noble dame who preferred to her handsome husband the palefrenier
laid, ord et infâme of Queen Margaret of Navarre (Heptameron No. xx.)
We have all known women who sacrificed everything despite themselves,
as it were, for the most worthless of men. The world stares and
scoffs and blames and understands nothing. There is for every woman
one man and one only in whose slavery she is "ready to sweep the
floor." Fate is mostly opposed to her meeting him but, when she does,
adieu husband and children, honour and religion, life and "soul."
Moreover Nature (human) commands the union of contrasts, such as fair
and foul, dark and light, tall and short; otherwise mankind would be
like the canines, a race of extremes, dwarf as toy-terriers, giants
like mastiffs, bald as Chinese "remedy dogs," or hairy as
Newfoundlands. The famous Wilkes said only a half-truth when he
backed himself, with an hour's start, against the handsomest man in
England; his uncommon and remarkable ugliness (he was, as the
Italians say, _un bel brutto_), was the highest recommendation in the
eyes of very beautiful women.
Footnote 125:
Every Moslem burial-ground has a place of the kind where honourable
women may sit and weep unseen by the multitude. These visits are
enjoined by the Apostle:—Frequent the cemetery, 'twill make you think
of futurity! Also:—Whoever visiteth the graves of his parents (or one
of them) every Friday, he shall be written a pious son, even though
he might have been in the world, before that, a disobedient.
(Pilgrimage ii., 71.) The buildings resemble our European "mortuary
chapels." Saíd, Pasha of Egypt, was kind enough to erect one on the
island off Suez, for the "use of English ladies who would like
shelter whilst weeping and wailing for their dead." But I never heard
that any of the ladies went there.
Footnote 126:
Arab. "Ajal"=the period of life, the appointed time of death: the
word is of constant recurrence and is also applied to sudden death.
See Lane's Dictionary, s.v.
Footnote 127:
"The dying Badawi to his tribe" (and lover) appears to me highly
pathetic. The wild people love to be buried upon hill-slopes whence
they can look down upon the camp; and they still call out the names
of kinsmen and friends as they pass by the grave-yards. A similar
piece occurs in Wetzstein (p. 27, "Reisebericht ueber Hauran,"
etc.):—
O bear with you my bones where the camel bears his load ✿ And bury me
before you, if buried I must be;
And let me not be buried 'neath the burden of the vine ✿ But high
upon the hill whence your sight I ever see!
As you pass along my grave cry aloud and name your names ✿ The crying
of your names shall revive the bones of me:
I have fasted through my life with my friends, and in my death, ✿ I
will feast when we meet, on that day of joy and glee.
Footnote 128:
The Akásirah (plur. of Kasrá=Chosroës) is here a title of the four
great dynasties of Persian Kings. 1. The Peshdadian or Assyrian race,
proto-historics for whom dates fail; 2. The Káyánián (Medes and
Persians) who ended with the Alexandrian invasion in B.C. 331; 3. The
Ashkánián (Parthenians or Arsacides) who ruled till A.D. 202; and 4.
The Sassanides which have already been mentioned. But strictly
speaking "Kisri" and "Kasra" are titles applied only to the latter
dynasty and especially to the great King Anushirwan. They must not be
confounded with "Khusrau" (P.N. Cyrus, Ahasuerus? Chosroës?); and yet
the three seem to have combined in "Cæsar," Kaysar and Czar. For
details especially connected with Zoroaster see vol. I, p. 380 of the
Dabistan or School of Manners, translated by David Shea and Anthony
Troyer, Paris, 1843. The book is most valuable, but the proper names
are so carelessly and incorrectly printed that the student is led
into perpetual error.
Footnote 129:
The words are the very lowest and coarsest; but the scene is true to
Arab life.
Footnote 130:
Arab. "Hayhát:" the word, written in a variety of ways is
onomatopoetic, like our "heigh-ho!" it sometimes means "far from me
(or you) be it!" but in popular usage it is simply "Alas."
