Quoth her master, “Sit thee down: this much sufficeth.” So she sat down and he signed to the slender girl, who rose, as she were a willow-wand, or a rattan-frond or a stalk of sweet basil, and said:—Praised be Allah who created me and beautified me and made my embraces the end of all desire and likened me to the branch, whereto all hearts incline. If I rise, I rise lightly; if I sit, I sit prettily; I am nimble-witted at a jest and merrier-souled than mirth itself. Never heard I one describe his mistress, saying, “My beloved is the bigness of an elephant or like a mountain long and broad;” but rather, “My lady hath a slender waist and a slim shape.”[[373]] Furthermore a little food filleth me and a little water quencheth my thirst; my sport is agile and my habit active; for I am sprightlier than the sparrow and lighter-skipping than the starling. My favours are the longing of the lover and the delight of the desirer; for I am goodly of shape, sweet of smile and graceful as the bending willow-wand or the rattan-cane[[374]] or the stalk of the basil-plant; nor is there any can compare with me in loveliness, even as saith one of me:—
Thy shape with willow branch I dare compare, ✿ And hold thy figure as my fortunes fair:
I wake each morn distraught, and follow thee, ✿ And from the rival’s eye in fear I fare.
It is for the like of me that amourists run mad and that those who desire me wax distracted. If my lover would draw me to him, I am drawn to him; and if he would have me incline to him, I incline to him and not against him. But now, as for thee, O fat of body, thine eating is the feeding of an elephant, and neither much nor little filleth thee. When thou liest with a man who is lean, he hath no ease of thee; nor can he anyways take his pleasure of thee; for the bigness of thy belly holdeth him off from going in unto thee and the fatness of thy thighs hindereth him from coming at thy slit. What goodness is there in thy grossness, and what courtesy or pleasantness in thy coarseness? Fat flesh is fit for naught but the flesher, nor is there one point therein that pleadeth for praise. If one joke with thee, thou art angry; if one sport with thee, thou art sulky; if thou sleep, thou snorest; if thou walk, thou lollest out thy tongue! if thou eat, thou art never filled. Thou art heavier than mountains and fouler than corruption and crime. Thou hast in thee nor agility nor benedicite nor thinkest thou of aught save meat and sleep. When thou pissest thou swishest; if thou turd thou gruntest like a bursten wine-skin or an elephant transmogrified. If thou go to the water-closet, thou needest one to wash thy gap and pluck out the hairs which overgrow it; and this is the extreme of sluggishness and the sign, outward and visible, of stupidity.[[375]] In short, there is no good thing about thee, and indeed the poet saith of thee:—
Heavy and swollen like an urine-bladder blown, ✿ With hips and thighs like mountain propping piles of stone;
Whene’er she walks in Western hemisphere, her tread ✿ Makes the far Eastern world with weight to moan and groan.
Quoth her master, “Sit thee down, this sufficeth;” so she sat down and he signed to the yellow girl, who rose to her feet and praised Allah Almighty and magnified His name, calling down peace and blessing on Mohammed the best of His creatures; after which she pointed her finger at the brunette and said to her,——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Three Hundred and Thirty-seventh Night,
She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the yellow girl stood up and praised Almighty Allah and magnified His name; after which she pointed her finger at the brown girl and said to her:—I am the one praised in the Koran, and the Compassionate hath described my complexion and its excellence over all other hues in His manifest Book, where Allah saith, “A yellow, pure yellow, whose colour gladdeneth the beholders.”[[376]] Wherefore my colour is a sign and portent and my grace is supreme and my beauty a term extreme; for that my tint is the tint of a ducat and the colour of the planets and moons and the hue of ripe apples. My fashion is the fashion of the fair, and the dye of saffron outvieth all other dyes; so my semblance is wondrous and my colour marvellous. I am soft of body and of high price, comprising all qualities of beauty. My colour is essentially precious as virgin gold, and how many boasts and glories doth it not unfold! Of the like of me quoth the poet:—
Her golden yellow is the sheeny sun’s; ✿ And like gold sequins she delights the sight: