Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/104

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art perfect, even in this.”  And a certain woman said, “I was with Ayishah, when her husband came in to her, and she lusted for him; so he fell upon her and she snarked and snorted and made use of all wonder of movements and marvellous new inventions, and I the while within hearing.  So, when he came out from her, I said to her, ‘How canst thou do thus with thy rank and nobility and condition, and I in thy house?’  Quoth she, ‘Verily a woman should bring her husband all of which she is mistress, by way of excitement and rare buckings and wrigglings and motitations. [FN#113]  What dislikest thou of this?’  And I answered ‘I would have this by nights.’  Rejoined she, ‘Thus is it by day and by night I do more than this; for when he seeth me, desire stirreth him up and he falleth in heat; so he putteth it out to me and I obey him, and it is as thou seest.’”  And there also hath reached me an account of


ABU AL-ASWAD AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL


Abu al-Aswad bought a native-born slave-girl, who was blind of an eye, and she pleased him; but his people decried her to him; whereat he wondered and, turning the palms of his hands upwards, [FN#114] recited these two couplets,

    “They find me fault with her where I default ne’er find, *          Save haply that a speck in either eye may show:     But if her eyes have fault, of fault her form hath none, *          Slim-built above the waist and heavily made below.”

And this is also told of