This Assembly exhibits Abû Zayd in lively altercation with his handsome young wife before the Kadi of Tebrîz, he complaining of her contumacy, she of his abuse of his conjugal rights. Purists and Puritans will probably object to the tone of this composition. But in order to judge it equitably, it should not be forgotten that Ḥarîri is bent on exhausting all the stores, I will advisedly not say all the treasures, of his native language, of which he is justly proud, and the rich and sonorous vocabulary of invective, and even of obscenity, could not be entirely ignored by him. Moreover the grossness, nay coarseness of expression, with which a wonderful display of learning is here interspersed, is not represented as inherent in the characters, but as an assumed part with a view to a specific object. If these two points are borne in mind, the unprejudiced reader cannot fail to admire this Assembly as one of the most original, amusing, and spirited pieces of the whole collection. The miserly Kadi, who by the astounding eloquence of the couple is reluctantly coaxed and partly frightened into an act of unwonted generosity, stands out, with his heartrending lamentations over the loss of his gold coins, as a worthy prototype of Shylock in Shakespear’s “Merchant of Venice.”

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I intended leaving Tebrîz at a time when it was unwholesome [irksome] for high and low, and empty of patrons and men of largess; and while I was making ready my travelling-gear and foraging for some company on the journey, I encountered there Abû Zayd, the Serûji, wrapped up in a cloak and surrounded by females. I asked him about his business, and whither he was bound with his bevy. Said he, pointing to a woman amongst them, fair of face, apparently in high dudgeon: “I had married this one, that she might make me forgetful of exile, and cleanse me from the squalor of celibacy; but I met from her with the sweat of [the carrier of] the water-bag, in that she now kept me out of my right, and now plied me beyond my strength, wherefore I am through her jaded with foot-soreness, and an ally to cark and choking care, and here we are on our way to the judge, that he may strike on the hand of the oppressor. So, if he arrange matters between us, let there be concord, but if not, a divorce, a divorce!” Then I inclined to ascertain to whom the victory would accrue, and what the upshot would be. So I put my present affair behind my back (in the Arabic idiom “behind my ear”), and accompanied the twain, though I should not be of any use. Now, when he was in the presence of the Kadi, who belonged to the number of those who appreciate parsimony, and stint even tooth-pickings, Abû Zayd crouched on his knees before him, and said to him: “Behold, this my palfrey refuses the bridle, and is much given to bolting, although I am more obedient to her than her finger-tips, and fonder of her than her own heart.” Then the Kadi said to her: “Woe betide thee, knowest thou not that stubbornness angers thy lord and master, and requires the lash?” Said she: “But, lo, he is of those who use to prowl behind the house, and to take the neighbour along with the neighbour.” Then the Kadi said to him: “Out upon thee, sowest thou in the salt-marshes, and lookest out for chicks, where no chicks are to be got? May it never go well with thee, nor be thou safe from terror.” Said Abû Zayd: “Lo by Him, who sends down the winds, she is more of a liar than Sajâḥi.” Said she: “Nay! by Him, who has adorned the neck of the dove with a ring, and given wings to the ostrich, he is a worse liar than Abû Ṣamâmah, when he forged false­hoods in Tamâmah.” Thereupon Abû Zayd hissed with the hiss of the flaring fire, and blazed up with the blaze of the enraged, saying: “Woe to thee, O thou slattern, O thou strumpet, O thou bane for thy husband and thy neighbour, art thou resolved in privacy to torment me, and showest off in public by giving me the lie? Yet thou knowest, that when I made thee a wife, and gazed at thee, I found thee uglier than a monkey, and drier than a strip of hide, and tougher than a palm-fibre, and more offensive than carrion, and more trouble­some than the cholera, and dirtier than a menstrual cloth, and more barefaced than the bark of a tree, and colder than a winter night, and sillier than purslane (the plant rijlah), and wider than the river Tigris. But I veiled thy blemish, and disclosed not thy disgrace, though, if Shîrîn had presented thee with her beauty, and Zobaydeh with her wealth, and Bilkîs with her throne, and Bûrân with her carpet, and Zebbâ with her kingcraft, and Rab‘îah with her piety, and Khindaf with her nobility, and Khansâ with her poetry [such as she indited] upon [the death of her brother] Ṣakhr, I would scorn thee for my saddle-seat or a filly fit for my stallion.” Then the woman bristled up, and played the tigress, and bared her fore-arm, and tucked up her skirt, saying to him: “O thou, meaner than Mâdir, and more ill-omened than Kâshir, and more cowardly than Ṣâfir, and flightier than T̤âmir, hurlest thou at me thy own shame, and thrustest thy knife into my honour, while thou knowest that thou art more contemptible than Kulâmeh, and more vicious than the mule of Abû Dulâmeh, and more indecent than a fart in company, and more out of place than a bug in a perfume box, supposing thou wert al-Ḥasan in his preaching and utterance, and ash-Sha‘bî in his learning and memory, and al-Khalîl in his knowledge of prosody and grammar, and Jerîr in his love-song and lampoon, and Koss in his eloquence and address, and ‘Abd al-Ḥamîd in his facundity and style of writing, and Abû ‘Amr in his reading [of the Koran] and syntax, and Ibn Korayb in his tradition-lore from the Arabs, thinkest thou, that I should like thee as an Imâm for my prayer-niche, and a sword for my scabbard? Not I, by Allah, nor as door-keeper for my gate, or a stick to carry my wallet with.” Said the Kadi to her: “I see that ye twain are Shann and T̤abaqah (or ‘an old bag and its doubling’), and Ḥida’ah and Bunduqah (or ‘hawk and hunter’). So give over, man, the altercation, and enter in thy conduct on the level road; but as for thee, abstain from abusing him, and keep still when he comes to the house by its door.” Then the woman said: “By Allah, I shall not hold back from him my tongue, until he clothes me, nor will I hoist for him my sail, unless he gives me enough to eat.” Thereupon Abû Zayd swore with the three binding forms of oath, that he owned naught but his tattered rags. Thereupon the Kadi looked upon their story with the eye of the sharp-witted, and pondered with the thoughtfulness of the sagacious; then he approached the twain with a face that he made to look stern, and a buckler that he flourished, saying: “Suffices it not to you, to vilify each other in the judgment-hall, and to make bold of this offence, that you needs must proceed from the disgrace of mutual befoulment to the malice of defrauding each other? But I swear by Allah, the fundament of either of you has failed the ditch, and your arrow has missed the pit of the throat. For the Prince of the Faithful has appointed me to give judg­ment between litigants, not to pay the owings of debtors, and by the thanks due to his favour which has established me in this place, and conferred on me the power of binding and loosing, if ye explain not to me the truth of your case, and the hidden meaning of your deceit, I will surely proclaim the pair of you in the cities, and make an example of you for the wary.” Abû Zayd looked down before him, as the serpent looks down, then he said to him: “Listen, listen!

