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Then said the broker to the merchants, ‘How much do ye bid for the pearl of the diver and prize of the fowler?’ Quoth one, ‘She is mine for a hundred dinars.’ And another said, ‘Two hundred,’ and a third, ‘Three hundred;’ and they ceased not to bid, one against another, till they made her price nine hundred and fifty dinars, and there the biddings stopped. Night dccclxxi.Then the broker went up to the Persian and said to him, ‘The biddings for this thy slave-girl have reached nine hundred and fifty dinars: wilt thou sell her at that price and take the money?’ ‘Doth she consent to this?’ asked the Persian. ‘I desire to consult her wishes, for I fell sick on my journey hither and she tended me with all possible care, wherefore I swore not to sell her but to him of whom she should approve, and I have put her sale in her own hand. So do thou consult her and if she say, “I consent,” sell her to whom thou wilt: but if she say “No,” sell her not.’
So the broker went up to her and said to her, ‘Know, O princess of fair ones, that thy master putteth thy sale in thine own hands, and thy price hath reached nine hundred and fifty dinars; dost thou give me leave to sell thee?’ ‘Show me him who is minded to buy me,’ answered she, ‘before thou clinch the bargain.’ So he brought her up to one of the merchants, a very old and decrepit man, and she looked at him awhile, then turned to the broker and said to him, ‘O broker, art thou mad or afflicted in thy wit?’ ‘Why dost thou ask me this, O princess of fair ones?’ said he. And she answered, ‘Is it permitted of God to sell the like of me to yonder decrepit old man, who saith of his wife’s case the following verses:
Quoth she to me,—and sore enraged for wounded pride was she, For she in sooth had bidden me to that which might not be,—
“An if thou swive me not forthright, as one should swive his wife, If thou be made a cuckold straight, reproach it not to me.
Meseems thy yard is made of wax, for very flaccidness; For when I rub it with my hand, it softens instantly.”
