The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night/The Woman Who Made Her Husband Sift Dust
THE WOMAN WHO MADE HER HUSBAND SIFT DUST.
A man once gave his wife a dirhem to buy rice; so she went to the rice-seller, who gave her the rice and began to jest with her and ogle her, for she was fair and graceful, saying, “Rice is not good but with sugar, which if thou wilt have, come in with me awhile.” So she went in with him into his shop and he did his will of her and said to his slave, “Weigh her out a dirhem’s worth of sugar.” But he made the slave a privy sign, and the latter, taking the napkin, in which was the rice, emptied it out and put in its place earth, and for the sugar stones, after which he knotted the napkin up again and left it by her. Now the man’s object, in doing this, was that she should come to him a second time; so, when she went forth of the shop, he gave her the napkin and she took it, thinking to have in it rice and sugar, and went her way; but when she returned home and set it before her husband, he found in it earth and stones. So, when she came back with the cooking-pot, he said to her, “Did I tell thee that I had aught to build, that thou bringest me earth and stones?” When she saw this, she knew that the rice-seller’s slave had tricked her; so she said to her husband, “O man, in my trouble of mind for what hath befallen me, I went to fetch the sieve and brought the cooking-pot.” “What hath troubled thee?” asked he; and she said, “I dropped the dirhem thou gavest me in the market and was ashamed to search for it before the folk; yet I grudged to lose the money, so I gathered up the earth from the place where it fell and brought it away, thinking to sift it [when I came home]. Wherefore I went to fetch the sieve, but brought the cooking-pot instead.” Then she fetched the sieve and gave it to her husband, saying, “Do thou sift it; for thine eyes are better than mine.” So he sat, sifting the earth, till his face and beard were covered with dust; and he discovered not her trick, neither knew what had befallen her.
Return to The Malice of Women.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
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| Translation: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
