Editing One Thousand and One Nights (section)

==Literary themes and techniques==
[[File:Thousand_and_One_Nights_21.jpg|thumb|Illustration of ''One Thousand and One Nights'' by [[Sani ol Molk]], Iran, 1853]]

The ''One Thousand and One Nights'' and various tales within it make use of many innovative [[literary technique]]s, which the storytellers of the tales rely on for increased drama, suspense, or other emotions.<ref name=Heath/> Some of these date back to earlier [[Persian literature|Persian]], [[Indian literature|Indian]] and [[Arabic literature]], while others were original to the ''One Thousand and One Nights''.

===Frame story===
The ''One Thousand and One Nights'' employs an early example of the [[frame story]], or [[framing device]]: the character [[Scheherazade]] narrates a set of tales (most often [[fairy tale]]s) to the Sultan [[Shahrayar|Shahriyar]] over many nights. Many of Scheherazade's tales are themselves frame stories, such as the ''[[Sinbad the Sailor|Tale of Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman]]'', which is a collection of adventures related by Sinbad the Seaman to Sinbad the Landsman.

In [[folkloristics]], the frame story is classified as ATU 875B*, "Storytelling Saves a Wife from Death".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Uther |first1=Hans-Jorg |author-link=Hans-Jörg Uther |title=The Types of International Folktales: Animal tales, tales of magic, religious tales, and realistic tales, with an introduction. FF Communications |date=2004 |publisher=Academia Scientiarum Fennica |page=499 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HVQsAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Storytelling+Saves+a+Wife+from+Death%22}}</ref>

===Embedded narrative===
Another technique featured in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' is an early example of the "[[story within a story]]", or ''embedded narrative'' technique: this can be traced back to earlier Persian and Indian storytelling traditions, most notably the ''[[Panchatantra]]'' of ancient [[Sanskrit literature]]. The ''Nights'', however, improved on the ''Panchatantra'' in several ways, particularly in the way a story is introduced. In the ''Panchatantra'', stories are introduced as [[didactic]] analogies, with the frame story referring to these stories with variants of the phrase "If you're not careful, that which happened to the louse and the flea will happen to you." In the ''Nights'', this didactic framework is the least common way of introducing the story: instead, a story is most commonly introduced through subtle means, particularly as an answer to questions raised in a previous tale.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia|last=Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen|first=Hassan Wassouf|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2004|isbn=1-57607-204-5|pages=3–4}}</ref>

The general story is narrated by an unknown narrator, and in this narration the stories are told by [[Scheherazade]]. In most of Scheherazade's narrations there are also stories narrated, and even in some of these, there are some other stories.<ref>{{cite book
 | last=Burton
 | first=Richard
 | author-link=Richard Francis Burton
 | title=The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1
 | publisher=[[Project Gutenberg]]
 | date=September 2003
 | url=http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/11001108.txt
 | access-date=2008-10-17
 | archive-date=2012-01-18
 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118141047/http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/11001108.txt
 }}</ref> This is particularly the case for the "[[Sinbad the Sailor]]" story narrated by Scheherazade in the ''One Thousand and One Nights''. Within the "Sinbad the Sailor" story itself, the protagonist Sinbad the Sailor narrates the stories of his seven voyages to Sinbad the Porter. The device is also used to great effect in stories such as "[[The Three Apples]]" and "[[#Unreliable narrator|The Seven Viziers]]". In yet another tale Scheherazade narrates, "[[The Fisherman and the Jinni]]", the "Tale of the Wazir and the Sage [[List of One Thousand and One Nights characters#Duban|Duban]]" is narrated within it, and within that there are three more tales narrated.

===Dramatic visualization===
Dramatic visualization is "the representing of an object or character with an abundance of descriptive detail, or the mimetic rendering of gestures and dialogue in such a way as to make a given scene 'visual' or imaginatively present to an audience". This technique is used in several tales of the ''One Thousand and One Nights'',<ref name=Heath-360/> such as the tale of "[[The Three Apples]]" (see [[#Crime fiction elements|Crime fiction elements]] below).

