The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume I
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume I
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
name of this?' 'Thy commodity,' answered he. 'Art thou not
ashamed?' said she, and dealt him a buffet that made the place
ring again, repeating, 'Fie! Fie! art thou not ashamed?' Quoth
he, 'The sweet basil of the dykes.' 'No! No!' answered she, and
beat him and cuffed him on the nape. Then said he, 'Thy kaze, thy
tout, thy catso, thy coney.' But they replied, 'No! No!' And he
said again, 'The sweet basil of the dykes.' Whereupon they
laughed till they fell backward and cuffed him on the neck,
saying, 'No; that is not its name.' At last he said, 'O my
sisters, what is its name?' And they answered, 'What sayest thou
to the peeled barleycorn?' Then the cateress put on her clothes
and they sat down again to carouse, whilst the porter lamented
over his neck and shoulders. The cup passed round among them
awhile, and presently the eldest and handsomest of the ladies
rose and put off her clothes; whereupon the porter took his neck
in his hand and said, 'My neck and shoulders are in the way of
God!' Then she threw herself into the basin and plunged and
sported and washed; whilst the porter looked at her, naked, as
she were a piece of the moon or the full moon when she waxes or
the dawn at its brightest, and noted her shape and breasts and
her heavy quivering buttocks, for she was naked as God created
her. And he said, 'Alack!' Alack!' and repeated the following
verses:
If to the newly-budded branch thy figure I compare, I lay upon my
heart a load of wrong too great to bear;
For that the branch most lovely is, when clad upon with green,
But thou, when free of every veil, art then by far most
fair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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