completion:  his eye-glance was more bewitching than Harut and Marut[FN#229] and the play of his luring looks more misleading than Taghut;[FN#230] and his cheeks shone like the dawn rosy-red and his eyelashes stormed the keen-edged blade:  the whiteness of his brow resembled the moon shining bright, and the blackness of his locks was as the murky night; and his waist was more slender than the gossamer[FN#231] and his back parts than two sand heaps bulkier, making a Babel of the heart with their softness; but his waist complained of the weight of his hips and loins; and his charms ravished all mankind, even as one of the poets saith in these couplets,

“By his eyelash tendril curled, by his slender waist I swear,
By the dart his witchery feathers, fatal hurtling through the
     air;
By the just roundness of his shape, by his glances bright and
     keen
By the swart limping of his locks, and his fair forehead shining
     sheen;
By his eyebrows which deny that she who looks on them should
     sleep,
Which now commanding, now forbidding, o’er me high dominion keep;
By the roses of his cheek, his face as fresh as myrtle wreath
His tulip lips, and those pure pearls that hold the places of his
     teeth;
By his noble form, which rises featly turned in even swell
To where upon his jutting chest two young pomegranates seem to
     dwell
By his supple moving hips, his taper waist, the silky skin,
By all he robbed Perfection of, and holds enchained his form
     within;
By his tongue of steadfastness, his nature true, and excellent,
By the greatness of his rank, his noble birth, and high descent,
Musk from my love her savour steals, who musk exhales from every
     limb
And all the airs ambergris breathes are but the Zephyr’s blow
     o’er him. 
The sun, methinks, the broad bright sun, as low before my love
     should quail
As would my love himself transcend the paltry paring of his
     nail!"[FN#232]

So King Shahriman, having accepted the counsel of his Wazir, waited for another year and a great festival,—­And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

      When it was the One Hundred and Seventy-third Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Shahriman having accepted the counsel of his Wazir, waited for another year and a great festival, a day of state when the audience hall was filled with his Emirs and Wazirs and Grandees of his reign and Officers of State and Captains of might and main.  Thereupon he sent for his son Kamar al-Zaman who came, and kissing the ground before him three times, stood in presence of his sire with his hands behind his back the right grasping the left.[FN#233] Then said the King to him, “Know O my son, that I have not sent for thee on this occasion and summoned thee to appear before this assembly and all these officers of estate here