Footnote 131:
Lane (i., 134) finds a date for the book in this passage. The Soldan
of Egypt, Mohammed ibn Kala'ún, in the early eighth century
(Hijrah=our fourteenth), issued a sumptuary law compelling Christians
and Jews to wear indigo-blue and saffron-yellow turbans, the white
being reserved for Moslems. But the custom was much older and
Mandeville (chapt. ix.) describes it in A.D. 1322 when it had become
the rule. And it still endures; although abolished in the cities it
is the rule for Christians, at least in the country parts of Egypt
and Syria. I may here remark that such detached passages as these are
absolutely useless for chronology: they may be simply the additions
of editors or mere copyists.
Footnote 132:
The ancient "Mustapha"=the Chosen (prophet, _i.e._ Mohammed), also
titled Al-Mujtabá, the Accepted (Pilgrimage, ii., 309). "Murtazá"=the
Elect, _i.e._ the Caliph Ali is the older "Mortada" or "Mortadi" of
Ockley and his day, meaning "one pleasing to (or acceptable to)
Allah." Still older writers corrupted it to "Mortis Ali" and readers
supposed this to be the Caliph's name.
Footnote 133:
The gleam (zodiacal light) preceding the true dawn; the Persians call
the former Subh-i-kázib (false or lying dawn) opposed to Subh-i-sádik
(true dawn) and suppose that it is caused by the sun shining through
a hole in the world-encircling Mount Kaf.
Footnote 134:
So the Heb. "Arún"=naked, means wearing the lower robe only;=our "in
his shirt."
Footnote 135:
Here we have the vulgar Egyptian colloquialism "Aysh" (= Ayyu
shayyin) for the classical "Má" = what.
Footnote 136:
"In the name of Allah!" here said before taking action.
Footnote 137:
Arab. "Mamlúk" (plur. Mamálik) lit. a chattel; and in The Nights a
white slave trained to arms. The "Mameluke Beys" of Egypt were
locally called the "Ghuzz." I use the convenient word in its old
popular sense;
'Tis sung, there's a valiant Mameluke
In foreign lands ycleped (_Sir Luke_)—
HUDIBRAS.
And hence, probably, Molière's "Mamamouchi"; and the modern French
use "Mamaluc." See Savary's Letters, No. xl.
THE PORTER AND THE THREE LADIES OF BAGHDAD.
Once upon a time there was a Porter in Baghdad, who was a bachelor and
who would remain unmarried. It came to pass on a certain day, as he
stood about the street leaning idly upon his crate, behold, there stood
before him an honourable woman in a mantilla of Mosul[138] silk,
broidered with gold and bordered with brocade; her walking-shoes were
also purfled with gold and her hair floated in long plaits. She raised
her face-veil[139] and, showing two black eyes fringed with jetty
lashes, whose glances were soft and languishing and whose perfect
beauty was ever blandishing, she accosted the Porter and said in the
suavest tones and choicest language, "Take up thy crate and follow me."
