And how well saith another'
Quoth she, 'I see thee dye thy hoariness:'[1] * 'To hide, O
ears and eyes! from thee,' quoth I:
She roared with laugh and said, 'Right funny this; * Thou art so
lying e'en
Now when the broker heard her verse he exclaimed, "By Allah thou hast spoken sooth!" The merchant asked what she said: so the broker repeated the verses to him; and he knew that she was in the right while he was wrong and desisted from buying her. Then another came forward and said, "Ask her if she will be mine at the same price;" but, when he did so, she looked at him and seeing that he had but one eye, said, "This man is one-eyed; and it is of such as he that the poet saith,[2]
'Consort not with the Cyclops e'en a day; * Beware his falsehood
and his mischief fly:
Had this monocular a jot of good, * Allah had ne'er brought
blindness to his eye!'"
Then said the broker, pointing to another bidder, "Wilt thou be sold to this man?" She looked at him and seeing that he was short of stature[3] and had a beard that reached to his navel, cried, "This is he of whom the poet speaketh,
'I have a friend who hath a beard * Allah to useless length
unroll'd:
'Tis like a certain[4] winter night, * Longsome and
darksome, drear and cold.'"
Said the broker, "O my lady, look who pleaseth thee of these that
- ↑ Mohammed (Mishkát al-Masábih ii. 360-62) says, "Change the whiteness of your hair but not with anything black." Abu Bakr, who was two years and some months older than the Prophet, used tincture of Henna and Katam. Old Turkish officers justify black dyes because these make them look younger and fiercer. Henna stains white hair orange red; and the Persians apply after it a paste of indigo leaves, the result is successively leek-green, emerald-green, bottle-green and lastly lamp-black. There is a stage in life (the youth of old age) when man uses dyes: presently he finds that the whole face wants dye; that the contrast between juvenile coloured hair and ancient skin is ridiculous and that it is time to wear white.
- ↑ This prejudice extends all over the East: the Sanskrit saying is "Kvachit káná bhaveta sádhus" now and then a monocular is honest. The left eye is the worst and the popular idea is, I have said, that the damage will come by the injured member
- ↑ The Arabs say like us, "Short and thick is never quick" and "Long and thin has little in."
- ↑ Arab. "Ba'azu layáli," some night when his mistress failed him.
