Too many Eastern stories turn upon the artful devices of women to screen
their own profligacy, but there is one, told by Arab Sháh, the
celebrated historian, who died A.D. 1450, in a collection entitled
_Fakihat al-Khalífa_, or Pastimes of the Khalífs, in which a lady
exhibits great ingenuity, without any very objectionable motive. It is
to the following effect:
A young merchant in Baghdád had placed over the front of his shop,
instead of a sentence from the Kurán, as is customary, these arrogant
words: "VERILY THERE IS NO CUNNING LIKE UNTO THAT OF MAN, SEEING IT
SURPASSES THE CUNNING OF WOMEN." It happened one day that a very
beautiful young lady, who had been sent by her aunt to purchase some
rich stuffs for dresses, noticed this inscription, and at once resolved
to compel the despiser of her sex to alter it. Entering the shop, she
said to him, after the usual salutations: "You see my person; can anyone
presume to say that I am humpbacked?" He had hardly recovered from the
astonishment caused by such a question, when the lady drew her veil a
little to one side and continued: "Surely my neck is not as that of a
raven, or as the ebony idols of Ethiopia?" The young merchant, between
surprise and delight, signified his assent. "Nor is my chin double,"
said she, still farther unveiling her face; "nor my lips thick, like
those of a Tartar?" Here the young merchant smiled. "Nor are they to be
believed who say that my nose is flat and my cheeks are sunken?" The
merchant was about to express his horror at the bare idea of such
blasphemy, when the lady wholly removed her veil and allowed her beauty
to flash upon the bewildered youth, who instantly became madly in love
with her. "Fairest of creatures!" he cried, "to what accident do I owe
the view of those charms, which are hidden from the eyes of the less
fortunate of my sex?" She replied: "You see in me an unfortunate damsel,
and I shall explain the cause of my present conduct. My mother, who was
sister to a rich amír of Mecca, died some years ago, leaving my father
in possession of an immense fortune and myself as sole heiress. I am now
seventeen, my personal endowments are such as you behold, and a very
small portion of my mother's fortune would quite suffice to obtain for
me a good establishment in marriage. Yet such is the unfeeling avarice
of my father, that he absolutely refuses me the least trifle to settle
me in life. The only counsellor to whom I could apply for help in this
extremity was my kind nurse, and it is by her advice, as well as from
the high opinion I have ever heard expressed of your merits, that I have
been induced to throw myself upon your goodness in this extraordinary
manner." The emotions of the young merchant on hearing this story, may
be readily imagined. "Cruel parent!" he exclaimed. "He must be a rock of
the desert, not a man, who can condemn so charming a person to perpetual
solitude, when the slightest possible sacrifice on his part might
prevent it. May I inquire his name?" "He is the chief kází," replied the
lady, and disappeared like a vision.
The young merchant lost no time in waiting on the kází at his court of
justice, whom he thus addressed: "My lord, I am come to ask your
daughter in marriage, of whom I am deeply enamoured." Quoth the judge:
"Sir, my daughter is unworthy of the honour you design for her. But be
pleased to accompany me to my dwelling, where we can talk over this
matter more at leisure." They proceeded thither accordingly, and after
partaking of refreshments, the young man repeated his request, giving a
true account of his position and prospects, and offering to settle
fifteen purses on the young lady. The kází expressed his gratification,
but doubted whether the offer was made in all seriousness, but when
assured that such was the case, he said: "I no longer doubt your
earnestness and sincerity in this affair; it is, however, just possible
that your feelings may change after the marriage, and it is but natural
that I should now take proper precautions for my daughter's welfare. You
will not blame me, therefore, if, in addition to the fifteen purses you
have offered, I require that five more be paid down previous to the
marriage, to be forfeited in case of a divorce." "Say ten," cried the
merchant, and the kází looked more and more astonished, and even
ventured to remonstrate with him on his precipitancy, but without
effect. To be brief, the kází consented, the ten purses were paid down,
the legal witnesses summoned, and the nuptial contract signed that very
evening; the consummation of the marriage being, much against the will
of our lover, deferred till the following day.
