So I rose and shaking all these things off me, went
out in a rage, and going home, found my cousin sighing and
repeating the following verses:
Wasted body and heart a-bleeding for despair And tears that down
my cheeks stream on and on for e'er,
And a beloved one persistent in disdain; Yet all a fair one does
must needs be right and fair.
O cousin mine, thou'st filled my heart with longing pain And
wounded are mine eyes with tears that never spare.
I chid her and reviled her, at which she wept; then wiping away
her tears, she came up to me and kissed me and pressed me to her
bosom, whilst I held back from her and blamed myself. Then she
said to me, "O my cousin, meseems thou didst sleep again last
night?" "Yes," replied I; "and when I awoke, I found on my
stomach a die of bone, a play-stick, a green date-stone and a
carob-bean, and I know not why she did this." Then I wept and
said to her, "Expound to me her meaning in this and tell me what
I shall do and help me in this my strait." "On my head and eyes,"
answered she. "Know then that, by the figure of the die and the
play-stick, she says to thee, 'Thy body is present, but thy heart
absent. Love is not thus: so do not reckon thyself among lovers.'
As for the date-stone, it is as if she said to thee, 'If thou
wert in love, thy heart would be on fire with passion and thou
wouldst not taste the delight of sleep; for the sweet of love is
like a green date and kindles a fire in the entrails.
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