The Porter was so dazzled he could hardly believe that he heard her
aright, but he shouldered his basket in hot haste saying in himself, "O
day of good luck! O day of Allah's grace!" and walked after her till
she stopped at the door of a house. There she rapped, and presently
came out to her an old man, a Nazarene, to whom she gave a gold piece,
receiving from him in return what she required of strained wine clear
as olive oil; and she set it safely in the hamper, saying, "Lift and
follow." Quoth the Porter, "This, by Allah, is indeed an auspicious
day, a day propitious for the granting of all a man wisheth." He again
hoisted up the crate and followed her; till she stopped at a
fruiterer's shop and bought from him Shámi[140] apples and Osmáni
quinces and Omani[141] peaches, and cucumbers of Nile growth, and
Egyptian limes and Sultáni oranges and citrons; besides Aleppine
jasmine, scented myrtle berries, Damascene nenuphars, flower of
privet[142] and camomile, blood-red anemones, violets, and
pomegranate-bloom, eglantine and narcissus, and set the whole in the
Porter's crate, saying, "Up with it." So he lifted and followed her
till she stopped at a butcher's booth and said, "Cut me off ten pounds
of mutton." She paid him his price and he wrapped it in a banana-leaf,
whereupon she laid it in the crate and said "Hoist, O Porter." He
hoisted accordingly, and followed her as she walked on till she stopped
at a grocer's, where she bought dry fruits and pistachio-kernels,
Tihámah raisins, shelled almonds and all wanted for dessert, and said
to the Porter, "Lift and follow me." So he up with his hamper and after
her till she stayed at the confectioner's, and she bought an earthen
platter, and piled it with all kinds of sweetmeats in his shop,
open-worked tarts and fritters scented with musk and "soap-cakes," and
lemon-loaves and melon-preserves,[143] and "Zaynab's combs," and
"ladies' fingers," and "Kazi's tit-bits" and goodies of every
description; and placed the platter in the Porter's crate. Thereupon
quoth he (being a merry man), "Thou shouldest have told me, and I would
have brought with me a pony or a she-camel to carry all this
market-stuff." She smiled and gave him a little cuff on the nape
saying, "Step out and exceed not in words for (Allah willing!) thy wage
will not be wanting." Then she stopped at a perfumer's and took from
him ten sorts of waters, rose scented with musk, orange-flower,
water-lily, willow flower, violet and five others; and she also bought
two loaves of sugar, a bottle for perfume-spraying, a lump of male
incense, aloe-wood, ambergris and musk, with candles of Alexandria wax;
and she put the whole into the basket, saying, "Up with thy crate and
after me." He did so and followed until she stood before the
greengrocer's, of whom she bought pickled safflower and olives, in
brine and in oil; with tarragon and cream-cheese and hard Syrian
cheese; and she stowed them away in the crate saying to the Porter,
"Take up thy basket and follow me." He did so and went after her till
she came to a fair mansion fronted by a spacious court, a tall, fine
place to which columns gave strength and grace: and the gate thereof
had two leaves of ebony inlaid with plates of red gold. The lady
stopped at the door and, turning her face-veil sideways, knocked softly
with her knuckles whilst the Porter stood behind her, thinking of
naught save her beauty and loveliness. Presently the door swung back
and both leaves were opened, whereupon he looked to see who had opened
it; and behold, it was a lady of tall figure, some five feet high; a
model of beauty and loveliness, brilliance and symmetry and perfect
grace. Her forehead was flower-white; her cheeks like the anemone ruddy
bright; her eyes were those of the wild heifer or the gazelle, with
eyebrows like the crescent-moon which ends Sha'abán and begins
Ramazán;[144] her mouth was the ring of Sulayman,[145] her lips
coral-red, and her teeth like a line of strung pearls or of camomile
petals. Her throat recalled the antelope's, and her breasts, like two
pomegranates of even size, stood at bay as it were;[146] her body rose
and fell in waves below her dress like the rolls of a piece of brocade,
and her navel[147] would hold an ounce of benzoin ointment. In fine she
was like her of whom the poet said:—
On Sun and Moon of palace cast thy sight ✿ Enjoy her flower-like face,
her fragrant light:
Thine eyes shall never see in hair so black ✿ Beauty encase a brow so
purely white:
The ruddy rosy cheek proclaims her claim ✿ Though fail her name whose
beauties we indite:
As sways her gait I smile at hips so big ✿ And weep to see the waist
they bear so slight.
