thou of him, he’ll tell with willing gree.
Love-sick and pining drank I passion-cup, ✿ And well-nigh perished in mine agony.
Strong was I, but my strength to weakness turned, ✿ And eye-sword brake through Patience armoury:
Hope not to win love-joys, without annoy; ✿ Contrary ever links with contrary.
But fear not change from lover true; be true ✿ Unto thy wish, some day thine own ‘twill be.
Love hath forbidden to his votaries ✿ Relinquishment as deadliest heresy.
The eremite, having ended his verse, rose and, coming up to Uns al-Wujud, embraced him,——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Three Hundred and Seventy-fifth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the eremite, having ended his verse, rose and coming up to Uns al-Wujud embraced him, and they wept together, till the hills rang with their cries and they fell down fainting. When they revived, they swore brotherhood[51] in Allah Almighty; after which said Uns al-Wujud, “This very night will I pray to God and seek of Him direction[52] anent what thou shouldst do to attain thy desire.” Thus it was with them; but as regards Rose-in-Hood, when they brought her to the mountain and set her in the castle and she beheld its ordering, she wept and exclaimed, “By Allah, thou art a goodly place, save that thou lackest in thee the presence of the beloved!”[53] Then seeing birds in the island, she bade her people set snares for them and put all they caught in cages within the castle; and they did so. But she sat at a lattice and bethought her of what had passed, and desire and passion and distraction redoubled upon her, till she burst into tears and repeated these couplets:—
O to whom now, of my desire complaining sore, shall I ✿ Bewail my parting from my fere compellèd thus to fly?
Flames rage within what underlies my ribs, yet hide them I ✿ In deepest secret dreading aye the jealous hostile spy:
I am grown as lean, attenuate as any pick of tooth,[54] ✿ By sore estrangement, absence, ardour, ceaseless sob and sigh.
Where is the eye of my beloved to see how I’m become ✿ Like tree stripped bare of leafage left to linger and to die.
They tyrannisèd over me whom they confined in place ✿ Whereto the lover of my heart may never draw him nigh:
I beg the Sun for me to give greetings a thousandfold, ✿ At time of rising and again when setting from the sky,
To the belovèd one who shames a full moon’s loveliness, ✿ When shows that slender form that doth the willow-branch outvie.
If Rose herself would even with his cheek, I say of her ✿ “Thou art not like it if to me my portion thou deny:”[55]
His honey-dew of lips is like the grateful water draught ✿ Would cool me when a fire in heart upflameth fierce and high:
How shall I give him up who is my heart and soul of me, ✿ My malady my wasting cause, my love, sole leach of me?
Then, as the glooms of night closed around her, her yearning increased and she called to mind the past and recited also these couplets:—
‘Tis dark: my transport and unease now gather might and main, ✿ And love-desire provoketh me to wake my wonted pain:
The pang of parting takes for ever place within my breast, ✿ And pining makes me desolate in destitution lain.
Ecstasy sore maltreats my soul and yearning burns my sprite, ✿ And tears betray love’s secresy which I would lief contain:
I weet no way, I know no case that can make light my load, ✿ Or heal my wasting body or cast out from me this bane.
A hell of fire is in my heart upflames with lambent tongue ✿ And Lazá’s furnace-fires within my liver place have ta’en.
O thou, exaggerating blame for what befel, enough ✿ I bear with patience whatsoe’er hath writ for me the Pen!