===Fate and destiny===
A common [[Theme (literature)|theme]] in many ''Arabian Nights'' tales is [[wikt:fate|fate]] and [[destiny]]. Italian filmmaker [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] observed:{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=200}}

{{blockquote|[E]very tale in ''The Thousand and One Nights'' begins with an 'appearance of destiny' which manifests itself through an anomaly, and one anomaly always generates another. So a chain of anomalies is set up. And the more logical, tightly knit, essential this chain is, the more beautiful the tale. By 'beautiful' I mean vital, absorbing and exhilarating. The chain of anomalies always tends to lead back to normality. The end of every tale in ''The One Thousand and One Nights'' consists of a 'disappearance' of destiny, which sinks back to the [[somnolence]] of daily life ... The protagonist of the stories is in fact destiny itself.}}

Though invisible, fate may be considered a leading character in the ''One Thousand and One Nights''.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=198}} The plot devices often used to present this theme are [[coincidence]],{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=199–200}} [[Retrocausality|reverse causation]], and the [[self-fulfilling prophecy]] (see Foreshadowing section below). {{Clear}}

===Foreshadowing===
[[File:The Valley of Diamonds by Maxfield Parrish.jpg|thumb|[[Sindbad]] and the Valley of Diamonds, from the Second Voyage]]

Early examples of the [[foreshadowing]] technique of repetitive designation, now known as "Chekhov's gun", occur in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'', which contains "repeated references to some character or object which appears insignificant when first mentioned but which reappears later to intrude suddenly in the narrative."<ref>{{cite journal|first=Peter|last=Heath|title=Reviewed work(s): ''Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights'' by David Pinault|journal=[[International Journal of Middle East Studies]]|volume=26|issue=2|date=May 1994|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=358–360 [359]|doi=10.1017/s0020743800060633|s2cid=162223060 }}</ref> A notable example is in the tale of "The Three Apples" (see [[#Crime fiction elements|Crime fiction elements]] below).

Another early foreshadowing technique is ''formal patterning'', "the organization of the events, actions and gestures which constitute a narrative and give shape to a story; when done well, formal patterning allows the audience the pleasure of discerning and anticipating the structure of the plot as it unfolds." This technique is also found in ''One Thousand and One Nights''.<ref name=Heath-360/>

==== The self-fulfilling prophecy ====
Several tales in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' use the [[self-fulfilling prophecy]], as a special form of literary prolepsis, to foreshadow what is going to happen. This literary device dates back to the story of [[Krishna]] in ancient [[Sanskrit literature]], and [[Oedipus]] or the death of [[Heracles]] in the plays of [[Sophocles]]. A variation of this device is the self-fulfilling dream, which can be found in [[Arabic literature]] (or the dreams of [[Joseph (Genesis)|Joseph]] and his conflicts with his brothers, in the [[Book of Genesis|Hebrew Bible]]).

A notable example is "The Ruined Man who Became Rich Again through a Dream", in which a man is told in his dream to leave his native city of [[Baghdad]] and travel to [[Cairo]], where he will discover the whereabouts of some hidden treasure. The man travels there and experiences misfortune, ending up in jail, where he tells his dream to a police officer. The officer mocks the idea of foreboding dreams and tells the protagonist that he himself had a dream about a house with a courtyard and fountain in Baghdad where treasure is buried under the fountain. The man recognizes the place as his own house and, after he is released from jail, he returns home and digs up the treasure. In other words, the foreboding dream not only predicted the future, but the dream was the cause of its prediction coming true. A variant of this story later appears in [[English folklore]] as the "[[Pedlar of Swaffham]]" and [[Paulo Coelho]]'s ''[[The Alchemist (novel)|The Alchemist]]''; [[Jorge Luis Borges]]' collection of short stories ''[[A Universal History of Infamy]]'' featured his translation of this particular story into Spanish, as "The Story of the Two Dreamers".{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=193–194}}

