Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 4.djvu/271

 boat and go a-pleasuring on the river. So I went out with my comrades, and saw a skiff, wherein were ten damsels like moons and amongst them, the Lady Budur lute in hand. She preluded in eleven modes, then, returning to the first, sang these two couplets,

'Fire is cooler than fires in my breast, * Rock is softer than heart of my lord Marvel I that he's formèd to hold * In water soft frame heart rock-hard!'

Said I to her, 'Repeat the couplets and the air!' But she would not:'"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Three Hundred and Thirty-fourth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that "Jubayr continued, 'So cried I to her, Repeat the couplets and the air!' But she would not; whereupon I bade the boatmen pelt her with oranges, and they pelted her till we feared her boat would founder Then she went her way, and this is how the love was transferred from her heart to mine.' So I wished them joy of their union and, taking the purse with its contents, I returned to Baghdad." Now when the Caliph heard Ibn Mansur's story his heart was lightened and the restlessness and oppression from which he suffered forsook him. And they also tell the tale of

THE MAN OF AI-YAMAN AND HIS SIX SlAVE-GIRLS.

The Caliph Al-Maamun was sitting one day in his palace, surrounded by his Lords of the realm and Officers of state, and there were present also before him all his poets and cup- companions amongst the rest one named Mohammed of Bassorah. Presently the Caliph turned and said to him, "O Mohammed, I wish thee forthwith to tell me something that I have never before heard." He replied, "O Commander of the Faithful, dost thou wish me to tell thee a thing I have heard with my ears or a thing I have seen with my eyes?" Quoth Al-Maamun, "Tell me whichever is the rarer; so Mohammed al-Basri began: "Know, then, O Commander of the Faithful that there lived once upon a time wealthy