Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/218



And how well saith another'

Quoth she, 'I see thee dye thy hoariness:' * 'To hide, O ears and eyes! from thee,' quoth I: She roared with laugh and said, 'Right funny this; * Thou art so     lying e'en

Now when the broker heard her verse he exclaimed, "By Allah thou hast spoken sooth!" The merchant asked what she said: so the broker repeated the verses to him; and he knew that she was in the right while he was wrong and desisted from buying her. Then another came forward and said, "Ask her if she will be mine at the same price;" but, when he did so, she looked at him and seeing that he had but one eye, said, "This man is one-eyed; and it is of such as he that the poet saith,

'Consort not with the Cyclops e'en a day; * Beware his falsehood and his mischief fly: Had this monocular a jot of good, * Allah had ne'er brought blindness to his eye!'"

Then said the broker, pointing to another bidder, "Wilt thou be sold to this man?" She looked at him and seeing that he was short of stature and had a beard that reached to his navel, cried, "This is he of whom the poet speaketh,

'I have a friend who hath a beard * Allah to useless length unroll'd: 'Tis like a certain winter night, * Longsome and darksome, drear and cold.'"

Said the broker, "O my lady, look who pleaseth thee of these that