When the Porter looked upon her his wits were waylaid, and his senses
were stormed so that his crate went nigh to fall from his head, and he
said to himself, "Never have I in my life seen a day more blessed than
this day!" Then quoth the lady-portress to the lady-cateress, "Come in
from the gate and relieve this poor man of his load." So the
provisioner went in followed by the portress and the Porter and went on
till they reached a spacious ground-floor hall,[148] built with
admirable skill and beautified with all manner colours and carvings;
with upper balconies and groined arches and galleries and cupboards and
recesses whose curtains hung before them. In the midst stood a great
basin full of water surrounding a fine fountain, and at the upper end
on the raised dais was a couch of juniper-wood set with gems and
pearls, with a canopy like mosquito-curtains of red satin-silk looped
up with pearls as big as filberts and bigger. Thereupon sat a lady
bright of blee, with brow beaming brilliancy, the dream of philosophy,
whose eyes were fraught with Babel's gramarye[149] and her eyebrows
were arched as for archery; her breath breathed ambergris and perfumery
and her lips were sugar to taste and carnelian to see. Her stature was
straight as the letter ا[150] and her face shamed the noon-sun's
radiancy; and she was even as a galaxy, or a dome with golden marquetry
or a bride displayed in choicest finery or a noble maid of Araby.[151]
Right well of her sang the bard when he said:—
Her smiles twin rows of pearls display ✿ Chamomile-buds or rimey spray
Her tresses stray as night let down ✿ And shames her light the dawn o'
day.
[152] The third lady rising from the couch stepped forward with
graceful swaying gait till she reached the middle of the saloon, when
she said to her sisters, "Why stand ye here? take it down from this
poor man's head!" Then the cateress went and stood before him, and the
portress behind him while the third helped them, and they lifted the
load from the Porter's head; and, emptying it of all that was therein,
set everything in its place. Lastly they gave him two gold pieces,
saying, "Wend thy ways, O Porter." But he went not, for he stood
looking at the ladies and admiring what uncommon beauty was theirs, and
their pleasant manners and kindly dispositions (never had he seen
goodlier); and he gazed wistfully at that good store of wines and
sweet-scented flowers and fruits and other matters. Also he marvelled
with exceeding marvel, especially to see no man in the place and
delayed his going; whereupon quoth the eldest lady, "What aileth thee
that goest not; haply thy wage be too little?" And, turning to her
sister the cateress, she said, "Give him another dinar!" But the Porter
answered, "By Allah, my lady, it is not for the wage; my hire is never
more than two dirhams; but in very sooth my heart and my soul are taken
up with you and your condition. I wonder to see you single with ne'er a
man about you and not a soul to bear you company; and well you wot that
the minaret toppleth o'er unless it stand upon four, and you want this
same fourth; and women's pleasure without man is short of measure, even
as the poet said:—
Seest not we want for joy four things all told ✿ The harp and lute, the
flute and flageolet;
And be they companied with scents four-fold ✿ Rose, myrtle, anemone and
violet;
Nor please all eight an four thou wouldst withhold ✿ Good wine and
youth and gold and pretty pet.
You be three and want a fourth who shall be a person of good sense and
prudence; smart witted, and one apt to keep careful counsel." His words
pleased and amused them much; and they laughed at him and said, "And
who is to assure us of that? We are maidens and we fear to entrust our
secret where it may not be kept, for we have read in a certain
chronicle the lines of one Ibn al-Sumam:—
Hold fast thy secret and to none unfold ✿ Lost is a secret when that
secret's told:
An fail thy breast thy secret to conceal ✿ How canst thou hope
another's breast shall hold?
And Abu Nowás[153] said well on the same subject:—
Who trusteth secret to another's hand ✿ Upon his brow deserveth burn of
brand!"
When the Porter heard their words he rejoined, "By your lives! I am a
man of sense and a discreet, who hath read books and perused
chronicles; I reveal the fair and conceal the foul and I act as the
poet adviseth:—
None but the good a secret keep ✿ And good men keep it unrevealed:
It is to me a well-shut house ✿ With keyless locks and door
ensealed."[154]
When the maidens heard his verse and its poetical application addressed
to them they said, "Thou knowest that we have laid out all our monies
on this place. Now say, hast thou aught to offer us in return for
entertainment? For surely we will not suffer thee to sit in our company
and be our cup-companion, and gaze upon our faces so fair and so rare
without paying a round sum.[155] Wottest thou not the saying:—
Sans hope of gain
Love's not worth a grain?"
