Arabian Nights

1A preparation of hemp.

1The rubbish heaps outside Eastern cities, some of which are over a hundred feet high.

CHAPTER 3 The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad

Once upon a time there was a Porter in Baghdad, who was a bachelor and who would remain unmarried. It came to pass on a certain day, as he stood about the street leaning idly upon his crate, behold, there stood before him an honourable woman in a mantilla of Mosul silk, broidered with gold and bordered with brocade; her walking-shoes were also purfled with gold and her hair floated in long plaits. She raised her face-veil and, showing two black eyes fringed with jetty lashes, whose glances were soft and languishing and whose perfect beauty was ever blandishing, she accosted the Porter and said in the suavest tones and choicest language, ‘Take up thy crate and follow me.’ The Porter was so dazzled he could hardly believe that he heard her aright, but he shouldered his basket in hot haste saying in himself, ‘O day of good luck! O day of Allah’s grace!’ and walked after her till she stopped at the door of a house.

There she rapped, and presently came out to her an old man, a Nazarene, to whom she gave a gold piece, receiving from him in return what she required of strained wine clear as olive oil; and she set it safely in the hamper, saying, ‘Lift and follow.’ Quoth the Porter, ‘This, by Allah, is indeed an auspicious day, a day propitious for the granting of all a man wisheth.’ He again hoisted up the crate and followed her till she stopped at a fruiter’s shop and bought from him Shami apples and Osmani quinces and Omani peaches, and cucumbers of Nile growth, and Egyptian limes and Sultani oranges and citrons; besides Aleppine jasmine, scented myrtle berries, Damascene nenuphars, flower of privet and camomile, blood-red anemones, violets, and pomegranate-bloom, eglantine and narcissus, and set the whole in the Porter’s crate, saying, ‘Up with it.’ So he lifted and followed her till she stopped at a butcher’s booth and said, ‘Cut me off ten pounds of mutton.’

She paid him his price and he wrapped it in a banana-leaf, whereupon she laid it in the crate and said, ‘Hoist, O Porter.’ He hoisted accordingly, and followed her as she walked on till she stopped at a grocer’s, where she bought dry fruits and pistachio-kernels, Tihamah raisins, shelled almonds and all wanted for dessert, and said to the Porter, ‘Lift and follow me.’

So he up with his hamper and after her till she stayed at the confectioner’s, and she bought an earthen platter, and piled it with all kinds of sweetmeats in his shop, open-worked tarts and fritters scented with musk and ‘soap-cakes’, and lemon leaves and melon-preserves, and ‘Zaynab’s combs’, and ‘ladies’ fingers’, and ‘Kazi’s tit-bits’ and goodies of every description; and placed the platter in the Porter’s crate. Thereupon quoth he (being a merry man), ‘Thou shouldest have told me, and I would have brought with me a pony or a she-camel to carry all this market-stuff.’ She smiled and gave him a little cuff on the nape saying, ‘Step out and exceed not in words, for (Allah willing!) thy wage will not be wanting.’

Then she stopped at a perfumer’s and took from him ten sorts of waters, rose scented with musk, orange-flower, water-lily, willow-flower, violet and five others; and she also bought two loaves of sugar, a bottle for perfume-spraying, a lump of male incense, aloe-wood, ambergris and musk, with candles of Alexandria wax; and she put the whole into the basket, saying, ‘Up with they crate and after me.’ He did so and followed until she stood before the greengrocer’s, of whom she bought pickled safflower and olives, in brine and in oil; with tarragon and cream-cheese and hard Syrian cheese; and she stowed them away in the crate saying to the Porter, ‘Take up thy basket and follow me.’

He did so and went after her till she came to a fair mansion fronted by a spacious court, a tall, fine place to which columns gave strength and grace: and the gate thereof had two leaves of ebony inlaid with plates of red gold. The lady stopped at the door and, turning her face-veil sideways, knocked softly with her knuckles whilst the Porter stood behind her, thinking of naught save her beauty and loveliness. Presently the door swung back and both leaves were opened, whereupon he looked to see who had opened it; and behold, it was a lady of tall figure, some five feet high; a model of beauty and loveliness, brilliance and symmetry and perfect grace.

Her forehead was flower-white; her cheeks like the anemone ruddy bright; her eyes were those of the wild heifer or the gazelle, with eyebrows like the crescent-moon which ends Sha’aban and begins Ramazan, her mouth was the ring of Sulayman, her lips coral-red, and her teeth like a line of strung pearls or of camomile petals. Her throat recalled the antelope’s, and her breasts, like two pomegranates of even size, stood at bay as it were, her body rose and fell in waves below her dress like the rolls of a piece of brocade, and her navel would hold an ounce of benezoin ointment. In fine she was like her of whom the poet said:

On Sun and Moon of palace cast thy sight

Enjoy her flower-like face, her fragrant light:

Thine eyes shall never see in hair so black

Beauty encase a brow so purely white:

The ruddy rosy cheek proclaims her claim

Though fail her name whose beauties we indite:

As sways her gait I smile at hips so big

And weep to see the waist they bear so slight.