"The Tale of Attaf" depicts another variation of the self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby [[Harun al-Rashid]] consults his library (the [[House of Wisdom]]), reads a random book, "falls to laughing and weeping and dismisses the faithful vizier [[Ja'far ibn Yahya]] from sight. Ja'afar, disturbed and upset, flees Baghdad and plunges into a series of adventures in [[Damascus]], involving Attaf and the woman whom Attaf eventually marries". After returning to Baghdad, Ja'afar reads the same book that caused Harun to laugh and weep, and discovers that it describes his own adventures with Attaf. In other words, it was Harun's reading of the book that provoked the adventures described in the book to take place. This is an early example of [[Retrocausality|reverse causation]].{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=199}}

Near the end of the tale, Attaf is given a death sentence for a crime he did not commit but Harun, knowing the truth from what he has read in the book, prevents this and has Attaf released from prison. In the 12th century, this tale was [[Latin translations of the 12th century|translated into Latin]] by [[Petrus Alphonsi]] and included in his ''[[Disciplina Clericalis]]'',<ref name="Marzolph-109">{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia|last=Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen|first=Hassan Wassouf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|year=2004|isbn=1-57607-204-5|page=109}}</ref> alongside the "[[Seven Wise Masters|Sindibad]]" story cycle.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=93}} In the 14th century, a version of "The Tale of Attaf" also appears in the ''[[Gesta Romanorum]]'' and [[Giovanni Boccaccio]]'s ''[[The Decameron]]''.<ref name="Marzolph-109" />

===Repetition===
[[File:One_Thousand_and_One_Nights26.jpg|thumb|Illustration of ''One Thousand and One Nights'' by [[Sani ol molk]], Iran, 1849–1856]]

''[[Leitwortstil]]'' is "the purposeful [[Repetition (rhetorical device)|repetition]] of words" in a given literary piece that "usually expresses a [[Motif (narrative)|motif]] or [[Theme (literature)|theme]] important to the given story." This device occurs in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'', which binds several tales in a story cycle. The storytellers of the tales relied on this technique "to shape the constituent members of their story cycles into a coherent whole".<ref name=Heath>{{cite journal|first=Peter|last=Heath|title=Reviewed work(s): ''Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights'' by David Pinault|journal=[[International Journal of Middle East Studies]]|volume=26|issue=2|date=May 1994|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=358–360 [359–60]|doi=10.1017/s0020743800060633|s2cid=162223060 }}</ref>

Another technique used in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' is [[thematic patterning]], which is:<blockquote>[T]he distribution of recurrent thematic concepts and moralistic motifs among the various incidents and frames of a story. In a skillfully crafted tale, thematic patterning may be arranged so as to emphasize the unifying argument or salient idea which disparate events and disparate frames have in common.<ref name="Heath-360">{{cite journal|first=Peter|last=Heath|title=Reviewed work(s): ''Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights'' by David Pinault|journal=[[International Journal of Middle East Studies]]|volume=26|issue=2|date=May 1994|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=358–360 [360]|doi=10.1017/s0020743800060633|s2cid=162223060 }}</ref></blockquote>Several different variants of the "[[Cinderella]]" story, which has its origins in the ancient Greek story of [[Rhodopis]], appear in the ''One Thousand and One Nights'', including "The Second Shaykh's Story", "The Eldest Lady's Tale" and "Abdallah ibn Fadil and His Brothers", all dealing with the theme of a younger sibling harassed by two jealous elders. In some of these, the siblings are female, while in others they are male. One of the tales, "Judar and His Brethren", departs from the [[happy ending]]s of previous variants and reworks the plot to give it a [[tragic]] ending instead, with the younger brother being poisoned by his elder brothers.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia|last=Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen|first=Hassan Wassouf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|year=2004|isbn=1-57607-204-5|page=4}}</ref>

===Sexual humour===
The ''Nights'' contain many examples of sexual humour. Some of this borders on [[satire]], as in the tale called "Ali with the Large Member" which pokes fun at obsession with [[penis size]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia|last=Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen|first=Hassan Wassouf|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2004|isbn=1-57607-204-5|pages=97–98}}</ref><ref>"Ali with the Large Member" is only in the [[Wortley Montague manuscript]] (1764), which is in the [[Bodleian Library]], and is not found in Burton or any of the other standard translations. (Ref: ''Arabian Nights Encyclopedia'').</ref>

