So when I considered their words to decide, ✿ And not make me the mock of the cynical wight;
I pronounced for the youngest, declaring her verse ✿ Of all verses be that which is nearest the right.
Then I gave the scroll to the slave-girl, who went upstairs with it, and behold, I heard a noise of dancing and clapping of hands and Doomsday astir. Quoth I to myself, “’Tis no time for me to stay here.” So I came down from the platform and was about to go away, when the damsel cried out to me, “Sit down, O Asma’i!” Asked I, “Who gave thee to know that I was Al-Asma’i?” and she answered, “O Shaykh, an thy name be unknown to us, thy poetry is not!” So I sat down again and suddenly the door opened and out came the first damsel, with a dish of fruits and another of sweetmeats. I ate of both and praised their fashion and would have ganged my gait; but she cried out, “Sit down, O Asma’i!” Wherewith I raised my eyes to her and saw a rosy palm in a saffron sleeve, meseemed it was the full moon rising splendid in the cloudy East. Then she threw me a purse containing three hundred dinars and said to me, “This is mine and I give it to thee by way of douceur in requital of thy judgment.” Quoth the Caliph, “Why didst thou decide for the youngest?” and quoth Al-Asma’i, “O Commander of the Faithful, whose life Allah prolong! the eldest said:—I should delight in him, if he visited my couch in sleep. Now this is restricted and dependent upon a condition which may befal or may not befal; whilst, for the second, an image of dreams came to her in sleep, and she saluted it; but the youngest’s couplet said that she actually lay with her lover and smelt his breath sweeter than musk and she engaged her soul and her folk for him, which she had not done, were he not dearer to her than her sprite.” Said the Caliph, “Thou didst well, O Asma’i,” and gave him other three hundred ducats in payment of his story. And I have heard a tale concerning
[114]. See vol. iv., 159. The author of “Antar,” known to Englishmen by the old translation of Mr. Terrick Hamilton, secretary of Legation at Constantinople. There is an abridgement of the forty-five volumes of Al-Asma’i’s “Antar” which mostly supplies or rather supplied the “Antariyyah” or professional tale-tellers; whose theme was the heroic Mulatto lover.
[115]. The “Dakkah” or long wooden sofa, as opposed to the “mastabah” or stone bench, is often a tall platform and in mosques is a kind of ambo railed round and supported by columns. Here readers recite the Koran: Lane (M.E. chapt. iii.) sketches it in the “Interior of a Mosque.”
[116]. Alif (ا) Ha (ه) and Waw (و), the first, twenty-seventh and twenty-sixth letters of the Arabic alphabet: No. 1 is the most simple and difficult to write calligraphically.
[117]. Reeds washed with gold and used for love-letters, &c.
IBRAHIM OF MOSUL AND THE DEVIL.[[118]]
Quoth Abu Ishak Ibrahim al-Mausili:—I asked Al-Rashid once to give me a day’s leave that I might be private with the people of my household and my brethren, and he gave me leave for Saturday the Sabbath. So I went home and betook myself to making ready meat and drink and other necessaries and bade the doorkeepers shut the doors and let none come in to me. However, presently, as I sat in my sitting-chamber, with my women who were looking after my wants, behold, there appeared an old man of comely and reverend aspect,[[119]] clad in white clothes and a shirt of fine stuff with a doctor’s turband on his head and a silver-handled staff in his hand, and the house and porch were full of the perfumes wherewith he was scented. I was greatly vexed at his coming in to me and thought to turn away the doorkeepers; but he saluted me after the goodliest fashion and I returned his greeting and bade him be seated. So he sat down and began entertaining me with stories of the Arabs and their verses, till my anger left me and methought my servants had sought to pleasure me by admitting a man of such good breeding and fine culture. Then I asked him, “Art thou for meat?”; and he answered, “I have no need of it.” “And for drink?” quoth I, and quoth he, “That is as thou wilt.” So I drank off a pint of wine and poured him out the like. Then said he, “O Abu Ishak, wilt thou sing us somewhat, so we may hear of thine art that wherein thou excellest high and low?” His words angered me; but I swallowed my anger and taking the lute played and sang. “Well done, O Abu Ishak!”[[120]] said he; whereat my wrath redoubled and I said to myself, “Is it not enough that he should intrude upon me, without my leave, and importune me thus, but he must call me by name, as though he knew not the right way to address me?” Quoth he, “An thou wilt sing something more we will requite thee.” I dissembled my annoyance and took the lute and sang again, taking pains with what I sang and rising thereto altogether, in consideration of his saying, “We will requite thee.”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.