Whereto the lady-portress added, "If thou bring anything thou art a
something; if no thing, be off with thee, thou art a nothing;" but the
procuratrix interposed, saying, "Nay, O my sisters, leave teasing him,
for by Allah he hath not failed us this day, and had he been other he
never had kept patience with me, so whatever be his shot and scot I
will take it upon myself." The Porter, overjoyed, kissed the ground
before her and thanked her saying, "By Allah, these monies are the
first fruits this day hath given me." Hearing this they said, "Sit thee
down and welcome to thee," and the eldest lady added, "By Allah, we may
not suffer thee to join us save on one condition, and this it is, that
no questions be asked as to what concerneth thee not, and frowardness
shall be soundly flogged." Answered the Porter, "I agree to this, O my
lady, on my head and my eyes be it! Lookye, I am dumb, I have no
tongue." Then arose the provisioneress and tightening her girdle set
the table by the fountain and put the flowers and sweet herbs in their
jars, and strained the wine and ranged the flasks in row and made ready
every requisite. Then sat she down, she and her sisters, placing amidst
them the Porter who kept deeming himself in a dream; and she took up
the wine flagon, and poured out the first cup and drank it off, and
likewise a second and a third.[156] After this she filled a fourth cup
which she handed to one of her sisters; and, lastly, she crowned a
goblet and passed it to the Porter, saying:—
Drink the dear draught, drink free and fain ✿ What healeth every grief
and pain.
He took the cup in his hand and, louting low, returned his best thanks
and improvised:—
Drain not the bowl save with a trusty friend ✿ A man of worth whose
good old blood all know:
For wine, like wind, sucks sweetness from the sweet ✿ And stinks when
over stench it haply blow:
Adding:—
Drain not the bowl, save from dear hand like thine ✿ The cup recalls
thy gifts; thou, gifts of wine.
After repeating this couplet he kissed their hands and drank and was
drunk and sat swaying from side to side and pursued:—
All drinks wherein is blood the Law unclean ✿ Doth hold save one, the
bloodshed of the vine:
Fill! fill! take all my wealth bequeathed or won ✿ Thou fawn! a willing
ransom for those eyne.
Then the cateress crowned a cup and gave it to the portress, who took
it from her hand and thanked her and drank. Thereupon she poured again
and passed to the eldest lady who sat on the couch, and filled yet
another and handed it to the Porter. He kissed the ground before them;
and, after drinking and thanking them, he again began to recite:—
Here! Here! by Allah, here! ✿ Cups of the sweet, the dear!
Fill me a brimming bowl ✿ The Fount o' Life I speer
Then the Porter stood up before the mistress of the house and said, "O
lady, I am thy slave, thy Mameluke, thy white thrall, thy very
bondsman;" and he began reciting:—
A slave of slaves there standeth at thy door ✿ Lauding thy generous
boons and gifts galore:
Beauty! may he come in awhile to 'joy ✿ Thy charms? for Love and I part
nevermore!
She said to him, "Drink; and health and happiness attend thy drink." So
he took the cup and kissed her hand and recited these lines in
sing-song:—
I gave her brave old wine that like her cheeks ✿ Blushed red or flame
from furnace flaring up:
She bussed the brim and said with many a smile ✿ How durst thou deal
folk's cheek for folk to sup?
"Drink!" (said I) "these are tears of mine whose tinct ✿ Is heart-blood
sighs have boilèd in the cup."
She answered him in the following couplet:—
"An tears of blood for me, friend, thou hast shed ✿ Suffer me sup them,
by thy head and eyes!"
