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So he went in to her and abode with her at Bassora, till there came to them the Destroyer of Delights and Sunderer of Companies; and extolled be the perfection of the [Ever-]Living One, who dieth not!
MAROUF THE COBBLER AND HIS WIFE FATIMEH.
There dwelt once in the city of Cairo the [God-]guarded a cobbler, [who lived by] mending old shoes.[1] His name was Marouf and he had a wife called Fatimeh, whom the folk had nicknamed ‘The Shrew,’[2] for that she was a worthless, ill-conditioned wretch, little of shame and a sore mischief-maker. She ruled her husband and used to revile him and curse him a thousand times a day; and he feared her malice and dreaded her mischief; for that he was a man of sense and careful of his repute, but poor of estate. When he earnt much, he spent it on her, and when he earnt little, she revenged herself on his body that night, leaving him no peace and making his night like her book;[3] for she was even as saith the poet of [the like of] her:
How many a night have I spent with my wife In the sorriest of plights for contention and strife!
Would God I had given her poison the night Of our wedding and so made an end of her life!
One day she said to him, ‘O Marouf, I wish thee to
- ↑ Zerabin (pl. of zerboun), lit. slaves’ shoes or sandals (as Vol. III. p. 211, l. 21); but the word is here evidently used in its modern sense of stout shoes or boots.
- ↑ Lit. dung (urreh). The meaning “shrew” is modern and tropical.
- ↑ i.e. black, like the book in which her actions were recorded and which would be presented to her on the Day of Judgment. See antè, Vol. VIII. p. 94, note 2.
