2
whereupon the place was illumined by her beauty and her hair hung down to her anklets, in seven tresses, like horse’s tails. She had liquid black eyes, heavy buttocks and slender waist; [the sight of her] healed the sickness of the ailing and quenched the fire of the thirsting, for she was even as saith the poet:
I dote on her; for, lo, in beauty she’s complete, Yea, staidness crowns her charms and gravity sedate.
Nor tall nor short is she, but of the hinder parts So big, her trousers still therefor are all too strait.
Nor tallness to be blamed nor shortness is in her; Her shape’s the golden mean betwixten small and great.
Her tresses overfall her anklets, [black as night,] But still her face is day no darkness may abate.
The king marvelled at her beauty and grace and symmetry and said to the merchant, ‘O elder, what is the price of this damsel?’ ‘O my lord,’ answered the merchant, ‘I bought her for two thousand dinars of the merchant who owned her before myself, since when I have travelled with her three years and she hath cost me, up to the time of my coming hither, [other] three thousand dinars: but she is a gift from me to thee.’ The king bestowed on him a splendid dress of honour and ordered him ten thousand dinars, whereupon he kissed his hands, thanking him for his bounty and beneficence, and departed. Then the king committed the damsel to the tire-women, saying, ‘Amend ye the case of this damsel[1] and adorn her and furnish her an apartment and set her therein.’ And he bade his chamberlains carry her all that she needed and shut all the doors upon her.
Now his capital city, wherein he dwelt, was called the
- ↑ i.e. do away from her the traces of travel, etc., by means of baths and cosmetics.