===Unreliable narrator===
The literary device of the [[unreliable narrator]] was used in several fictional medieval [[Arabic literature|Arabic tales]] of the ''One Thousand and One Nights''. In one tale, "The Seven Viziers" (also known as "Craft and Malice of Women or The Tale of the King, His Son, His Concubine and the Seven Wazirs"), a [[courtesan]] accuses a king's son of having assaulted her, when in reality she had failed to seduce him (inspired by the [[Qur'anic]]/[[Biblical]] story of [[Joseph in Islam|Yusuf]]/[[Joseph (Hebrew Bible)|Joseph]]). Seven [[vizier]]s attempt to save his life by narrating seven stories to prove the unreliability of women, and the courtesan responds by narrating a story to prove the unreliability of viziers.{{sfn|Pinault|1992|p=59}} The unreliable narrator device is also used to generate [[suspense]] in "The Three Apples" and [[humor]] in "The Hunchback's Tale" (see [[#Crime fiction elements|Crime fiction elements]] below).

=== Genre elements ===
{{Anchor|Crime fiction elements}}

====Crime fiction====
[[File:Godefroy Durand - Morgiane.jpg|thumb|Illustration depicting [[Morgiana (character)|Morgiana]] and the thieves from ''[[Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves]]'']]
An example of the [[murder mystery]]<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Reader|first=Ulrich|last=Marzolph|publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]]|year=2006|isbn=0-8143-3259-5|pages=240–242}}</ref> and [[Thriller (genre)|suspense thriller]] genres in the collection, with multiple [[plot twist]]s{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=93,95,97}} and [[detective fiction]] elements{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=91,93}} was "[[The Three Apples]]", also known as ''Hikayat al-sabiyya 'l-maqtula'' ('The Tale of the Murdered Young Woman').<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Reader|first=Ulrich|last=Marzolph|publisher=[[Wayne State University Press]]|year=2006|isbn=0-8143-3259-5|page=240}}</ref>

In this tale, [[Harun al-Rashid]] comes to possess a chest, which, when opened, contains the body of a young woman. Harun gives his vizier, [[Ja'far ibn Yahya|Ja'far]], three days to find the culprit or be executed. At the end of three days, when Ja'far is about to be executed for his failure, two men come forward, both claiming to be the murderer. As they tell their story it transpires that, although the younger of them, the woman's husband, was responsible for her death, some of the blame attaches to a slave, who had taken one of the apples mentioned in the title and caused the woman's murder.

Harun then gives Ja'far three more days to find the guilty slave. When he yet again fails to find the culprit, and bids his family goodbye before his execution, he discovers by chance his daughter has the apple, which she obtained from Ja'far's own slave, Rayhan. Thus the mystery is solved.

Another ''Nights'' tale with [[crime fiction]] elements was "The Hunchback's Tale" story cycle which, unlike "The Three Apples", was more of a [[suspense]]ful [[comedy]] and [[courtroom drama]] rather than a murder mystery or detective fiction. The story is set in a fictional China and begins with a hunchback, the emperor's favourite [[comedian]], being invited to dinner by a [[tailor]] couple. The hunchback accidentally chokes on his food from laughing too hard and the couple, fearful that the emperor will be furious, take his body to a [[Medicine in medieval Islam|Jewish doctor]]'s [[Bimaristan|clinic]] and leave him there. This leads to the next tale in the cycle, the "Tale of the Jewish Doctor", where the doctor accidentally trips over the hunchback's body, falls down the stairs with him, and finds him dead, leading him to believe that the fall had killed him. The doctor then dumps his body down a chimney, and this leads to yet another tale in the cycle, which continues with twelve tales in total, leading to all the people involved in this incident finding themselves in a [[courtroom]], all making different claims over how the hunchback had died.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia|last=Ulrich Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen|first=Hassan Wassouf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|year=2004|isbn=1-57607-204-5|pages=2–4}}</ref> Crime fiction elements are also present near the end of "The Tale of Attaf" (see [[#Foreshadowing|Foreshadowing]] above).

