Dance, our bride so fair,
    Dance and never care;
    Your bracelets sing, your anklets ring,
    Your shining beauty would dazzle a king! 
    To Damascus your father a journey has made,
    And your bridegroom’s name is Abu Zeid.

And now the young men outside are dancing and fencing, and they all join in singing: 

    Dance, my dancer, early and late,
    Would I had like you seven or eight;
    Two uncles like you, blithe and gay,
    To stand at my back in the judgment day!

And now the young men, relatives of the bridegroom, address the brother of the bride, as her father is not living, and they all sing: 

    O brother of the bride, on a charger you should ride;
    A Councillor of State you should be;
    Whene’er you lift your voice,
    The judgment halls rejoice,
    And the earth quakes with fear
    From Acre to Ghuzeer.

And now the warlike Druzes, who are old friends of Shaheen and his father, wish to show their good will by singing a wedding song, which they have borrowed from the old wild inhabitants of this land of Canaan: 

    O brother of the bride, your mare has gnawed her bridle,
    Run for the blacksmith, do not be idle. 
    She has run to the grave where are buried your foes,
    And pawed out their hearts with her iron shoes!

But the time has come for the procession to move, and we go along slowly enough.  The bride rides a mare, led by one of Shaheen’s brothers, and as we pass the fountain, the people pour water under the mare’s feet as a libation, and Handumeh throws down a few little copper coins to the children.  The women in the company set up the zilagheet, a high piercing trill of the voice, and all goes merry as a marriage bell.  When we reach the house of Shaheen, he keeps out of sight, not even offering to help his bride dismount from her horse.  That would never do.  He will stay among the men, and she in a separate room among the women, until the hour of the ceremony arrives.

But the women are singing again, and this time the song is really beautiful in Arabic, but I fear I have made lame work of it in the translation: 

    Allah, belaly, belaly,
    Allah, belaly, belaly,
    May God spare the life of your sire,
    Our lovely gazelle of the valley! 
        May Allah his riches increase
        He has brought you so costly a dowry;
        The moonlight has gone from his house,
        The rose from his gardens so flow’ry. 
        Run away, rude men, turn aside,
        Give place to our beautiful bride: 
        From her sweet perfumes I am sighing,
        From the odor of musk I am dying. 
    Come and join us fair maid, they have brought you your dress,
    Leave your peacocks and doves, give our bride a caress;
    Red silk! crimson silk! the weaver cries as he goes: