Zgodba o zaljubljencih v šoli

Besedilo

Zgodba o zaljubljencih v šoli

Among the tales told is that of a boy and a slave girl who studied together at a school, where the boy fell in love with the girl. But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she fell silent, leaving her tale untold.

When it was the three hundred and eighty-fifth night,

She said: It has reached me, O fortunate King, that the boy fell deeply in love with the girl. One day, when the other children were not looking, he took her writing tablet and wrote these two verses upon it:

What say you of one whom love of you has wasted, till sickness leaves him lost and sore distressed? He mourns his longing, anguish, and affliction, unable to conceal what fills his breast. When the girl took up her tablet, she saw the verses written there. She read them, understood their meaning, and wept with pity for him. Then beneath the boy’s writing she wrote these two verses:

When we behold a lover worn by longing, we show him kindness in his hour of pain. He shall obtain from us his heart’s desire, whatever hardship falls to us thereby. It happened that the schoolmaster came in upon them and found the tablet while they were off their guard. He took it and read what was written there; then, moved to pity for them both, he wrote these two verses beneath theirs:

Grant your lover union; fear no punishment, for love has left him bewildered and astray. Nor need you dread the schoolmaster’s stern presence: he too has suffered love for many a day. Just then the girl’s master entered the schoolroom. Finding her tablet, he took it up and read what the girl, the youth, and the schoolmaster had written. Beneath all their verses he added these two of his own:

May God never part you all your lives, and may your slanderer languish, lost and weary. As for the schoolmaster—by God, my eyes have never seen a greater pander than he! Then the girl’s master sent for the judge and witnesses, and had her marriage contract with the young man drawn up then and there. He gave them a wedding feast and treated them with the greatest generosity. They lived together in happiness and delight until there came to them the Destroyer of Pleasures and the Sunderer of Companions.