Most beautiful is earth in budding bloom, ✿ When lucid waters course through plain and wood:
No work but His th' All-great, th' All-glorious, ✿ Giver of all gifts, Giver of all good!
And as Sharrkan considered the place, he saw in it a Christian Monastery within whose enceinte a castle towered high in air catching the light of the moon.162 Through the midst of the convent passed a stream, the water flowing amongst its gardens; and upon the bank sat the woman whose voice he had heard, while before her stood ten handmaids like moons and wearing various sorts of raiment and ornaments that dazed and dazzled the beholder, high-bosomed virgins, as saith of them the poet in these couplets: —
The mead is bright with what is on't ✿ Of merry maidens debonnair:
Double its beauty and its grace ✿ Those trooping damsels slender-fair:
Virgins of graceful swimming gait ✿ Ready with eye and lip to ensnare;
And like the tendril'd vine they loose ✿ The rich profusion of their hair:
Shooting their shafts and arrows from ✿ Beautiful eyes beyond compare;
Overpowering and transpiercing ✿ Every froward adversaire.
Sharrkan gazed upon the ten girls and saw in their midst a lady like the moon at fullest, with ringleted hair and forehead sheeny-white, and eyes wondrous wide and black and bright, and temple-locks like the scorpion's tail; and she was perfect in essence and attributes, as the poet said of her in these couplets: —
She beamed on my sight with a wondrous glance, ✿ And her straight slender stature enshamed the lance:
She burst on my sight with cheeks rosy-red, ✿ Where all manner of beauties have habitance:
And the locks on her forehead were lowering as night ✿ Whence issues a dawn-tide of happiest chance.
Then Sharrkan heard her say to the handmaids, "Come ye on, that I may wrestle with you and gravel you, ere the moon set and the dawn break!" So each came up to her in turn and she grounded them forthright, and pinioned them with their girdles, and ceased not wrestling and pitching them until she had overthrown one and all. Then there turned to her an old woman who was before her, and the beldam said as in wrath, "O strumpet, dost thou glory in grounding these girls? Behold I am an old woman, yet have I thrown them forty times! So what hast thou to boast of? But if thou have the strength to wrestle with me, stand up that I may grip thee and set thy head between thy heels!" The young lady smiled at her words, but she was filled with inward wrath, and she jumped up and asked, "O my lady Zát al-Dawáhí,163 by the truth of the Messiah, wilt thou wrestle with me in very deed, or dost thou jest with me?"; and she answered, "Yea," – And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the young lady asked Zat al-Dawahi, "By the truth of the Messiah, wilt wrestle with me or dost jest?", and she answered, "Yea, I will wrestle with thee in very deed" (Sharrkan looking on the while), the damsel cried, "Rise up for the fall an thou have spunk so to do." When the old woman heard this, she raged with exceeding rage, and her body-hair stood on end like the bristles of a fretful hedgehog.164 Then she sprang to her feet, whilst the damsel stood up to her, and said, "Now by the truth of the Messiah, I will not wrestle with thee unless I be naked, Mistress whore!"165 So she loosed her petticoat-trousers and, putting her hand under her clothes, tore them off her body; then twisted up a silken kerchief into cord-shape, girt it round her middle and became as she were a scald-head Ifritah or a spotted snake. With this she inclined towards the damsel and said, "Do thou as I have done." All this time, Sharrkan was gazing at the twain, and laughing at the beldam's loathly semblance. So the damsel leisurely rose and, taking a sash of Yamani stuff, passed it twice round her waist, then she tucked up her trousers and displayed two calves of alabaster carrying a mound of crystal, smooth and rounded, and a stomach which exhaled musk from its dimples, as it were a bed of Nu'uman's anemones; and breasts like double pomegranates. Then the old woman leant towards her, and the two laid hold either of each, while Sharrkan raised his head Heavenwards and prayed Allah that the belle might beat the beldam. Presently the young woman gat beneath the old woman; and, gripping her waist-cloth with the left and circling her neck with the right hand, hoisted her off the ground with both; whereupon the old woman strove to free herself and, in so doing fell on her back arsiversy, with her legs high in air and her hairy bush between them showed manifest in the moonshine; furthermore she let fly two great farts166 one of which blew up the dust from the earth's face and the other steamed up to the gate of Heaven. Sharrkan laughed till he fell back upon the ground. Then he arose and, baring his brand looked right and left, but he saw no one save the old woman sprawling on her back, and said to himself, "He lied not who named thee Lady of Calamities! Verily thou knewest her prowess by her performance upon the others." So he drew near them to hear what should pass between them. Then the young lady went up to the old one and, throwing a wrapper of thin silk upon her nakedness, helped her to don her clothes and made excuses saying, "O my lady Zat al-Dawahi, I intended only to throw thee and not all this, but thou triedst to twist out of my hands; so laud to Allah for safety!" She returned her no answer, but rose in her shame and walked away till out of sight, leaving the handmaids prostrate and pinioned, with the fair damsel standing amongst them. Quoth Sharrkan to himself, "Every luck hath its cause. Sleep did not fall upon me nor the war-horse bear me hither save for my good fortune; for doubtless this maid and what is with her shall become booty to me." So he made towards his steed and mounted and heeled167 him on, when he sped as the shaft speeds from the bow, and in his hand he still hent his brand bare of sheath, which he brandished shouting the while his war-cry, "Allah is All-mighty168!" When the damsel saw him she sprang to her feet and, taking firm stand on the bank of the stream, whose breadth was six ells, the normal cubits, made one bound and landed clear on the farther side,169 where she turned and cried out with a loud voice, "Who art thou, O thou fellow, that breakest in upon our privacy and pastime, and that too hanger in hand as if charging a host? Whence camest thou and whither art thou going? Speak sooth, for truth will stand thee in good stead, and lie not, for lies come of villein-breed. Doubtless thou hast wandered this night from thy way, that thou chancedst upon this place whence escape were the greatest of mercies; for thou art now in an open plain and, did we shout but a single shout, would come to our rescue four thousand knights.170 So tell me what thou wantest; and if thou wouldst only have us set thee on the right road, we will do so." When Sharrkan heard her words he replied, "I am a stranger of the Moslems, who fared forth this night single-handed, seeking for spoil; nor could this moonlight show me a fairer booty than these ten maidens; so I shall seize them and rejoin my comrades with them." Quoth she, "I would have thee know that as for the booty thou hast not come at it; and, as for the handmaids, by Allah, they shall never be thy spoil. Have I not told thee that to lie is villein-vile?" Quoth he, "The wise man is he who taketh warning by others." Thereupon quoth she, "By the truth of the Messiah, did I not fear that thy death would be on my hands, I would shout a shout should fill the mead for thee with war steeds and with men of might, but I take pity upon