“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

Somehow I accidentally got onto the poetry train. Ah well. As before, this is from Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett.

This one I love because of its resonance in the story. And the importance it plays in the relationship between the characters, whom I shall not name because I was so clever to choose the last volume to quote from and I am still hanging by my fingertips to my “no spoiler” policy. And it’s beautiful on its own.

Aşk Olsun sang the plaintive, sweet voices to the undulating airs one had heard inside Zante, through Thessalonika, within the gates of Topkapi itself. Aşkin Cemal Olsun . . . Let there be love. May thy love be beautiful. May thy beauty be light.

The truth is that thy body is free of all shadow.
To soul and brain from thy abode comes the perfume of Paradise.
O thy beauty!
The brightness of the day and the night!
Are made timid by thy hair . . .

The words used by the Bektashi in the ceremony of the tekke: how could a group of student singers know these?

Notes (to self): I took some liberties with the formatting. Zante, Thessalonika and Topkapi are places (right?) we stopped at or passed through in Pawn in Frankincense (Book 4).

Aşk Olsun is a song in Turkish. The Bektashi is a Sufi order; the tekke is a building the Sufi gather in for ceremonies now I am not sure what a tekke is because I just reread the quoted sentence and realised that I was being redundant. I probably should reread Pawn in Frankincense, but reading that will probably cause me to burst into incoherent tears at parts, so I’ll refrain doing so for the the time being. XD