[Illustration]
Then the lady took the cup, and drank it off to her sisters' health,
and they ceased not drinking (the Porter being in the midst of them),
and dancing and laughing and reciting verses and singing ballads and
ritornellos. All this time the Porter was carrying on with them,
kissing, toying, biting, handling, groping, fingering; whilst one
thrust a dainty morsel in his mouth, and another slapped him; and this
cuffed his cheeks, and that threw sweet flowers at him; and he was in
the very paradise of pleasure, as though he were sitting in the seventh
sphere among the Houris[157] of Heaven. They ceased not doing after
this fashion until the wine played tricks in their heads and worsted
their wits; and, when the drink got the better of them, the portress
stood up and doffed her clothes till she was mother-naked. However, she
let down her hair about her body by way of shift, and throwing herself
into the basin disported herself and dived like a duck and swam up and
down, and took water in her mouth, and spurted it all over the Porter,
and washed her limbs, and between her breasts, and inside her thighs
and all around her navel. Then she came up out of the cistern and
throwing herself on the Porter's lap said, "O my lord, O my love, what
callest thou this article?" pointing to her slit, her solution of
continuity. "I call that thy cleft," quoth the Porter, and she
rejoined, "Wah! wah! art thou not ashamed to use such a word?" and she
caught him by the collar and soundly cuffed him. Said he again, "Thy
womb, thy vulva;" and she struck him a second slap crying, "O fie, O
fie, this is another ugly word; is there no shame in thee?" Quoth he,
"Thy coynte;" and she cried, "O thou! art wholly destitute of modesty?"
and thumped him and bashed him. Then cried the Porter, "Thy
clitoris,"[158] whereat the eldest lady came down upon him with a yet
sorer beating, and said, "No;" and he said, "'Tis so," and the Porter
went on calling the same commodity by sundry other names, but whatever
he said they beat him more and more till his neck ached and swelled
with the blows he had gotten; and on this wise they made him a butt and
a laughing-stock. At last he turned upon them asking, "And what do you
women call this article?" Whereto the damsel made answer, "The basil of
the bridges."[159] Cried the Porter, "Thank Allah for my safety: aid me
and be thou propitious, O basil of the bridges!" They passed round the
cup and tossed off the bowl again, when the second lady stood up; and,
stripping off all her clothes, cast herself into the cistern and did as
the first had done; then she came out of the water and throwing her
naked form on the Porter's lap pointed to her machine and said, "O
light of mine eyes, do tell me what is the name of this concern?" He
replied as before, "Thy slit;" and she rejoined, "Hath such term no
shame for thee?" and cuffed him and buffeted him till the saloon rang
with the blows. Then quoth she, "O fie! O fie! how canst thou say this
without blushing?" He suggested, "The basil of the bridges;" but she
would not have it and she said, "No! no!" and struck him and slapped
him on the back of the neck. Then he began calling out all the names he
knew, "Thy slit, thy womb, thy coynte, thy clitoris;" and the girls
kept on saying, "No! no!" So he said, "I stick to the basil of the
bridges;" and all the three laughed till they fell on their backs and
laid slaps on his neck and said, "No! no! that's not its proper name."
Thereupon he cried, "O my sisters, what _is_ its name?" and they
replied, "What sayest thou to the husked sesame-seed?" Then the
cateress donned her clothes and they fell again to carousing, but the
Porter kept moaning, "Oh! and Oh!" for his neck and shoulders, and the
cup passed merrily round and round again for a full hour. After that
time the eldest and handsomest lady stood up and stripped off her
garments, whereupon the Porter took his neck in hand, and rubbed and
shampoo'd it, saying, "My neck and shoulders are on the way of
Allah!"[160] Then she threw herself into the basin, and swam and dived,
sported and washed; and the Porter looked at her naked figure as though
she had been a slice of the moon[161] and at her face with the sheen of
Luna when at full, or like the dawn when it brighteneth, and he noted
her noble stature and shape, and those glorious forms that quivered as
she went; for she was naked as the Lord made her. Then he cried "Alack!
Alack!" and began to address her, versifying in these couplets:—
"If I liken thy shape to the bough when green ✿ My likeness errs and I
sore mistake it;
For the bough is fairest when clad the most ✿ And thou art fairest when
mother-naked."