As she wished, she was created, after such a wise that lo! She in
beauty's mould was fashioned, perfect, neither less no mo'.
Loveliness itself enamoured of her lovely aspect is; Coyness
decks her and upon her, pride and pudour sweetly show.
In her face the full moon glitters and the branch is as her
shape; Musk her breath is, nor midst mortals is her equal,
high or low.
'Tis as if she had been moulded out of water of pure pearls; In
each member of her beauty is a very moon, I trow.

And her name was Zumurrud.

When Ali Shar saw her, he marvelled at her beauty and grace and said, 'By Allah, I will not stir hence till I see what price this girl fetches and know who buys her!' So he stood with the rest of the merchants, and they thought he had a mind to buy her, knowing the wealth he had inherited from his parents. Then the broker stood at the damsel's head and said, 'Ho, merchants! Ho, men of wealth! Who will open the biddings for this damsel, the mistress of moons, the splendid pearl, Zumurrud the Curtain-maker, the aim of the seeker and the delight of the desirous? Open the biddings, and on the opener be nor blame nor reproach.'

So one merchant said, 'I bid five hundred dinars for her.' 'And ten,' said another. 'Six hundred,' cried an old man named Reshideddin, blue-eyed and foul of face. 'And ten,' quoth another. 'I bid a thousand,' rejoined Reshideddin; whereupon the other merchants were silent and the broker took counsel with the girl's owner, who said, 'I have sworn not to sell her save to whom she shall choose; consult her.' So the broker went up to Zumurrud and said to her, 'O mistress of moons, yonder merchant hath a mind to buy thee.' She looked as Reshideddin and finding him as we have said, replied, 'I will not be sold to a grey- beard, whom decrepitude hath brought to evil plight.' 'Bravo,' quoth I, 'for one who saith:

I asked her for a kiss one day, but she my hoary head Saw, though
of wealth and worldly good I had great plentihead;
So, with a proud and flouting air, her back she turned on me And,
"No, by Him who fashioned men from nothingness!" she said.
"Now, by God's truth, I never had a mind to hoary hairs, And
shall my mouth be stuffed, forsooth, with cotton, ere I'm
dead?"

'By Allah,' quoth the broker, 'thou art excusable, and thy value is ten thousand dinars!' So he told her owner that she would not accept of Reshideddin, and he said, 'Ask her of another.' Thereupon another man came forward and said, 'I will take her at the same price.' She looked at him and seeing that his beard was dyed, said, 'What is this lewd and shameful fashion and blackening of the face of hoariness?' And she made a great show of amazement and repeated the following verses:

A sight, and what a sight, did such a one present To me! A neck,
to beat with shoes, by Allah, meant!
And eke a beard for lie a coursing-ground that was And brows for
binding on of ropes all crook'd and bent.[FN#12]
Thou that my cheeks and shape have ravished, with a lie Thou dost
disguise thyself and reck'st not, impudent;
Dyeing thy hoary hairs disgracefully with black[FN#13] And hiding
what appears, with fraudulent intent;
As of the puppet-men thou wert, with one beard go'st And with
another com'st again, incontinent.

And how well saith another:

Quoth she to me, "I see thou dy'st thy hoariness;" and I, "I do
but hide it from thy sight, O thou my ear and eye!"[FN#14]
She laughed out mockingly and said, "A wonder 'tis indeed! Thou
so aboundest in deceit that even thy hair's a lie."

'By Allah,' quoth the broker, 'thou hast spoken truly!' The merchant asked what she said: so the broker repeated the verses to him, and he knew that she was in the right and desisted from buying her. Then another came forward and would have bought her at the same price; but she looked at him and seeing that he had but one eye, said, 'This man is one-eyed; and it is of such as he that the poet saith: