IN days of yore there lived a just and pious husband­man, who sowed the seeds of goodness and reaped a hundred-fold. His house was all the year full of corn; his fields abounded with flocks; and on the poor he bestowed a portion of his wealth. He had a Baby­lonish wife; a magician-deceiver—all coquetry and leering. One day, when he was abroad inspecting the harvest of his fields, this perī-faced one went up to the terrace of the mansion, and there, like a fowler, she spread her snare. A graceful youth was pacing the plain, and coming near the enclosure of the harem, he beheld the face of that hūrī—that mail-haired beauty, of the lasso-tresses—and field and waste were filled with light. Now his sighs arose from his heart; now his feet sank in the clay. From above the perī-faced one shook her head, and stroked her face and bosom.

In the street of this youth dwelt an aged woman;— in foxery she was the old wolf of the city; in trickery, the crafty dissembler of the age. To her the young man went, and told her what signs the lady had made to him upon the roof of her house. The old woman answered: “Thy beloved—thy passionate companion, thy desired one—indicated thereby: ‘Choose a damsel; seek out a pomegranate-breasted one; if she be fair, speak with her.’” So the youth sought out such a girl, and sent her secretly, with a token. When she had delivered her message, the lady pretended to be very wroth; spoke harshly to her; made black her face; and turned her out by the water-way. On reaching her own house, the young man went to meet her; and when he saw her plight and heard her story, he ran along the road to the door of the old woman. If he had a grief, he told it all; for one must not hide pain from the physician. The past-mistress thus answered him: “Knowest thou what thy beloved hath said?—‘When Night draws her pitchy curtain over her head, and the Ethiop king leads his host against Rūm, come thou into the garden by the way of the water, for this indeed is the proper way.’”*

By reason of this the youth went off glad and bright. And when it was night he went into the garden. The jasmine-faced one came from the house into the garden, which was (as it were) filled with lamps by (the bright­ness of) her cheek. In one place were the box-tree and the cypress; the hawk and the pheasant made peace together. Who would think that this night was the night of treachery? … When it was midnight, sleep bore them off. An aged man, who was father to her husband, chanced to come out of the house. He was confounded at what he saw in the garden, and took away her anklets. Awaking soon afterwards, she perceived what had befallen her, and, having dismissed her companion, went into the house and lay down. And when an hour yet remained of the night, her husband awoke, and she said to him: “O kind com­rade, would not the garden be more pleasant than the house? On such a day the garden is a spring-tide. When the rose smiles, the house becomes a prison. In the morning, when the nightingale laments from the bough, put forth thy head, like a rose, from the corner of the pavilion. Why liest thou when thou hast slept so long? Now are the walks of garden and orchard pleasant; for the garden is become the place of the nightingale, not of the crow.” Then she took her husband by the hand, and with him entered like a nightingale flushed into the rose-bower. In that same place where the anklets had been taken off her feet, she threw down a mat, and lay thus with her husband till the morning. Then said the woman to him: “Ask thy father what he wishes of me. He is neither my uncle nor my aunt;—why does he take off my two anklets?” The young man was angry with his father, saying to her: “Why should he give thee a headache?”

When that experienced man came into the garden from the mansion, he told the whole affair to the youth —told him with displeasure the affair of the anklets. He flared up, and was very wroth with his father, and said to him: “Thou hast beheld all this only in a dream; for this woman was not separated from me this night. Go, master, be shamed before God. It was I who was with her in that place where she lay.” When the father heard this tale from his son, he bowed his head and was shamed. Then made he apologies to the woman; he increased her dower, and gave her the half of that garden.*

The king was grieved at this story; he reflected a moment, and then commanded the prince to be again removed to prison.]

The Damsel now presents herself the sixth time, and demands redress. She inveighs against the vazīr, and cautions the king not to trust him. She then relates the