A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 (of 17)

An faulty of one fault the Beauty prove, ✿ Her charms a thousand advocates shall move.

So she went up and Sharrkan after her; and, when he saw the maiden's back and hinder cheeks that clashed against each other, like rollers in the rolling sea, he extemporised these couplets: —

For her sins is a pleader that brow, ✿ And all hearts its fair pleading must trow:
When I saw it I cried, "To-night ✿ The moon at its fullest doth show;
Tho' Balkís' own Ifrit[183 - And Solomon said, "O nobles, which of you will bring me her throne?" A terrible genius (i. e. an Ifrit of the Jinn named Dhakwan or the notorious Sakhr) said, "I will bring it unto thee before thou arise from thy seat (of justice); for I am able to perform it, and may be trusted" (Koran, xxvii. 38-39). Balkís or Bilkís (says the Durrat al-Ghawwás) daughter of Hozád bin Sharhabíl, twenty-second in the list of the rulers of Al-Yaman, according to some murdered her husband, and became, by Moslem ignorance, the Biblical "Queen of Sheba." The Abyssinians transfer her from Arabian Saba to Ethiopia and make her the mother by Solomon of Menelek, their proto-monarch; thus claiming for their royalties an antiquity compared with which all reigning houses in the world are of yesterday. The dates of the Tabábi'ah or Tobbas prove that the Bilkís of history ruled Al-Yaman in the early Christian era.] try a bout, ✿ Spite his force she would deal him a throw.

The two fared on till they reached a gate over which rose a marble archway. This she opened and ushered Sharrkan into a long vestibule, vaulted with ten connected arches, from each of which hung a crystal lamp glistening like a spark of fire. The handmaids met her at the further end bearing wax candles of goodly perfume, and wearing on their heads golden fillets crusted with all manner bezel-gems,[184 - Arab. "Fass," fiss or fuss; the gem set in a ring; also applied to a hillock rounded en cabochon. In The Nights it is used to signify "a fine gem."] and went on before her (Sharrkan still following), till they reached the inner convent. There the Moslem saw couches and sofas ranged all around, one opposite the other and all overhung with curtains flowered in gold. The monastery floor was paved with every kind of vari-coloured marbles and mosaic-work, and in the midst stood a basin that held four-and-twenty jetting fountains of gold, whence the water ran like molten silver; whilst at the upper end stood a throne spread with silks fit only for Kings. Then said the damsel, "Ascend, O my lord, this throne." So he went up to it and sat down and she withdrew to remain absent for some time. Sharrkan asked of her from one of the servants who answered him, "She hath gone to her dormitory; but we will serve thee even as she ordered." So they set before him viands of rare varieties, and he ate his sufficiency, when they brought him a basin of gold and an ewer of silver, and he washed his hands. Then his thoughts reverted to his army, knowing not what had befallen it in his absence and calling to mind also how he had forgotton his father's injunctions: so he was troubled about his case, repenting of what he had done till the dawn broke and the day appeared; when he lamented and sighed and became drowned in the sea of sadness and repeated: —