When the Porter looked upon her his wits were waylaid, and his senses were stormed so that his crate went nigh to fall from his head, and he said to himself, ‘Never have I in my life seen a day more blessed than this day!’ Then quoth the lady-portress to the lady-cateress, ‘Come in from the gate and relieve this poor man of his load.’ So the provisioner went in followed by the Portress and the Porter and went on till they reached a spacious ground-floor hall, built with admirable skill and beautified with all manner of colours and carvings; with upper balconies and groined arches and galleries and cupboards and recesses whose curtains hung before them. In the midst stood a great basin of water surrounding a fine fountain, and at the upper end of the raised dais was a couch of juniper-wood set with gems and pearls, with a canopy like mosquito-curtains of red satin-silk looped up with pearls as big as filberts and bigger. Thereupon sat a lady bright of blee, with brow beaming brilliancy, the dream of philosophy, whose eyes were fraught with Babel’s gramarye and her eyebrows were arched as for archery; her breath breathed ambergris and perfumery and her lips were sugar to taste and carnelian to see.

Her stature was straight as the letter I, and her face shamed the noon-sun’s radiancy; and she was even as a galaxy, or a dome with golden marquetry or a bride displayed in choicest finery or a noble maid of Araby. Right well of her sang the bard when he said:

Her smiles twin rows of pearls display

Chamomile-buds or rimey spray

Her tresses stray as night let down

And shames her light the dawn o’ day.

The third lady rising from the couch stepped forward with graceful swaying gait till she reached the middle of the saloon, when she said to her sisters, ‘Why stand ye here? take it down from this poor man’s head!’ Then the Cateress went and stood before him, and the Portress behind him while the third helped them, and they lifted the load from the Porter’s head; and, emptying it of all that was therein, set everything in its place. Lastly they gave him two gold pieces, saying, ‘Wend thy ways, O Porter.’

But he went not, for he stood looking at the ladies and admiring what uncommon beauty was theirs, and their pleasant manners and kindly 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 withold

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 the secret to conceal

How canst thou hope another’s breast shall hold?

‘And Abu Nowas said well on the same subject:

‘Who trusteth secret to another’s hand

Upon his brow deserveth burn of brand!’

When the maidens heard his verse and its poetical application addressed to them they said, ‘Thou knowest that we have laid out all our moneys 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. 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 moneys 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! Look ye, 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 she sat 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. 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 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 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.

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!’ 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 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 as she went; for she was naked as the Lord made her. Then he cried, ‘Alack! Alack! Alack!’ and began to address her, versifying these couplets:

‘If I liken thy shape to the bough when green

My likeness errs and I sore mistake it;

For the bough is fairest when clad the most

And thou art fairest when mother-naked.’

Then laughed they till they fell on their backs, and returned to their carousal, and ceased not to be after this fashion till night began to fall. Thereupon said they to the Porter, ‘Bismillah, O our master, up and on with those sorry old shoes of thine and turn thy face and show us the breadth of thy shoulders.’ Said he, ‘By Allah, to part with my soul would be easier for me than departing from you: come let us join night to day, and tomorrow morning we will each wend our own way.’ ‘My life on you,’ said the Procuratrix, ‘suffer him to tarry with us, that we may laugh at him: we may live out our lives and never meet with his like, for surely he is a right merry rogue and a witty.’ So they said, ‘Thou must not remain with us this night save on condition that thou submit to our commands, and that whatso thou seest, thou ask no questions therenent, nor inquire of its cause.’ ‘All right,’ rejoined he, and they said, ‘Go read the writing over the door.’ So he rose and went to the entrance and there found written in letters of gold wash; WHOSE SPEAKETH OF WHAT CONCERNETH HIM NOT, SHALL HEAR WHAT PLEASE HIM NOT! The Porter said, ‘Be ye witnesses against me that I will not speak on whatso concerneth me not.’ Then the Cateress arose, and set food before them and they ate; after which they changed their drinking-place for another, and she lighted the lamps and candles and burned ambergris and aloes-wood, and set on fresh fruit and the wine service, when they fell to carousing and talking of their lovers.

And they ceased not to eat and drink and chat, nibbling dry fruits and laughing and playing tricks for the space of a full hour when lo! a knock was heard at the gate. The knocking in no wise disturbed the seance, but one of them rose and went to see what it was and presently returned, saying, ‘Truly our pleasure for this night is to be perfect.’ ‘How is that?’ asked they; and she answered, ‘At the gate be three Persian Kalandars1 with their beards and heads and eyebrows shaven; and all three blind of the left eye – which is surely a strange chance. They are foreigners from Roum-land with the mark of travel plain upon them; they have just entered Baghdad, this being their first visit to our city; and the cause of their knocking at our door is simply because they cannot find a lodging. Indeed one of them said to me: “Haply the owner of this mansion will let us have the key of his stable or some old out-house wherein we may pass this night?” for evening had surprised them and, being strangers in the land, they knew none who would give them shelter. And, O my sisters, each of them is a figure o’ fun after his own fashion; and if we let them in we shall have matter to make sport of.’

