Editing One Thousand and One Nights (section)

===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}}