Today's excerpt is from the story of The Porter And The Three Ladies Of Baghdad.
And she said to him, 'Drink, and health and prosperity attend thee!' So he took the cup and kissed her hand and sang the following verses: I brought my love old wine and pure, the likeness of her cheeks,
Whose glowing brightness called to mind a brazier's heart of red.
She touched the wine-cup with her lips, and laughing roguishly,
"How canst thou proffer me to drink of my own cheeks?" she said.
"Drink!" answered I, "it is my tears; its hue is of my blood; And
it was heated at a fire that by my sighs was fed."
And she answered him with the following verse:
If, O my friend, thou hast indeed wept tears of blood for me, I
prithee, give them me to drink, upon thine eyes and head!
Then she took the cup and drank it off to her sisters' health; and they continued to drink and make merry, dancing and laughing and singing and reciting verses and ballads. The porter fell to toying and kissing and biting and handling and groping and dallying and taking liberties with them: whilst one put a morsel into his mouth and another thumped him, and this one gave him a cuff and that pelted him with flowers; and he led the most delightful life with them, as if he sat in paradise among the houris. They ceased not to drink and carouse thus, till the wine sported in their heads and got the better of their senses, when the portress, arose, and putting off her clothes, let down her hair over her naked body, for a veil. Then she threw herself into the basin and sported in the water and swam about and dived like a duck and took water in her mouth and spurted it at the porter and washed her limbs and the inside of her thighs.
Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Illiad by Homer.
From the Arab world: these stories date back to the Middle Ages.
Picture: Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryār.
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