HASSAN
(Inclining towards the mat) None is good, save God.
And Abou Awas has excellently sung:

The importunate
Are seldom fortunate.

Nevertheless, know, Selim, that I am in love.

SELIM
In love! Then why sit moaning on the mat? Are there not beauties
at the barbers, and lights of love at the bazaar?

HASSAN
(Angrily) Hold your tongue, Selim, or leave me. I was in earnest
when I said I loved, and your coarseness is ill-fitting to my mood.
And well I know I am Hassan, the Confectioner, yet I can love
as sincerely as Mejnun; for assuredly she of whom my heart is bent
is not less fair than Leila.

SELIM
(Ironically) Alas! I mistook the particular for the general, and
did not recognise the purity of your intentions. But I would not
mention Mejnun. Mejnun was young, and you are old, and he was
a prince, and you are a Confectioner, and he was beautiful,
and you are not, and he was very thin because of his sorrow,
and you are fatter than those four-legged I mention not--
God curse their herdsmen!

HASSAN