“I left my home for a fair young maid * Whose love my night with
     its light array’d;
Yet wot I not what her name may be * Thus ignorance mating with
     union forbade. 
But when of her gifts I was certified * Her gracious form the
     feat easy made;
The King of Awe sent my steps to her * And to union with beauty
     vouchsafed me aid: 
Indeed disgrace ever works me shame * Tho’ long my longing to
     meet I’m afraid.”

When Al-Hayfa heard his name her great love to him waxed greater.  Then she took the lute upon her lap and caressed it with her finger-tips when it sighed and sobbed and groaned and moaned[FN#219] and she fell to singing these verses,

“A thousand welcomes hail thy coming fain, * O Yusuf, dearling
     son of Sahl’s strain: 
We read thy letter and we understood * Thy kingly birth from sand
     that told it plain:[FN#220]
I’m thine, by Allah, I the loveliest maid * Of folk and thou to
     be my husband deign: 
Bruit of his fair soft cheek my love hath won * And branch and
     root his beauty grows amain: 
He from the Northern Realms to us draws nigh * For King Mihrjan
     bequeathing ban and bane;
And I behold him first my Castle seek * As mate impelled by
     inspiration fain. 
The land upstirs he and the reign he rules * From East to West,
     the King my father slain;
But first he flies us for no fault of ours * Upon us wasting
     senseless words and vain: 
E’en so Creation’s Lord hath deigned decree, * Unique in
     Heaven—­glorified be He!"[FN#221]

Now when Yusuf heard the words of Al-Hayfa he rejoiced with exceeding joy and she was gladdened in like manner, after which he gifted her with all that was upon him of gear and in similar guise she doffed what dress was upon her and presented it to him.[FN#222] Then she bade the slave-girls bring her an especial suit and they fetched her a second bundle and she clothed Yusuf with what was therein of sumptuous clothes.  After this the Prince abode with Al-Hayfa as an inmate of her palace for a term of ten days in all the happiness of life, eating and drinking and enjoying conjugal intercourse.[FN#223] Presently Almighty Allah (be He extolled and exalted!) decreed that, when all tidings of Yusuf son of Sahl were lost, his sire sent in search of him Yahya,[FN#224] his cousin and the son of his maternal aunt, amongst a troop of twenty knights to track his trail and be taught his tidings until Allah (be He glorified and magnified!) guided him to the pages who had been left upon the river-bank.  Here they had tarried for ten days whilst the sunshine burnt them and hunger was exterminating them; and when they were asked concerning their lord, they gave notice that he had swum the stream and had gone up to yonder Castle and had entered therein.  “And we know not (they ended) whether he be alive or dead.”  So the lord Yahya said to them, “Is there amongst you any will cross the current and bring us news of him?” But not one of them would consent and they remained in silence and confusion.  So he asked them a second time and a third time yet none would rise up before him and hearten him to attempt the dangers of the stream, whereupon he drew forth his ink-case of brass and a sheet of paper and he fell to writing the following verses,