Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/217

Rh mûsh lâzim eddî-lo moyeh yishrab, wala hala yimûtt? el-wezîr ’âl: na’am, ana ma’aggir el-bostân, lâkin ana s’mêt séba’ dakhal fîl bostân; lâkin ana magdarshi ahhûsh fîl bostân bâd es-séba’ la mayetla’ el-bostân; ubâdên es-sultân ’âl-lo: na’am, es-séba’ dakhal el-bostân, lâkin ma’arash el-ashgar: ubâdên el-wezîr yistanna fîl hharîm betâ’o zê en-nehardeh.

"There was once a sultan of amorous proclivities, and it happened that he sees a lady:—she leaves her husband (and) departs to another town; then he returns home. Now there was a vizier; he had a pretty wife; when he hears that the sultan is come to the house during the night,—the vizier's wife, when she hears that the sultan is come here, buys some fish and prepares all kinds of things, and then when the sultan is arrived she placed the food for him on the table before him. Then he ate some of it and perceived that the taste was that of fish. So he said to her: 'There are plenty of things, but they all taste of fish.' She replied: 'O sultan, we also, we women, are all just the same.' He answered: 'I have never done anything in the world at all naughty.' Then when the vizier is come, he heard that the sultan has come to (his) house; so he did not sleep with his wives. The lady dressed herself like a man and went to the sultan; no one recognised that she was a lady. And the sultan said to her: 'What do you want, my clever fellow?' She replied: 'My business is with the vizier.' The vizier was brought to him: when the vizier was come, he said to him, namely, to the vizier: 'Some one hired from me a garden: when he hired the garden of me ought he not to have given it water to drink, otherwise it would have died?' The vizier answered: 'Certainly: I hired the garden, but I heard that a lion had entered the garden; but I could not enter the garden until the lion had quitted the garden.' Then the sultan said to him: 'Certainly; the lion entered the garden, but it did not injure the trees.’ So the vizier remains among his women as is the case to-day." No. 2. Kân fî wâhid ’Ali; lamma tegî ’adîyeh yîgî waya hharamât, mâfîsh waya rigâlah. Ubâdên es-sitt betâ’o gai za’lân. ’Â’let liggârîyeh: ya bint! ’âlet: na’am! Khod arba’ ’ersh we ruhhe fissúq; ishtêri samak yekûn hhâi. Ishtéri es-samak yekûn hhâi.