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Then the broker carried her to another and she looked at him and seeing that he had a long beard, said to the broker, ‘Out on thee! This is a ram, whose tail has sprouted from his gullet. Wilt thou sell me to him, O unluckiest of brokers? Hast thou not heard that all long-bearded men are little of wit? Indeed, after the measure of the length of the beard is the lack of understanding; and this is a well-known thing among men of sense. As saith one of the poets:
No man, whose beard is long, although he gain some whit In gravity of mien and dignity by it,
There lives, but every inch that’s added to his beard In length the like thereof is taken from his wit.
And quoth another:
I have a friend, who hath a beard that God Caused flourish without profit, till, behold,
’Tis, as it were, to look upon, a night Of middle winter, long and dark and cold.’
With this the broker took her and turned away with her, and she said to him, ‘Whither goest thou with me?’ ‘Back to thy master the Persian,’ answered he; ‘it suffices me what hath befallen me because of thee this day; for thou hast spoilt both my trade and his by thine unmannerliness.’ Then she looked about the market right and left and front and rear, till, as fate would have it, her eyes fell on Ali Noureddin. So she looked at him and saw him to be a comely youth, fourteen years old, like the moon on the night of its full, surpassing in beauty and loveliness and elegance and amorous grace, smooth-faced and slender-shaped, with flower-white forehead and rosy cheeks, neck like alabaster and teeth like jewels and spittle sweeter than sugar, even as saith of him one of his describers:
