Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/249

219 The Khalif bestowed a myriad each on Er Recashi and Abou Musab, but bade strike off Abou Nuwas’s head, saying, ‘Thou wast with us yesternight in the palace.’ ‘By Allah,’ answered the poet, ‘I slept not but in my own house! I was directed to what I said by thine own words as to the subject of the poem; and indeed quoth God the Most High (and He is the truest of all speakers), “As for poets (devils ensue them!) dost thou not see how they run wild in each valley and say that they do not?”’ So the Khalif forgave him and bestowed on him two myriads of gold. MUSAB BEN EZ ZUBEIR AND AAÏSHEH DAUGHTER OF TELHEH.

It is told of Musab ben ez Zubeir that he met Izzeh, who was one of the shrewdest of women, in Medina and said to her, ‘I have a mind to marry Aaïsheh, daughter of Telheh, and I would have thee go to her and spy out for me how she is made.’ So she went and returning to Musab, said, ‘I have seen her, and her face is more beautiful than health; she hath large and well-opened eyes, an aquiline nose and smooth, oval cheeks and a mouth like a cleft pomegranate, a neck like an ewer of silver and a bosom with two breasts like twin pomegranates, a slim waist and a slender belly, with a navel therein as it were a casket of ivory, and backside like a hummock of sand. Moreover, she hath plump thighs and legs like columns of alabaster; but I saw her feet to be large, and thou wilt fall short with her in time of amorous dalliance.’ Upon this report, he married her and Izzeh invited Aaïsheh and