Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 4.djvu/358

328 Whenas her favours I seek and sue for my heart’s desire, “Be gracious,” her beauty says; but her coquetry answers, “No.” Glory to Him who made beauty her portion, and that Of her lover to be the prate of the censurers, heigho!

Indeed, she captivated all who saw her, with the excellence of her beauty and the sweetness of her smile, and transpierced them with the arrows she launched from her eyes; and withal she was eloquent of speech and excellently skilled in poetry.

When Aboulhusn had squandered all his wealth and there remained to him nought but this slave-girl, when [I say] the wretchedness of his plight became manifest to him, he abode three days without tasting food or taking rest in sleep, and Taweddud said to him, ‘O my lord, carry me to the Khalif Haroun er Reshid, fifth of the sons of Abbas, and seek of him ten thousand dinars to my price. If he deem me dear at this price, say to him, “O Commander of the Faithful, my slave is worth more than this: do but prove her, and her value will be magnified in thine eyes, for she hath not her equal, and it were unfit that any but thou should possess her.” And beware, O my lord, of selling me for less than the sum I have named, for it is but little for the like of me.’ (Now Aboulhusn knew not her worth nor that she had no equal in her day.) So he carried her to the Khalif, to whom he repeated what she had bidden him say, and the Khalif said to her, ‘What is thy name?’ ‘Taweddud,’ answered she. ‘O Taweddud,’ asked he, ‘in what branches of knowledge dost thou excel?’ ‘O my lord,’ answered she, ‘I am versed in syntax and poetry and jurisprudence and exegesis and lexicography and music and the knowledge of the Divine ordinances and in arithmetic and geodesy and the fables of the ancients. I know the sublime Koran [by heart] and have read it according to the seven and the ten and the fourteen [modes]. I know the number of its