Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 3.djvu/257

233 ointments and syrups, surrounded by cups of crystal, and donning a physician’s habit, took his seat in the shop, with his astrolabe and geomantic tablet before him. Then he clad Nimeh in a shirt and gown of silk and girding his middle with a silken kerchief embroidered with gold, made him sit before himself, saying to him, “O Nimeh, henceforth thou art my son; so call me nought but father and I will call thee son.” And he replied, “I hear and obey.” The people of Damascus flocked to gaze on the youth’s goodliness and the beauty of the shop and its contents, whilst the physician spoke to Nimeh in Persian and he answered him in the same tongue, for he knew the language, after the wont of the sons of the notables. The Persian soon became known among the townsfolk and they began to resort to him and acquaint him with their ailments, for which he prescribed. Moreover, they brought him the water of the sick in phials, and he would examine it and say, “He, whose water this is, is suffering from such and such a disease.” And the patient would say, “Verily, this physician says sooth.” So he continued to do the occasions of the folk and they to flock to him, till his fame spread throughout the city and into the houses of the great. One day, as he sat in his shop, there came up an old woman riding on an ass with housings of brocade, embroidered with jewels, and drawing bridle before his shop, beckoned to him, saying, “Take my hand.” So he took her hand, and she alighted and said to him, “Art thou the Persian physician from Irak?” “Yes,” answered he, and she said, “Know that I have a sick daughter.” Then she brought out to him a phial and he looked at it and said to her, “Tell me thy daughter’s name, that I may calculate her horoscope and learn the hour in which it will befit her to take medicine.” “O brother of the Persians,” answered she, “her name is Num.” When he heard this, he fell to calculating and writing on his hand and presently