“I am the man of Serûj, she my consort,—the full moon has none but the sun for equal,—

Her company and mine are never severed, nor is her cloister distant from my abbot,

As naught I water but my own plantation; five nights, however, is it now since morning

And eve we wear the sorry garb of hunger, knowing no more what chewing means, or sipping,

So that from sheer exhaustion of our life-breath we are like corpses risen from the grave-yard.

So, when our patience failed, and ev’ry comfort, we came by dint of want whose touch is painful,

To this resort, for good or evil venture, to gain, by hook or crook, some little money.

For poverty, when it assails the free-born, leads him to don the shameful cloak of falsehood.

This then is my condition, this my lesson, see my to-day and ask, what was my yestern.

And bid them mend my case or send to jail me at will, for in thy hand my weal and woe lies.”

Then the Kadi said to him: “Cheer up and set thy heart at ease, for it is due to thee that thy fault should be condoned, and thy donation made plentiful.” There­upon his spouse jumped to her feet and drew herself up to her full length, and pointing [beckoning] to those present, said:

“O folks of Tebrîz, ye are blest with a judge who ranks by far ahead of all judges,

No fault in him save that his gift on a day of bounty is dealt out with short measure.

We came to him so that we might cull the fruit from off his tree that never fails yielding.

He sent away the Shaykh, rejoiced with his gift, and treated with regard and distinction,

But turned me off more disappointed than one who watches for the lightning in August,

As though he knew not that it is I who taught the Shaykh to versify with such glibness,

And that I could if ever I were so willed make him the laughing­stock of all Tebrîz.”

Said the narrator: Now when the Kadi saw the stoutness of their hearts and the glibness [readiness] of their tongues, he perceived that he was visited through them with an incurable disease and a crushing [an overwhelming] calamity, and that if he gave to one of the spouses and turned off the other empty-handed, he would be like one who pays a debt with borrowed money and prays the sunset-prayer with two genu-flexions. So he frowned and knitted his brows, and raged and fumed, and hemmed and hawed; then he turned to the right and left, and twisted about in distress and regret, and began to abuse the office of a judge and its troubles, and counted up its bothers and vicissitudes, reviling one who seeks it and applies for it. Then he groaned as the despoiled one groans, and wailed until his wailing wellnigh made him appear abject, saying: “This indeed is an astounding thing! Am I in one place to be hit with two arrows, am I in one case made to deal with two debtors, am I able to please both litigants? Where from, I ask, where from?” Then be turned towards his Usher, the carrier out of his behests, and said: “This is not a day of judgment and delivery of sentences, and of decision and execution: this is a day of sorrow, this is a day that involves one in debt, this is a day of crisis, this is a day of loss, this is a day on which one is deprived of one’s share, not given it. So rid me of these two babblers and silence their tongues with two gold coins. Then dismiss the company, and close the gate proclaiming that this is an ill-omened day and that the Kadi is in mourning on it, so that no litigant may come into my presence.” Accordingly the Usher said the Amen to the Kadi’s prayer, weeping along with him in response to his weeping, whereupon he paid out to Abû Zayd and his spouse the two miṣqâls, and said: “I bear witness that ye twain are the most crafty amongst men and Jinn, but [henceforth] respect the court of judges, and eschew therein ribaldry of speech. For not every Kadi is a Kadi of Tebrîz and not at all times will people listen to doggerel rhyme.” So they said to him: “There is not thy like of Ushers, and thanks are due to thee”; where­with they got up and stalked away with their two gold-pieces, roasting the heart of the Kadi on two fires.