Bhanavar and her story, O youth? We listen!'

So Shibli Bagarag leaned slightly on a cushion of a couch, and narrated
as followeth.




AND THIS IS THE STORY OF BHANAVAR THE BEAUTIFUL

Know that at the foot of a lofty mountain of the Caucasus there lieth a
deep blue lake; near to this lake a nest of serpents, wise and ancient.
Now, it was the habit of a damsel to pass by the lake early at morn, on
her way from the tents of her tribe to the pastures of the flocks. As
she pressed the white arch of her feet on the soft green-mossed grasses
by the shore of the lake she would let loose her hair, looking over into
the water, and bind the braid again round her temples and behind her
ears, as it had been in a lucent mirror: so doing she would laugh. Her
laughter was like the falls of water at moonrise; her loveliness like the
very moonrise; and she was stately as a palm-tree standing before the
moon.

This was Bhanavar the Beautiful.

Now, the damsel was betrothed to the son of a neighbouring Emir, a youth
comely, well-fashioned, skilled with the bow, apt in all exercises; one
that sat his mare firm as the trained falcon that fixeth on the plunging
bull of the plains; fair and terrible in combat as the lightning that
strideth the rolling storm; and it is sung by the poet: