THE TENDER STORY OF PRINCE JASMINE AND PRINCESS ALMOND
ON THE NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINTH NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
And, having thus spoken, the old dervish breathed deeply, then added: “But I must tell you, O source of sympathy, that this young girl, refuge of love, has her liver grilled with sadness; and a mountain of sorrow is on his heart. And the cause is a dream she had one night in her sleep. And I left her painful, and desolate as the sumbal. Then he said: “And now that my words have been for your heart the seed of love, may Allah save you and lead you to the one who is in your destiny. Ouassalam!"
And having thus spoken, the dervish arose and went his way.
And the heart of Prince Jasmine, by the mere hearing of this speech, was bloodied; and the arrow of love penetrated him; and, like Majnun in love with Leila, he tore his clothes from neck to waist; and, caught in the charming Almond's curly hair, he uttered cries and sighs; and, abandoning his herd, he wandered off, drunk without wine, agitated, silent, annihilated in the whirlwind of love. For if the shield of wisdom protects against all wounds, it is without virtue against the bow of love. And the medicine of advice no longer had a hold on the mind of the afflicted by pure feeling. And that's it for Prince Jasmine.
But as for Princess Almond, here it is.
One night, as she slept on the terrace of her father's palace, she saw appearing to her, in a dream sent by the genies of love, an adolescent more handsome than Suleika's lover, and who was, for feature, the charming image of Prince Jasmine. And as this vision of beauty was manifested before the eyes of her virginal soul, the girl's hitherto carefree heart slipped from her hand and became a prisoner in the net of the adolescent's twisted curls. And she awoke with her heart agitated by the rose of her sleep, and, uttering in the night cries like the nightingale, she began to wash her face with her tears. And her servants ran up in great excitement and exclaimed, on seeing her: “Ya Allah! what is this misfortune that brings down the tears of our mistress Almond? What happened in her heart while he slept? Alas! here the bird of her intelligence seems to fly away."
And groans and sighs took place until morning. And, at dawn, the king, his father, and the queen, his mother, were informed of what was going on. And, burned in their hearts, they came to look, and saw that their daughter, this charming one, had an extraordinary appearance and a singular condition. She sat with disheveled hair and clothes, her face broken, with no news of her body and no attention for her heart. And, to all the questions they put to her, she answered only by silence, shaking her head with modesty, and thus spreading on the soul of her father and her mother trouble and desolation.
So they decided to bring in the doctors and the learned exorcists, who did everything they could to get her out of her condition. But they got no result; moreover, the opposite happened. Seeing this, they thought themselves obliged to resort to bleeding. And, having bandaged her arm, they applied the lancet. But not a drop of blood came out of the charming vein. So they withdrew their hand from its treatment, and gave up hope of curing it. And they went away disappointed and confused.
And a few days passed in this painful situation, without anyone being able to understand or explain the reason for such a change.
Also, one day when the beautiful Almond with the calcined heart was more melancholy than ever, her servants led her, to distract her, in the garden. But there, wherever she cast her eyes, she saw only the face of her beloved: the roses offered her his color and the jasmine the smell of his clothes; the swaying cypress, its flexible waist, and the narcissus, its eyes. And, seeing his eyelashes in the thorns, she put them on her heart.
But soon the beautiful greenery of this garden made her faded heart a little green again; and the gushing water they made her drink lessened the dryness of her brain. And the young girls, her attendants, of the same age as her, sat in a circle around this beauty, and began by gently singing to her a light ghazal on the minor musical mode and the nonchalant ramel rhythm.
After which, seeing her more welcoming, her most beloved servant approached her and said to her: "O our mistress Almond, know that, for a few days, there has been in our lands an adolescent flute player, come from the country Hazara nobles, whose melodious voice brings back the soaring bird of reason, stops the flowing water and the flying swallow. And this princely teenager is white and pink, and is called Jasmine. And, verily, the lily and the rose vanish in his presence. For his waist is a sway of cypress, her face a new tulip, her hair violets, her musky curls a sample of a thousand dark nights, his complexion blond amber, his eyelashes curled darts, his long eyes two narcissus, and two pistachios are his charming lips. As for his forehead, it puts shame, by its brilliancy, to the full moon and smears his face with blue. Her little mouth with jeweled teeth, a pink tongue, secretes a sweet language that makes you forget the sugar cane. And as he is, sprightly and bold, he is an idol of seduction for the eyes of lovers."
Then she added, while Princess Almond was in a stupor of joy; "And this princely piper had to, agile as the morning zephyr and lighter, cross the mountains and the plains, to come from his country to ours, and cross the fearful waters of the borderless rivers, where the swan himself even is not safe, and the mere sight of which makes moorhens and ducks dizzy, causing them to experience a thousand astonishments. And if he overcame so many difficulties to get here, it is because a hidden motive determined him there. And no reason can decide a teenage prince to attempt such a test, if not love."
And, having thus spoken, Princess Almond's young favorite fell silent, observing the effect of her speech on her mistress. And suddenly the mournful daughter of King Akbar rose to her feet, happy and dancing. And his face was lit up with the fire from within, and all her drunken soul gushed out from her eyes. And of all his mysterious illness, which no doctor had understood, no trace remained: the simple words of a young lady speaking of love had made it vanish like smoke.
And, quick as the gazelle, she returned to her apartments, followed by her favorite. And she took the calam of joy and the paper of union, and wrote to Prince Jasmine, the adolescent ravisher of her reason, the blessed one whom she had seen in a dream with the eyes of her soul, this letter to the white wings:
“After the praise to Him who, without calamity,
traced the existence of creatures in the garden of beauty.
Hail to the rose that made the enamored nightingale plaintive!
When I heard the mention of your beauty, my heart slipped from my hand.
When you showed me your fairy face in a dream,
it made such an impression on my heart that I forgot my father and my mother,
and became a stranger to my brothers.
What have you to do with your family when you are a stranger to yourself?
Before you, the beauties are swept away like a torrent,
and the arrows of your eyelashes have pierced my heart through and through.
Oh! come and show me your lovely form in revival,
so that I may see it with the eyes of my head,
O you who are instructed in the signs of love and
who must know that the true way of the heart is the heart.
And finally know that you are the water and the clay of my essence,
that the roses of my bed have changed into thorns,
that the stamp of silence is on my lips, and that I have given up walking nonchalantly …
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.