A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 (of 17)
dispositions (never had he seen goodlier); and he gazed wistfully at that good store of wines and sweet-scented flowers and fruits and other matters. Also he marvelled with exceeding marvel, especially to see no man in the place and delayed his going; whereupon quoth the eldest lady, "What aileth thee that goest not; haply thy wage be too little?" And, turning to her sister the cateress, she said, "Give him another dinar!" But the Porter answered, "By Allah, my lady, it is not for the wage; my hire is never more than two dirhams; but in very sooth my heart and my soul are taken up with you and your condition. I wonder to see you single with ne'er a man about you and not a soul to bear you company; and well you wot that the minaret toppleth o'er unless it stand upon four, and you want this same fourth; and women's pleasure without man is short of measure, even as the poet said: —
Seest not we want for joy four things all told ✿ The harp and lute, the flute and flageolet;
And be they companied with scents four-fold ✿ Rose, myrtle, anemone and violet;
Nor please all eight an four thou wouldst withhold ✿ Good wine and youth and gold and pretty pet.
You be three and want a fourth who shall be a person of good sense and prudence; smart witted, and one apt to keep careful counsel." His words pleased and amused them much; and they laughed at him and said, "And who is to assure us of that? We are maidens and we fear to entrust our secret where it may not be kept, for we have read in a certain chronicle the lines of one Ibn al-Sumam: —
Hold fast thy secret and to none unfold ✿ Lost is a secret when that secret's told:
An fail thy breast thy secret to conceal ✿ How canst thou hope another's breast shall hold?
And Abu Nowás153 said well on the same subject: —
Who trusteth secret to another's hand ✿ Upon his brow deserveth burn of brand!"
When the Porter heard their words he rejoined, "By your lives! I am a man of sense and a discreet, who hath read books and perused chronicles; I reveal the fair and conceal the foul and I act as the poet adviseth: —
None but the good a secret keep ✿ And good men keep it unrevealed:
It is to me a well-shut house ✿ With keyless locks and door ensealed."154
When the maidens heard his verse and its poetical application addressed to them they said, "Thou knowest that we have laid out all our monies on this place. Now say, hast thou aught to offer us in return for entertainment? For surely we will not suffer thee to sit in our company and be our cup-companion, and gaze upon our faces so fair and so rare without paying a round sum.155 Wottest thou not the saying: —
Sans hope of gain
Love's not worth a grain?"
Whereto the lady-portress added, "If thou bring anything thou art a something; if no thing, be off with thee, thou art a nothing;" but the procuratrix interposed, saying, "Nay, O my sisters, leave teasing him, for by Allah he hath not failed us this day, and had he been other he never had kept patience with me, so whatever be his shot and scot I will take it upon myself." The Porter, overjoyed, kissed the ground before her and thanked her saying, "By Allah, these monies are the first fruits this day hath given me." Hearing this they said, "Sit thee down and welcome to thee," and the eldest lady added, "By Allah, we may not suffer thee to join us save on one condition, and this it is, that no questions be 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.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 blood all know:
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 recalls thy gifts; thou, gifts of wine.
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 bloodshed 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, 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 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 boilèd 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 Houris157 of Heaven. They ceased not doing after this fashion until the wine played tricks 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 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,