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the heart and dispels sadness; and the excess of it is more harmful in summer and autumn than in spring and winter.’ (Q.) ‘What are its good effects?’ (A.) ‘It doth away trouble and disquiet, calms love and chagrin and is good for ulcers in a cold and dry humour; but excess of it weakens the sight and engenders pains in the legs and head and back: and beware, beware of having to do with old women, for they are deadly. Quoth the Imam Ali,[1] (whose face God honour), “Four things kill and ruin the body: bathing on a full stomach, eating salt meat, copulation on a plethora [of blood] and lying with an ailing woman; for she will weaken thy strength and infect thy body with sickness; and an old woman is deadly poison.” And quoth one of them, “Beware of taking an old woman to wife, though she be richer in goods than Caroun.”’[2] (Q.) ‘What is the best copulation?’ (A.) ‘If the woman be young, well-shaped, fair of face, swelling-breasted and of honourable extraction, she will add to thee strength and health of body; and let her be even as saith the poet, describing her:
Even by thy looks, I trow, she knows what thou desir’st, By instinct, without sign or setting forth of sense;
And when thou dost behold her all-surpassing grace, Her charms enable thee with gardens to dispense.’
(Q.) ‘At what time is copulation good?’ (A.) ‘If by day, after the morning-meal, and if by night, after food digested.’ (Q.) ‘What are the most excellent fruits?’ (A.) ‘The pomegranate and the citron.’ (Q.) ‘Which is the most excellent of vegetables?’ (A.) ‘The endive.’ (Q.)
- ↑ The fourth Khalif.
- ↑ The Korah of Numbers xvi. fabled by the Muslims (following a Talmudic tradition) to have been a man of immense wealth. “Now Caroun was of the tribe of Moses [and Aaron], but he transgressed against them and we gave him treasures, the keys whereof would bear down a company of men of strength.”—Koran xxviii. 76.
