Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/27

9 damsel, to whom quoth he, “Take thy guest.” She received me on the goodliest wise and I found in attendance on her four slave-girls, whom she commanded to bring food. So they brought a table spread with all kinds of meats, and I ate. When I had made an end of eating and the table had been removed, she took the lute and sang the following verses:

I abode with her a month, after which I returned to the old man and said to him, “I want her of the forty dinars [a night].” “Pay the money,” said he. So I counted out to him twelve hundred dinars and abode with her a month, as it were one day, for what I saw of the beauty of her person and the goodliness of her converse. After this I went to the old man one evening and heard a great clamour and loud voices. So I said to him, “What is to do?” And he answered, saying, “This is the night of our greatest holiday, whereon all the townsfolk embark on the river and divert themselves by gazing upon one another. Hast thou a mind to go up to the roof and amuse thyself by looking upon the folk?” “Yes,” answered I, and went up to the roof, whence I [looked down upon the river and] saw [a great multitude of] folk with flambeaux and cressets, and great mirth and merriment toward.

Then I went up to the end of the roof and saw there a little chamber railed off by a goodly curtain, and in its midst a couch of juniper-wood, plated with gold and covered with a handsome carpet. On this sat a lovely young lady, confounding all beholders with her beauty