She gave not over persuading them till they said to her, ‘Let them in, and make thou the usual condition with them that they speak not of what concerneth them not, lest they hear what pleaseth them not.’ So she rejoiced and going to the door presently returned with the three monoculars whose beards and mustachios were clean shaven. They salam’d and stood afar off by way of respect; but the three ladies rose up to them and welcomed them and wished them joy of their safe arrival and made them sit down. The Kalandars looked at the room and saw that it was a pleasant place, clean swept and garnished with flowers; and the lamps were burning and the smoke of perfumes was spireing in air; and beside the dessert and fruits and wine, there were three fair girls who might be maidens; so they exclaimed with one voice, ‘By Allah, ’tis good!’

Then they turned to the Porter and saw that he was a merry-faced wight, albeit he was by no means sober and was sore after his slappings. So they thought that he was one of themselves and said, ‘A mendicant like us! whether Arab or foreigner.’ But when the Porter heard these words, he rose up, and fixing his eyes fiercely upon them, said, ‘Sit ye here without exceeding in talk! Have you not read what is writ over the door? Surely it befitteth not fellows who come to us like paupers to way your tongues at us.’ ‘We crave thy pardon, O Fakir,’ rejoined they, ‘and our heads are between thy hands.’ The ladies laughed consumedly at the squabble; and, making peace between the Kalandars and the Porter, seated the new guests before meat and they ate.

Then they sat together, and the Portress served them with drink; and, as the cup went round merrily, quoth the Porter to the askers, ‘And you, O brothers mine, have ye no story or rare adventure to amuse us withal?’ Now the warmth of wine having mounted to their heads they called for musical instruments; and the Portress brought them a tambourine of Mosul, and a lute of Irak, and a Persian harp; and each mendicant took one and tuned it; this the tambourine and those the lute and the harp, and struck up a merry tune while the ladies sang so lustily that there was a great noise.

And whilst they were carrying on, behold, someone knocked at the gate, and the Portress went to see what was the matter there. Now the cause of that knocking, O King was this, the Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, had gone forth from the palace, as was his wont now and then, to solace himself in the city that night, and to see and hear what new thing was stirring; he was in merchant’s gear, and he was attended by Ja’afar, his Wazir, and by Masrur, his Sworder of Vengeance. As they walked about the city, their way led them towards the house of the three ladies; where they heard the loud noise of musical instruments and singing and merriment; so quoth the Caliph to Ja’afar, ‘I long to enter this house and hear those songs and see who sings them.’

Quoth Ja’afar, ‘O Prince of the Faithful; these folk are surely drunk with wine, and I fear some mischief betide us if we get amongst them.’ ‘There is no help but that I go in there,’ replied the Caliph, ‘and I desire thee to contrive some pretext for our appearing among them.’ Ja’afar replied, ‘I hear and I obey;’ and knocked at the door, whereupon the Portress came out and opened. Then Ja’afar came forward and kissing the ground before her said, ‘O my lady, we be merchants from Tiberias-town: we arrived at Baghdad ten days ago; and, alighting at the merchants’ caravan-serai, we sold all our merchandise. Now a certain trader invited us to an entertainment this night; so we went to his house and he set food before us and we ate: then we sat at wine and wassail with him for an hour or so when he gave us leave to depart; and we went out from him in the shadow of the night and, being strangers, we could not find our way back to our Khan. So haply of your kindness and courtesy you will suffer us to tarry with you this night, and Heaven will reward you!’

The Portress looked upon them and seeing them dressed like merchants and men of grave looks and solid, she returned to her sisters and repeated to them Ja’afar’s story; and they took compassion upon the strangers and said to her, ‘Let them enter.’ She opened the door to them, when said they to her, ‘Have we thy leave to come in?’ ‘Come in,’ quoth she; and the Caliph entered followed by Ja’afar and Masrur; and when the girls saw them they stood up to them in respect and made them sit down and looked to their wants, saying, ‘Welcome, and well come and good cheer to the guests, but with one condition!’ ‘What is that?’ asked they, and one of the ladies answered, ‘Speak not of what concerneth you not, lest ye hear what pleaseth you not.’ ‘Even so,’ said they; and sat down to their wine and drank deep.

Presently the Caliph looked on the three Kalandars and, seeing them each and every blind of the left eye, wondered at the sight; then he gazed upon the girls and he was startled and he marvelled with exceeding marvel at their beauty and loveliness. They continued to carouse and to converse and said to the Caliph, ‘Drink!’ but he replied, ‘I am vowed to Pilgrimage’1 and drew back from the wine. Thereupon the Portress rose and spreading before him a table-cloth worked with gold, set thereon a porcelain bowl into which she poured willow flower water with a lump of snow and a spoonful of sugar-candy. The Caliph thanked her and said in himself, ‘By Allah, I will recompense her tomorrow for the kind deed she hath done.’ The others again addressed themselves to conversing and carousing; and, when the wine gat the better of them, the eldest lady who ruled the house rose and making obeisance to them took the Cateress by the hand, and said, ‘Rise, O my sister and let us do what is our devoir.’ Both answered ‘Even so!’