3.2.13. The Reading of the Signs
1271 Something, I know not, what, would utter of complaint. Though you would conceal (your feelings), your painted eyes would not, for, transgressing (their bounds), they tell (me) something.
1272 The simple one whose beauty fills mine eye, whose shoulders curve Like bamboo stem, hath all a woman’s modest sweet reserve. Unusually great is the female simplicity of your maid whose beauty fills my eyes and whose shoulders resemble the bamboo.
1273 As through the crystal beads is seen the thread on which they ‘re strung So in her beauty gleams some thought cannot find a tongue. There is something that is implied in the beauty of this woman, like the thread that is visible in a garland of gems.
1274 As fragrance in the opening bud, some secret lies Concealed in budding smile of this dear damsel’s eyes. There is something in the un-matured smile of this maid like the fragrance that is contained in an un-blossomed bud.
1275 The secret wiles of her with thronging armlets decked, Are medicines by which my raising grief is checked. The well-meant departure of her whose bangles are tight-fitting contains a remedy that can cure my great sorrow.
1276 While lovingly embracing me, his heart is only grieved: It makes me think that I again shall live of love bereaved. The embrace that fills me with comfort and gladness is capable of enduring (my former) sorrow and meditating on his want of love.
1277 My severance from the lord of this cool shore, my very armlets told me long before. My bracelets have understood before me the (mental) separation of him who rules the cool seashore.
1278 My loved one left me, was it yesterday? Days seven my pallid body wastes away! It was but yesterday my lover departed (from me); and it is seven days since my complexion turned sallow.
1279 She viewed her tender arms, she viewed the armlets from them slid; she viewed her feet: all this the lady did. She looked at her bracelets, her tender shoulders, and her feet; this was what she did there (significantly).
1280 To show by eye the pain of love, and for relief to pray, Is womanhood’s most womanly device, men say. To express their love-sickness by their eyes and resort to begging bespeaks more than ordinary female excellence.
3.2.14. Desire for Reunion
1281 Gladness at the thought, rejoicing at the sight, Not palm-tree wine, but love, yields such delight. To please by thought and cheer by sight is peculiar, not to liquor but lust.
1282 Distrust can find no place small as the millet grain. If women have a lust that exceeds even the measure of the fruit, they will not desire (to feign) dislike even as much as the millet.
1283 Although his will his only law, he lightly value me, my heart knows no repose unless my lord I see. Though my eyes disregard me and do what is pleasing to my husband, still will they not be satisfied unless they see him.
1284 My friend, I went prepared to show a cool disdain; my heart, forgetting all, could not its love restrain. O my friend! I was prepared to feign displeasure but my mind forgetting it was ready to embrace him.
1285 The eye sees not the rod that paints it; nor can I See any fault, when I behold my husband nigh. Like the eyes which see not the pencil that paints it, I cannot see my husband’s fault (just) when I meet him.
1286 When him I see, to all his faults I am blind; but when I see him not, nothing but faults I find. When I see my husband, I do not see any faults; but when I do not see him, I do not see anything but faults.
1287 As those of rescue sure, who plunge into the stream, so did I anger feign, though it must falsehood seem? Like those who leap into a stream which they know will carry them off, why should a wife feign dislike which she knows cannot hold out long?
1288 Though shameful ill it works, dear is the palm-tree wine to drunkards; traitor, so to me! O your breast is to me what liquor is to those who rejoice in it, though it only gives them an unpleasant disgrace.
1289 Love is tender as an opening flower. In season due to gain its perfect bliss is rapture known to few. Sexual delight is more delicate than a flower, and few are those who understand its real nature.
1290 Her eye, as I drew nigh one day, with anger shone: By love overpowered, her tenderness surpassed my own. She once feigned dislike in her eyes, but the warmth of her embrace exceeded my own.