‘Declare to (us)’, saith the elder to the bird, ‘what are those three most beautiful rays in thy breasts?’
‘I will tell you’, saith the bird, ‘There was a man in the world whose wife I was, and I did not his will, and I clave not to lawful wedlock. He was sick and I was not with him. And I went three times to visit him, to wit, once to see him, another time with food for him, and the third time to attend him and to watch him. So that those (three times) are the three very beautiful rays in my breast; and all my colour would have been (like) that had not I severed from lawful wedlock.’