There was once a King's daughter, whose heart was taken with
love of a black slave: he did away her maidenhead, and she
became passionately addicted to amorous dalliance, so that she
could not endure from it a single hour and made moan of her
case to one of her body women, who told her that no thing doth
the deed of kind more abundantly than the ape. Now it chanced,
one day, that an ape-leader passed under her lattice, with a
great ape; so she unveiled her face and looking upon the ape,
signed to him with her eyes, whereupon he broke his bonds and
shackles and climbed up to the princess, who hid him in a place
with her, and he abode, eating and drinking and cricketing,
night and day. Her father heard of this and would have killed
her; but she took the alarm and disguising herself in a [male]
slave's habit, loaded a mule with gold and jewels and precious
stuffs past count; then, taking horse with the ape, fled to
Cairo, where she took up her abode in one of the houses without
the city.
Now, every day, she used to buy meat of a young man, a butcher,
but came not to him till after noonday, pale and disordered in
face; so that he said in himself, 'There hangs some mystery by
this slave.' For she used to visit him in her slave's habit.
[Quoth the butcher,] So, one day, when she came to me as usual,
I went out after her, unseen, and ceased not to follow her from
place to place, so as she saw me not, till she came to her
lodging, without the city, and I looked in upon her, through a
cranny, and saw her light a fire and cook the meat, of which
she ate her fill and gave the rest to an ape she had with her.
Then she put off her slave's habit and donned the richest of
women's apparel; and so I knew that she was a woman. After this
she set on wine and drank and gave the ape to drink; and he
served her nigh half a score times, till she swooned away, when
he threw a silken coverlet over her and returned to his place.
Thereupon I went down into the midst of the place and the ape,
becoming aware of me, would have torn me in pieces; but I made
haste to pull out my knife and slit his paunch. The noise
aroused the young lady, who awoke, terrified and trembling; and
when she saw the ape in this plight, she gave such a shriek,
that her soul well-nigh departed her body. Then she fell down
in a swoon, and when she came to herself, she said to me, "What
moved thee to do thus? By Allah, I conjure thee to send me after
him!" But I spoke her fair and engaged to her that I would stand
in the ape's stead, in the matter of much clicketing, till her
trouble subsided and I took her to wife.
However, I fell short in this and could not endure to it; so I
complained of her case to a certain old woman, who engaged to
manage the affair and said to me, "Thou must bring me a cooking-
pot full of virgin vinegar and a pound of pyrethrum."[FN#68]
So I brought her what she sought, and she laid the pyrethrum
in the pot with the vinegar and set it on the fire, till it
boiled briskly. Then she bade me serve the girl, and I served
her, till she fainted away, when the old woman took her up, and
she unknowing, and set her kaze to the mouth of the cooking-pot.
The steam of the pot entered her poke and there fell from it
somewhat, which I examined and behold, it was two worms, one
black and the other yellow. Quoth the old woman, "The black was
bred of the embraces of the negro and the yellow of those of
the ape."
When my wife recovered from her swoon, she abode with me, in
all delight and solace of life, and sought not copulation, as
before, for God the Most High had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled and acquainted her with the case.
Moreover, [quoth he who tells the tale,] she took the old woman
to be to her in the stead of her mother, and she and Werdan and
his wife abode in joy and cheer, till there came to them the
Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies; and glory
be to the Living One, who dieth not and in whose hand is the
empire of the Seen and the Unseen!