Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/187

 He denounceth their filthy practices, saying, 'Do ye approach unto the males among mankind [FN#244] and leave your wives which your Lord hath created for you? Surely ye are a people who transgress!' These it is that liken girls to boys, of their exceeding profligacy and ungraciousness and inclination to follow the fiend and own lusts, so that they say, 'She is apt for two tricks,' [FN#245] and these are all wanderers from the way of right and the righteous. Quoth their chief Abu Nowas,

'Slim waist and boyish wits delight * Wencher, as well as Sodomite,' [FN#246]

As for what thou sayest of a youth's first hair on cheek and lips and how they add to his beauty and loveliness, by Allah, thou strayest from the straight path of sooth and sayest that which is other than the truth; for whiskers change the charms of the comely into ugliness (quoting these couplets),

'That sprouting hair upon his face took wreak * For lovers' vengeance, all did vainly seek. I see not on his face a sign fuli- * genous, except his curls are hue of reek. If so his paper [FN#247] mostly be begrimed * Where deemest thou the reed shall draw a streak? If any raise him other fairs above, * This only proves the judge of wits is weak.'

And when she ended her verse she resumed, 'Laud be to Allah Almighty,'" --And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Four Hundred and Twenty-third Night,