Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/330

300

‘God exalt the Amir!’ answered she and recited this verse in reply:

Her reply pleased him; so he bought her for threescore and ten thousand dirhems and begat on her Obeidallah ben Mohammed, after police-magistrate [at Baghdad]. THE WOMAN WHO HAD A BOY AND THE OTHER WHO HAD A MAN TO LOVER.

(Quoth Abou el Ainaä ), There were in our street two women, one of whom had to lover a man and the other a beardless boy, and they foregathered one night on the roof of a house, not knowing that I was within hearing. Quoth one to the other, “O my sister, how canst thou brook the harshness of thy lover’s beard, as it falls on thy breast, when he kisses thee, and his moustaches rub thy cheek and lips?” “Silly wench that thou art,” replied the other, “what adorns the tree but its leaves and the cucumber but its bloom? Didst ever see aught uglier than a scald-head, with his beard plucked out? Knowest thou not that the beard is to men as the side-locks to women; and what is the difference between the chin and the cheek? Knowest thou not that God (blessed and exalted be He) hath created an angel in heaven, who saith, ‘Glory be to Him who adorneth men with beards and women with tresses?’tresses’? [sic] So, were not the beard even as the tresses in comeliness, it had not been coupled with them, O silly woman! How shall I underlie a boy, who