Today's excerpt is from the story of The Porter And The Three Ladies Of Baghdad.
Dost thou not see that for pleasure four several things combine,
Instruments four, harp, hautboy and gittern and psaltery?
And unto these, four perfumes answer and correspond, Violets,
roses and myrtle and blood-red anemone.
Nor is our pleasure perfect, unless four things have we, Money
and wine and gardens and mistress fair and free.
And ye are three and need a fourth, who should be a man, witty, sensible and discreet, one who can keep counsel.' When they heard what he said, it amused them and they laughed at him and replied, 'What have we to do with that, we who are girls and fear to entrust our secrets to those who will not keep them? For we have read, in such and such a history, what says Ibn eth Thumam:
Tell not thy secrets: keep them with all thy might. A secret
revealed is a secret lost outright.
If thine own bosom cannot thy secrets hold, Why expect more
reserve from another wight?
Or, as well says Abou Nuwas on the same subject:
The fool, that to men doth his secrets avow, Deserves to be
marked with a brand on the brow.'
'By your lives,' rejoined the porter, 'I am a man of sense and discretion, well read in books and chronicles. I make known what is fair and conceal what is foul, and as says the poet:
None keeps a secret but the man who's trusty and discreet. A
secret's ever safely placed with honest folk and leal;
And secrets trusted unto me are in a locked-up house Whose keys
are lost and on whose door is set the Cadi's seal.
When the girls heard this, the eldest one said to him, 'Thou knowest that we have laid out much money in preparing this entertainment: hast thou aught to offer us in return? For we will not let thee sit with us and be our boon companion and gaze on our bright fair faces, except thou pay down thy share of the cost. Dost thou not know the saying:
Love without money
Is not worth a penny?'
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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