She was slender of shape
and swelling-breasted, delicate-cheeked and bright of colour and
fair of form; and indeed her face shone like the sun through the
night of her tresses, and her teeth glittered above the snows of
her bosom. As says the poet of her:
Slender of waist, with streaming hair the hue of night, is she,
With hips like hills of sand and shape straight as the
balsam-tree.
And as says another:
There are four things that ne'er unite, except it be To shed my
heart's best blood and take my soul by storm.
And these are night-black locks and brow as bright as day, Cheeks
ruddy as the rose and straight and slender form.
When I looked on her, I prostrated myself before her Maker, for
the grace and beauty He had created in her and she looked at me
and said, "Art thou a man or a genie?" "I am a man," answered I;
and she said, "And who brought thee to this place, where I have
dwelt five-and-twenty years without seeing man?" Quoth I (and
indeed her speech was sweet to me), "O my lady, my good star
brought me hither for the dispelling of my grief and anxiety."
And I told her all that had befallen me from first to last. My
case was grievous to her and she wept: then she said, "I will
tell thee my story in turn. I am the daughter of a King of
Farther India, by name Efitamous, Lord of the Ebony Islands, who
married me to my cousin, but on my wedding-night an Afrit called
Jerjis ben Rejmous, the mother's sister's son of Iblis, carried
me off and flying away with me, set me down in this place whither
he transported all that I needed of clothes and ornaments and
furniture and meat and drink and so forth.
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