us save on one condition, and this it is, that no questions be
131
asked as to what concerneth thee not, and frowardness shall be
soundly flogged." Answered the Porter, "I agree to this, O my
lady, on my head and my eyes be it! Lookye, I am dumb, I have no tongue. Then arose the provisioneress and tightening her girdle
set the table by the fountain and put the flowers and sweet herbs in their jars, and strained the wine and ranged the flasks in row and made ready every requisite. Then sat she down, she and her sisters, placing amidst them the Porter who kept deeming himself in a dream; and she took up the wine flagon, and poured out the first cup and drank it off, and likewise a second and a third.[FN#156] After this she filled a fourth cup which she handed to one of her sisters; and, lastly, she crowned a goblet
and passed it to the Porter, saying:--
"Drink the dear draught, drink free and fain * What healeth every grief and pain."
He took the cup in his hand and, louting low, returned his best thanks and improvised:--
Drain not the bowl save with a trusty friend * A man of worth whose good old
For wine, like wind, sucks sweetness from the sweet * And stinks when over stench it haply blow:"
Adding:--
Drain not the bowl; save from dear hand like thine * The cup recall thy gifts; thou, gifts of wine."
132
After repeating this couplet he kissed their hands and drank and was drunk and sat swaying from side to side and pursued:--
"All drinks wherein is blood the Law unclean * Doth hold save one, the blood shed of the vine:
Fill! fill! take all my wealth bequeathed or won * Thou fawn! a
willing ransom for those eyne."
Then the cateress crowned a cup and gave it to the portress, who took it from her hand and thanked her and drank. Thereupon she poured again and passed to the eldest lady who sat on the couch, and filled yet another and handed it to the Porter. He kissed the ground before them; and, after drinking and thanking them, he again began to recite :
"Here! Here! by Allah, here! * Cups of the sweet, the dear' Fill me a brimming bowl * The Fount o' Life I speer
Then the Porter stood up before the mistress of the house and said, "O lady, I am thy slave, thy Mameluke, thy white thrall, a, thy very bondsman;" and he began reciting:--
"A slave of slaves there standeth at thy door * Lauding thy generous boons and gifts galore
Beauty! may he come in awhile to 'joy * Thy charms? for Love and I part nevermore!"
She said to him, "Drink; and health and happiness attend thy
133
drink." So he took the cup and kissed her hand and recited these lines in sing song:
"I gave her brave old wine that like her cheeks * Blushed red or
flame from furnace flaring up:
She bussed the brim and said with many a smile * How durst thou deal folk's cheek for folk to sup?
"Drink!" (said I) "these are tears of mine whose tinct * Is heart blood sighs have boiled in the cup."
She answered him in the following couplet:--
"An tears of blood for me, friend, thou hast shed * Suffer me sup them, by thy head and eyes!"
Then the lady took the cup, and drank it off to her sisters'
health, and they ceased not drinking (the Porter being in the
midst of them), and dancing and laughing and reciting verses and singing ballads and ritornellos. All this time the Porter was carrying on with them, kissing, toying, biting, handling,
groping, fingering; whilst one thrust a dainty morsel in his mouth, and another slapped him; and this cuffed his cheeks, and that threw sweet flowers at him; and he was in the very paradise of pleasure, as though he were sitting in the seventh sphere
among the Houris[FN#157] of Heaven. They ceased not doing after this fashion until the wine played tucks in their heads and
worsted their wits; and, when the drink got the better of them, the portress stood up and doffed her clothes till she was mother
naked. However, she let down her hair about her body by way of
134
shift, and throwing herself into the basin disported herself and dived like a duck and swam up and down, and took water in her mouth, and spurted it all over the Porter, and washed her limbs, and between her breasts, and inside her thighs and all around her navel. Then she came up out of the cistern and throwing herself on the Porter's lap said, "O my lord, O my love, what callest
thou this article?" pointing to her slit, her solution of continuity. "I call that thy cleft," quoth the Porter, and she
rejoined, Wah! wah, art thou not ashamed to use such a word?" and she caught him by the collar and soundly cuffed him. Said he
again, Thy womb, thy vulva;" and she struck him a second slap
crying, "O fie, O fie, this is another ugly word; is here no
shame in thee?" Quoth he, "Thy coynte;" and she cried, O thou! art wholly destitute of modesty?" and thumped and bashed him. Then cried the Porter, "Thy clitoris,"[FN#158] whereat the eldest lady came down upon him with a yet sorer beating, and said, "No;" and he said, " 'Tis so," and the Porter went on calling the same commodity by sundry other names, but whatever he said they beat him more and more till his neck ached and swelled with the blows he had gotten; and on this wise they made him a butt and a
laughing stock. At last he turned upon them asking, And what do you women call this article?" Whereto the damsel made answer, "The basil of the bridges."[FN#159] Cried the Porter, "Thank Allah for my safety: aid me and be thou propitious, O basil of
the bridges!" They passed round the cup and tossed off the bowl again, when the second lady stood up; and, stripping off all her clothes, cast herself into the cistern and did as the first had
done; then she came out of the water and throwing her naked form
on the Porter's lap pointed to her machine and said, "O light of
135
mine eyes, do tell me what is the name of this concern?" He replied as before, "Thy slit;" and she rejoined, "Hath such term no shame for thee?" and cuffed him and buffeted him till the saloon rang with the blows. Then quoth she, "O fie! O fie! how canst thou say this without blushing?" He suggested, "The basil of the bridges;" but she would not have it and she said, "No!
no!" and stuck him and slapped him on the back of the neck. Then he began calling out all the names he knew, "Thy slit, thy womb,
thy coynte, thy clitoris;" and the girls kept on saying, "No! no!" So he said, "I stick to the basil of the bridges;" and all the three laughed till they fell on their backs and laid slaps on his neck and said, "No! no! that's not its proper name."
Thereupon he cried, "O my sisters, what is its name?" and they replied, "What sayest thou to the husked sesame seed?" Then the cateress donned her clothes and they fell again to carousing, but the Porter kept moaning, "Oh! and Oh!" for his neck and shoulders, and the cup passed merrily round and round again for a full hour. After that time the eldest and handsomest lady stood
up and stripped off her garments, whereupon the Porter took his neck in hand, and rubbed and shampoo'd it, saying, "My neck and shoulders are on the way of Allah!"[FN#160] Then she threw herself into the basin, and swam and dived, sported and washed; and the Porter looked at her naked figure as though she had been
a slice of the moon[FN#161] and at her face with the sheen of Luna when at full, or like the dawn when it brighteneth, and he noted her noble stature and shape, and those glorious forms that quivered