{{Anchor|Horror fiction elements}}

==== Horror fiction ====
[[Haunting]] is used as a [[plot device]] in [[gothic fiction]] and [[horror fiction]], as well as modern [[paranormal fiction]]. Legends about [[haunted house]]s have long appeared in literature. In particular, the ''Arabian Nights'' tale of "Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad" revolves around a house haunted by [[jinn]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Arabian Nights and Orientalism: Perspectives from East & West|last=Yuriko Yamanaka|first=Tetsuo Nishio|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]]|year=2006|isbn=1-85043-768-8|page=83}}</ref> The ''Nights'' is almost certainly the earliest surviving literature that mentions [[ghoul]]s, and many of the stories in that collection involve or reference ghouls. A prime example is the story ''The History of Gherib and His Brother Agib'' (from ''Nights'' vol. 6), in which Gherib, an outcast prince, fights off a family of ravenous Ghouls and then enslaves them and converts them to [[Islam]].<ref>{{cite web|title=''The Story of Gherib and his Brother Agib''|work=Thousand Nights and One Night|author=Al-Hakawati|access-date=October 2, 2008|url=http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Stories_Tales/laila170.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081221142538/http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Stories_Tales/laila170.asp|archive-date=December 21, 2008|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Horror fiction elements are also found in "The City of Brass" tale, which revolves around a [[ghost town]].<ref name=Hamori>{{cite journal|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00141540|title=An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass|first=Andras|last=Hamori|journal=[[Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies]]|volume=34|issue=1|year=1971|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=9–19 [10]|s2cid=161610007}} The hero of the tale is an historical person, [[Musa bin Nusayr]].</ref>

The horrific nature of [[Scheherazade]]'s situation is magnified in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Misery (novel)|Misery]]'', in which the protagonist is forced to write a novel to keep his captor from torturing and killing him. The influence of the ''Nights'' on modern horror fiction is certainly discernible in the work of [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. As a child, he was fascinated by the adventures recounted in the book, and he attributes some of his creations to his love of the ''1001 Nights''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend |author=Daniel Harms |author2=John Wisdom Gonce III |publisher=Weiser|year=2003|isbn=978-1-57863-269-5|pages=87–90}}</ref>

{{Anchor|Fantasy and science fiction elements}}

==== Fantasy and science fiction ====
[[File:More tales from the Arabian nights-14566176968.jpg|thumb|An illustration of the ''story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou'', ''More tales from the Arabian nights'' by Willy Pogany (1915)]]

Several stories within the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' feature early [[science fiction]] elements. One example is "The Adventures of Bulukiya", in which the [[protagonist]] Bulukiya's quest for the [[Elixir of life|herb of immortality]] leads him to explore the seas, journey to [[Paradise]] and to [[Hell]], and travel across the [[cosmos]] to different worlds much larger than his own world, anticipating elements of [[Galaxy|galactic]] science fiction;{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=209}} along the way, he encounters societies of [[jinn]],{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=204}} [[mermaid]]s, talking [[Serpent (symbolism)|serpents]], talking trees, and other forms of life.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=209}} In "[[Abu al-Husn and His Slave-Girl Tawaddud]]", the heroine Tawaddud gives an impromptu [[lecture]] on the mansions of the [[Moon]], and the benevolent and sinister aspects of the planets.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=190}}

In another ''1001 Nights'' tale, "Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman", the protagonist Abdullah the Fisherman gains the ability to breathe underwater and discovers an underwater society that is portrayed as an inverted reflection of society on land, in that the underwater society follows a form of [[primitive communism]] where concepts like money and clothing do not exist. Other ''Arabian Nights'' tales also depict [[Amazons|Amazon]] societies dominated by women, lost ancient technologies, advanced ancient civilizations that went astray, and catastrophes which overwhelmed them.{{sfn|Irwin|2004|pp=211–212}}

