Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 5.djvu/323

289 him. So she came up to her and kissed her hands and feet, till she made peace between them and they sat down together; whereupon the husband began to kiss her hands, saying, “God requite thee with all good, for that thou hast delivered me from her!” And the old woman marvelled at the wife’s cunning and ready wit. This, then, O King,’ said the vizier, ‘is one of many instances of the craft and malice and perfidy of women.’

When the King heard this story, he was persuaded by it and turned from his purpose to kill his son; but, on the fifth day, the damsel came in to him with a cup of poison in her hand, calling aloud for help and buffeting her cheeks and face, and said to him, ‘O King, either thou shalt do me justice and avenge me on thy son, or I will drink this cup of poison and die, and my blood will be on thy head at the Day of Resurrection. Thy viziers accuse me of malice and perfidy, but there be none in the world more perfidious than men. Hast thou not heard the story of the goldsmith and the Cashmere singing-girl?’ ‘What befell them, O damsel?’ asked the King; and she answered, saying, ‘It hath come to my knowledge, O august King, that THE GOLDSMITH AND THE CASHMERE SINGING-GIRL.

There lived once, in a city of Persia, a goldsmith who delighted in women and in drinking wine. One day, being in the house of one of his friends, he saw painted on the wall the figure of a beautiful damsel, never beheld eyes a fairer or a more pleasant. He looked at the picture again and again, marvelling at its beauty, and fell so desperately in love with it, that lie sickened for passion and came near to die. It chanced that one of his friends came to visit him and sitting down by him, enquired how he did and

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