And Pierce-heart therefore is the name by which we call the
vest."

--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Seven Hundred and Eighty-seventh Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
Hasan saw the damsels issue forth the basin, the chief maiden
robbed his reason with her beauty and loveliness compelling him
to recite the couplets forequoted. And after dressing they sat
talking and laughing, whilst he stood gazing on them, drowned in
the sea of his love, burning in the flames of passion and
wandering in the Wady of his melancholy thought. And he said to
himself, "By Allah, my sister forbade me not to open the door,
but for cause of these maidens and for fear lest I should fall in
love with one of them! How, O Hasan shalt thou woo and win them?
How bring down a bird flying in the vasty firmament? By Allah
thou hast cast thyself into a bottomless sea and snared thyself
in a net whence there is no escape! I shall die desolate and
none shall wot of my death." And he continued to gaze on the
charms of the chief damsel, who was the loveliest creature Allah
had made in her day, and indeed she outdid in beauty all human
beings. She had a mouth magical as Solomon's seal and hair
blacker than the night of estrangement to the love-despairing
man; her brow was bright as the crescent moon of the Feast of
Ramaz n[FN#58] and her eyes were like eyes wherewith gazelles
scan; she had a polished nose straight as a cane and cheeks like
blood-red anemones of Nu'uman, lips like coralline and teeth like