"The City of Brass" features a group of travellers on an [[archaeological]] expedition<ref name="Hamori 1971 p.9" /> across the [[Sahara]] to find an ancient lost city and attempt to recover a brass vessel that [[Solomon]] once used to trap a [[jinni]],{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=148–149, 217–219}} and, along the way, encounter a [[mummified]] queen, [[petrified]] inhabitants,{{sfn|Irwin|2004|p=213}} lifelike [[humanoid robot]]s and [[automata]], seductive [[marionette]]s dancing without strings,<ref name="Hamori 1971 pp.12–13" /> and a brass horseman [[robot]] who directs the party towards the ancient city,{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=10–11}} which has now become a [[ghost town]].<ref name=Hamori/> The "Third Qalandar's Tale" also features a robot in the form of an uncanny [[Sailor|boatman]].{{sfn|Pinault|1992|pp=10–11}}

===Poetry===
There is an abundance of [[Arabic poetry]] in ''One Thousand and One Nights''. It is often deployed by stories' narrators to provide detailed descriptions, usually of the beauty of characters. Characters also occasionally quote or speak in verse in certain settings. The uses include but are not limited to:

* Giving advice, warning, and solutions.
* Praising God, royalties and those in power.
* Pleading for mercy and forgiveness.
* Lamenting wrong decisions or bad luck.
* Providing riddles, laying questions, challenges.
* Criticizing elements of life, wondering.
* Expressing feelings to others or one's self: happiness, sadness, anxiety, surprise, anger.

In a typical example, expressing feelings of happiness to oneself from Night 203, Prince Qamar Al-Zaman, standing outside the castle, wants to inform Queen Bodour of his arrival.<ref>[http://www.mythfolklore.net/1001nights/burton/kamar.htm Burton Nights]. Mythfolklore.net (2005-01-01). Retrieved on 2013-09-23.</ref> He wraps his ring in a paper and hands it to the servant who delivers it to the Queen. When she opens it and sees the ring, joy conquers her, and out of happiness she chants this poem:

{{Verse translation|{{abyat|shaterbyshater=1|وَلَقدْ نَدِمْتُ عَلى تَفَرُّقِ شَمْلِنا\\دَهْرًا وَفاضَ الدَّمْعُ مِنْ أَجْفاني
وَنَذَرْتُ إِنْ عادَ الزَّمانُ يَلُمُّنا\\لا عُدْتُ أَذْكُرُ فُرْقَةً بِلِساني
هَجَمَ السُّرورُ عَلَيَّ حَتَّى أَنَّهُ\\مِنْ فَرَطِ ما سَرَّني أَبْكاني
يا عَيْنُ صارَ الدَّمْعُ مِنْكِ سِجْيَةً\\تَبْكينَ مِنْ فَرَحٍ وَأَحْزاني}}|{{transliteration|ar|Wa-laqad nadimtu 'alá tafarruqi shamlinā}}
::{{transliteration|ar|Dahran wa-fāḍa ad-dam'u min ajfānī}}
{{transliteration|ar|Wa-nadhartu in 'āda az-zamānu yalummunā}}
::{{transliteration|ar|la 'udtu adhkuru furqatan bi-lisānī}}
{{transliteration|ar|Hajama as-surūru 'alayya ḥattá annahu}}
::{{transliteration|ar|min faraṭi mā sarranī abkānī}}
{{transliteration|ar|Yā 'aynu ṣāra ad-dam'u minki sijyatan}}
::{{transliteration|ar|tabkīna min faraḥin wa-aḥzānī}}|lang=ar|italicsoff=no|rtl1=y}}

Translations:

{{Verse translation|And I have regretted the separation of our companionship
::An eon, and tears flooded my eyes
And I've sworn if time brought us back together
::I'll never utter any separation with my tongue
Joy conquered me to the point of
::which it made me happy that I cried
Oh eye, the tears out of you became a principle
::You cry out of joy and out of sadness|Long, long have I bewailed the sev'rance of our loves,
::With tears that from my lids streamed down like burning rain
And vowed that, if the days deign reunite us two,
::My lips should never speak of severance again:
Joy hath o'erwhelmed me so that,
::for the very stress Of that which gladdens me to weeping I am fain.
Tears are become to you a habit, O my eyes,
::So that ye weep as well for gladness as for pain.|italicsoff=no|attr1=Literal translation|attr2=Burton's verse translation}}