May God grant you good fortune and safety throughout the coming days and years.’ She then took her place with the slave girls and the eunuchs, as Zubaida looked up. What she saw, when she looked, was a lovely girl with smooth cheeks, breasts like pomegranates, a resplendent forehead, dark eyes with languid lids, and a face of dazzling splendour, radiant as the moon. It was as though the sun rose in the whiteness of her complexion, the darkness of night was in the locks of her hair, the scent of musk was carried on her breath, her beauty caused the flowers to bloom, the moon could be seen shining from her forehead and her figure taught the branches how to bend. She was like the full moon gleaming in the darkness, her eyes spoke of dalliance, her eyebrows were curved like a bow and her lips were fashioned of coral. Her beauty distracted everyone who gazed at her, and all who saw her were bewitched by her glances. Praise be to the One Who created her in so perfect a form. She resembled the subject of the poet’s lines: When she is angry, you see her victims lying dead, But if she is pleased, their spirits soon revive. There is sorcery within her glance That brings life or death wherever she may please. Her eyes take captive mankind; It is as though they all become her slaves. Zubaida welcomed her and invited her to sit and to entertain her with an exhibition of her artistry, to which she replied: ‘To hear is to obey.’ She sat down and reached out for her tambourine, an instrument that has been described in the following lines: Girl with the tambourine, my heart takes flight in longing, Calling out in passion to your beat. It is a wounded heart that you have seized, And all men long to hear you play.