When the wedding guests had dispersed, the young merchant was admitted
to the chamber of his bride, whom he discovered to be humpbacked and
hideous beyond conception! As soon as it was day, he arose from his
sleepless couch and repaired to the public baths, where, after his
ablutions, he gave himself up to melancholy reflections. Mingled with
grief for his disappointment was mortification at having been the dupe
of what now appeared to him a very shallow artifice, which nothing but
his own passionate and unthinking precipitation could have rendered
plausible. Nor was he without some twinges of conscience for the
sarcasms which he had often uttered against women, and for which his
present sufferings were no more than a just retribution. Then came
meditations of revenge upon the beautiful author of all this mischief;
and then his thoughts reverted to the possible means of escape from his
difficulties: the forfeiture of the ten purses, to say nothing of the
implacable resentment of the kází and his relatives; and he bethought
himself how he should become the talk of his neighbourhood--how Malik
bin Omar, the jeweller, would sneer at him, and Salih, the barber, talk
sententiously of his folly. At length, finding reflection of no avail,
he arose and with slow and pensive steps proceeded to his shop.
His marriage with the kází's deformed daughter had already become known
to his neighbours, who presently came to rally him upon his choice of
such a bride, and scarcely had they left when the young lady who had so
artfully tricked him entered with a playful smile on her lips, and a
glancing in her dark eye, which speedily put to flight the young
merchant's thoughts of revenge. He arose and greeted her courteously.
"May this day be propitious to thee!" said she. "May Allah protect and
bless thee!" Replied he: "Fairest of earthly creatures, how have I
offended thee that thou shouldst make me the subject of thy sport?"
"From thee," she said, "I have received no personal injury." "What,
then, can have been thy motive for practising so cruel a deception on
one who has never harmed thee?" The young lady simply pointed to the
inscription over the shop front. The merchant was abashed, but felt
somewhat relieved on seeing good humour beaming from her beautiful eyes,
and he immediately took down the inscription, and substituted another,
which declared that "TRULY THERE IS NO CUNNING LIKE UNTO THE CUNNING OF
WOMEN, SEEING IT SURPASSES AND CONFOUNDS EVEN THE CUNNING OF MEN." Then
the young lady communicated to him a plan by which he might get rid of
his objectionable bride without incurring her father's resentment, which
he forthwith put into practice.
Next morning, as the kází and his son-in-law were taking their coffee
together, in the house of the former, they heard a strange noise in the
street, and, descending to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, found
that it proceeded from a crowd of low fellows--mountebanks, and such
like gentry, who had assembled with all sorts of musical instruments,
with which they kept up a deafening din, at the same time dancing and
capering about, and loudly felicitating themselves on the marriage of
their pretended kinsman with the kází's daughter. The young merchant
acknowledged their compliments by throwing handfuls of money among the
crowd, which caused a renewal of the dreadful clamour. When the noise
had somewhat subsided, the kází, hitherto dumb from astonishment, turned
to his son-in-law, and demanded to know the meaning of such a scene
before his mansion. The merchant replied that the leaders of the crowd
were his kinsfolk, although his father had abandoned the fraternity and
adopted commercial pursuits. He could not, however, disown his kindred,
even for the sake of the kází's daughter. On hearing this the judge was
beside himself with rage and mortification, exclaiming: "Dog, and son of
a dog! what dirt is this you have made me eat?" The merchant reminded
him that he was now his son-in-law; that his daughter was his lawful
wife; declaring that he would not part with her for untold wealth. But
the kází insisted upon a divorce and returned the merchant his ten
purses. In the sequel, the young merchant, having ascertained the
parentage of the clever damsel, obtained her in marriage, and lived with
her for many years in happiness and prosperity.[33]
[33] This story has been taken from Arab Sháh into the
Breslau printed Arabic text of the _Thousand and One
Nights_, where it is related at great length. The
original was rendered into French under the title of
"Ruses des Femmes" (in the Arabic _Ked-an-Nisa_,
Stratagems of Women) by Lescallier, and appended to his
version of the Voyages of Sindbád, published at Paris in
1814, long before the Breslau text of _The Nights_ was
known to exist. It also forms part of one of the Persian
Tales (_Hazár ú Yek Rúz_, 1001 Days) translated by Petis
de la Croix, where, however, the trick is played on the
kází, not on a young merchant.