them, the Lady Budur lute in hand. She preluded in eleven modes, then, returning to the first, sang these two couplets,
'Fire is cooler than fires in my breast, * Rock is softer than heart of my lord Marvel I that he's formèd to hold * In water soft frame heart rock-hard!'
Said I to her, 'Repeat the couplets and the air!' But she would not:'"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Thirty-fourth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that "Jubayr continued, 'So cried I to her, Repeat the couplets and the air!' But she would not; whereupon I bade the boatmen pelt her with oranges, and they pelted her till we feared her boat would founder Then she went her way, and this is how the love was transferred from her heart to mine.' So I wished them joy of their union and, taking the purse with its contents, I returned to Baghdad." Now when the Caliph heard Ibn Mansur's story his heart was lightened and the restlessness and oppression from which he suffered forsook him. And they also tell the tale of
The Man of Al-Yaman and His Six Slave-Girls
The Caliph Al-Maamun was sitting one day in his palace, surrounded by