Explore "Tancred" by Benjamin Disraeli on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THE beautiful daughter of Besso, pensive and abstracted, played with her beads in the pavilion of her grandfather. Two of her maidens, who had attended her, in a corner of this inner compartment, accompanied the wild murmur of their voices on a stringed instrument, which might in the old days have been a psaltery. They sang the loves of Antar and of Ibla, of Leila and of Mejnoun; the romance of the desert, tales of passion and of plunder, of the rescue of women and the capture of camels, of heroes with a lion heart, and heroines brighter and softer than the moon.
The beautiful daughter of Besso, pensive and abstracted, played with her beads in the pavilion of her grandfather. Why is the beautiful daughter of Besso pensive and abstracted? What thoughts are flitting over her mind, silent and soft, like the shadows of birds over the sunshiny earth?