The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 09 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 09 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Kamar al-Zaman
said to the jeweller, "The setting is conformable to my wishes, but the
stone is not to my liking. I have a handsomer than this: so take the
seal-ring and give it to one of thy slave women." Then he gave him a
fourth stone and an hundred dinars, saying, "Take thy hire and excuse
the trouble we have given thee." Obayd replied, "O merchant, all the
trouble thou hast given us thou hast requited us and hast overwhelmed
us with thy great bounties: and indeed my heart is taken with love of
thee and I cannot brook parting from thee. So, Allah upon thee, be thou
my guest this night and heal my heart." He rejoined, "So be it; but
needs must I go to my Khan, that I may give a charge to my domestics
and tell them that I shall sleep abroad to-night, so they may not
expect me." "Where dost thou lodge?" asked the jeweller; and he
answered, "In such a Khan." Quoth Obayd, "I will come for thee there;"
and quoth the other "'Tis well." So the jeweller repaired to the Khan
before sundown, fearing lest his wife should be anangered with him, if
he returned home without his guest; and, carrying Kamar al-Zaman to his
house, seated him in a saloon that had not its match. Halimah saw him,
as he entered, and was ravished with him. They talked till supper was
served when they ate and drank; after which appeared coffee and
sherbets, and the jeweller ceased not to entertain him with talk till
eventide, when they prayed the obligatory prayers. Then entered a
handmaid with two cups[FN#410] of night drink, which when they had
drunk, drowsiness overcame them and they slept. Presently in came the
jeweller's wife and seeing them asleep, looked upon Kamar al-Zaman's
face and her wit was confounded at his beauty. Said she, "How can he
sleep who loveth the fair?" and, turning him over on his back, sat
astraddle upon his breast. Then, in the mania of her passion for him,
she rained down kisses on his cheeks, till she left a mark upon them
and they became exceeding red and his cheek bones shone; and, she
sucked his lips, till the blood ran out into her mouth; but with all
this, her fire was not quenched nor her thirst assuaged. She ceased not
to kiss and clip him and twine leg with leg, till the forebrow of Morn
grew white and the dawn broke forth in light; when she put in his
pocket four cockals[FN#411] and went away. Then she sent her maid with
something like snuff, which she applied to their nostrils and they
sneezed and awoke, when the slave-girl said, "O my lords, prayer is a
duty; so rise ye and pray the dawn-prayer." And she brought them basin
and ewer.[FN#412] Quoth Kaman al-Zamar "O master, 'tis late and we have
overslept ourselves;" and quoth the jeweller, "O my friend verily the
air of this room is heavy; for, whenever I sleep in it, this happens to
me." Rejoined Kamar al-Zaman, "True," and proceeded to make the Wuzu
ablution; but, when he put the water to his face, his cheeks and lips
burned him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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