My love, my lowe and my longing to him * Convey, for of parting
no cure I see:
I swear an oath by your love that I * Will keep pact and covenant
faithfully,
To none I'll incline or forget your love * How shall love-sick
lover forgetful be?
So with you be the peace and my greeting fair * In letters that
perfume of musk-pod bear."

Her sister Nasim admired his eloquence of tongue and the
goodliness of his speech and the elegance of the verses he sang,
and was moved to ruth for him. So she sealed the letter with
virgin musk and incensed it with Nadd-scent and ambergris, after
which she committed it to a certain of the merchants saying,
"Deliver it not to any save to Zayn al-Mawasif or to her handmaid
Hubub." Now when the letter reached her sister, she knew it for
Masrur's dictation and recognised himself in the grace of its
expression. So she kissed it and laid it on her eyes, whilst the
tears streamed from her lids and she gave not over weeping, till
she fainted. As soon as she came to herself, she called for
pencase and paper and wrote him the following answer; complaining
the while of her desire and love-longing and ecstasy and what was
hers to endure of pining for her lover and yearning to him and
the passion she had conceived for him.--And Shahrazad perceived
the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Fifty-seventh Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Zayn
al-Mawasif wrote the following reply to Masrur's missive: "This