FALLING IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Often it happens that Love fastens itself to the heart as the result of a single glance. This variety of Love is divided into two classes.

The first class is the contrary of what we have just been describing, in that a man will fall head over heels in love with a mere form, without knowing who that person may be, what her name- is, or where she lives. This has happened to more than one man.

Our friend Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ishaq informed me, quoting a trustworthy authority whose name has escaped me-though I think it was Judge Ibn al-Hadhdha' that the poet Yusuf Ibn Harun, better known as al-Ramadi, was one day passing the Gate of the Perfumers at Cordova, a place where ladies were wont to congregate, when he espied a young girl who, as he said, "entirely captured my heart, so that all my limbs were penetrated by the love of her". He therefore turned aside from going to the mosque and set himself instead to following her, while she for her part set off towards the bridge, which she then crossed and came to the place known as al-Rabad.

When she reached the mausolea of the Banu Marwan (God have mercy on their souls!) that are erected over their graves in the cemetery of al-Rabad, beyond' the river, she observed him to have gone apart from the rest of the people and to be preoccupied solely with her.

She accordingly went up to him and said, "Why are you walking behind me?" He told her how sorely smitten he was with her, and she replied, "Have done with that! Do not seek to expose me to shame; you have no prospect of achieving your purpose, and there is no way to you're gratifying your desire. -"He countered," I am satisfied merely to look at you. "hat is permitted to you", she replied. Then he asked her, "My lady, are you a freewoman, or are you a slave?" "I am a slave", she answered. "And what is your name?" he enquired. "Khalwa", she told him. "And to whom do you belong?" He asked next.

To this she retorted,