Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/16

4

Then she said to him, ‘Harkye, sirrah! Begone about thy business, for we are none of the women who are neither thine nor another’s.’ And he answered, ‘O my lady, I said nothing ill.’ Quoth she, ‘Thou soughtest to divert thyself with the sight [of the garden] and thou hast looked on it; so go thy ways.’ ‘O my lady,’ said he, ‘belike [thou wilt give me] a draught of water, for I am athirst.’ Quoth she, ‘How canst thou drink of a Jew’s water, and thou a Nazarene?’ But he replied, ‘O my lady, your water is not forbidden to us nor ours to you, for we are all [as] one creature.’ So she said to her slave-girl, ‘Give him to drink.’ And she did so. Then she called for the table of food, and there came four damsels, high-bosomed maids, bearing four trays [of meats] and four flagons full of old wine, as it were the tears of a slave of love for clearness, and [set them down before him on] a table around whose marge were graven the following verses: