Know, O King, that last night I was at a party where they made a recitation of the Koran and got together doctors of law and religion skilled in recitation and intoning. When the readers ended, the table was spread and amongst other things they set before us was a marinated ragout flavoured with cumin seed. So we sat down, but one of our number held back and refused to touch it. We conjured him to eat of it but he swore he would not. When we again pressed him, he said, "Be not instant with me. It suffices me that which has already befallen me through eating it. and he began reciting:—

"Shoulder your tray and go straight to your goal; And, if suit you this Kohl, why,—use this Kohl!"

When he ended his verse we said to him, "In God's name, tell us your reason for refusing to eat of the cumin ragout?" "If so it be," he replied, "and if I must eat of it, I will not do so except I wash my hand forty times with soap,

The Reeve's Tale. 279 forty times with potash and forty times with galangale, the total being one hundred and twenty washings." Thereupon the hospitable host bade his slaves bring water and whatever he required. The young man washed his hand as aforementioned. Then he sat down, looking disgusted and frightened, and dipping his hand in the ragout, began eating while at the same time showing signs of anger. And we wondered at him with extreme wonder, for his hand trembled and the morsel in it shook. We saw that his thumb had been cut off and he ate with his four fingers only. So we said to him, "In God's name, what happened to your thumb? Is your hand thus by the creation of God, or has some accident befallen it?" "O my brothers," he answered, "it is not only this thumb, but also my other thumb and both my great toes that are thus, as you shall see." So saying, he uncovered his left hand and his feet, and we saw that the left hand was even as the right, and in like manner each of his feet lacked its great toe. When we saw him in this way, our amazement grew still greater and we said to him, "We have hardly patience enough to await your history and to hear the manner of the cutting off of your thumbs and the reason of your washing both hands one hundred and twenty times." "Know then," he said, "that my father was chief of the merchants and the wealthiest of them all in Baghdad city during the reign of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. He was much given to wine drinking and listening to the lute and the other instruments of pleasure, so that when he died he left nothing. I buried him and had recitations of the Koran made for him, and mourned for him days and nights.

Then I opened his shop and found that he had left in it few goods, while his debts were many. However, I compounded with his creditors for time to settle their demands and betook myself to buying and selling, paying them something from week to week on account. I did not stop doing this till I had cleared off his obligations in full and began adding to my principal. One day, as I sat in my shop, suddenly and unexpectedly there appeared before me a young lady fairer than whom I never saw, wearing the richest raiment and ornaments and riding a she-mule, with one slave walking before her and another behind her. She drew rein at the head of the exchange bazaar and entered followed by an eunuch who said to her, "O my lady, come out and away without telling anyone, lest you light a fire which will burn us all up." Moreover, he stood before her guarding her from view while she looked at the merchants' shops. She found none open but mine, so she came up with the eunuch behind her and, sitting down in my shop, saluted me. Never had I heard anything fairer than her speech or sweeter than her voice. Then she unveiled her face, and I saw that she was like the moon. I stole a glance at her whose sight caused me a thousand sighs. My heart was captivated with love of her, and I kept looking again and again upon her face, repeating these verses:—

"Say to the charmer in the dove hued veil, Death would be welcome to abate your bale! Favour me with your favours that I live: See, I stretch forth my palm to take your vail!"

When she heard my verse, she answered me, saying:—

"I've lost all patience by despite of you; My heart knows nothing save love plight to you! If anything I sight save charms so bright of you; My parting end not in the sight of you! I swear I'll never forget the right of you; And glad this breast would soar to height of you: You made me drain the love cup, and I gladly A love cup tender for delight of you: Take this my form where'er you go, and when You die, entomb me in the site of you: Call on me in my grave, and hear my bones Sigh their responses to the shright of you: And were I asked 'Of God what would you see?' I answer, 'first His will then Your decree!"

When she ended her verse, she asked me, "O youth, have you any fair stuffs by you?" I answered, "O my lady, your slave is poor, but have patience till the merchants open their shops, and I will suit you with what you will." Then we sat talking, I and she (and I was drowned in the sea of her love, dazed in the desert of my passion for her), till the merchants opened their shops. I rose and fetched her all she sought to the tune of five thousand dirhams. She gave the stuff to the eunuch and, going forth by the door of the Exchange, she mounted her mule and went away, without telling me from where she came. I was ashamed to speak of such a trifle.

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When the merchants dunned me for the price, I made myself answerable for five thousand dirhams and went home, drunken with the love of her. They set supper before me and I ate a mouthful, thinking only of her beauty and loveliness. I sought to sleep, but sleep came not to me. And such was my condition for a whole week, when the merchants required their monies of me. But I persuaded them to have patience for another week, at the end of which time she again appeared mounted on a she-mule and attended by her eunuch and two slaves. She saluted me and said, "O my master, we have been long in bringing you the price of the stuffs. But now fetch the Shroff and take your monies." So I sent for the money changer and the eunuch counted out the coin before him and made it over to me. Then we sat talking, I and she, till the market opened. She said to me, "Get me this and that." So I got her from the merchants whatever she wanted, and she took it and went away without saying a word to me about the price. As soon as she was out of sight, I repented of what I had done, for the worth of the stuffs bought for her amounted to a thousand dinars. I said to myself, "What manner of love is this? She has brought me five thousand dirhams and has taken goods for a thousand dinars."

I feared lest I should be beggared through having to pay the merchants their money. I said, "They know none other but me. This lovely lady is nothing but a cheat and a swindler who has diddled me with her beauty and grace, for she saw that I was a mere youth and laughed at me for not asking her address." I did not stop being troubled by these doubts and fears. She was absent more than a month, till the merchants pestered me for their money and were so hard upon me that I put up my property for sale and stood on the very brink of ruin. However, as I was sitting in my shop one day, drowned in melancholy musings, she suddenly rode up and, dismounting at the bazaar gate, came straight towards me. When I saw her, all my cares fell from me and I forgot every trouble. She came close up to me and greeted me with her sweet voice and pleasant speech. She presently said, "Fetch me the Shroff and weigh your money." So she gave me the price of what goods I had gotten for her and more, and fell to talking freely with me, till I was like to die of joy and delight.

Presently, she asked me, "Have you a wife?" I answered, "No, indeed. I have never known a woman," and began to shed tears. She said, "Why do you weep?" I said, "It is nothing." Then giving the eunuch some of the gold pieces, I begged him to be go-between in the matter. But he laughed and said, "She is more in love with you than you with her. She has no occasion for the stuffs she has bought of you and did all this only for the love of you. So ask of her what you will and she will deny you nothing." When she saw me giving the dinars to the eunuch, she returned and sat down again. I said to her, "Be charitable to your slave and pardon him what he is about to say." Then I told her what was in my mind and she assented. She said to the eunuch, "You will carry my message to him," adding to me, "And do you whatever the eunuch bids you." Then she got up and went away, and I paid the merchants their monies. They all profited, but as for me, regret at the breaking off of our intercourse was all my gain. I did not sleep the whole of that night. However, before many days passed, her eunuch came to me, and I entreated him honourably and asked him about his mistress. "Truly she is sick with love of you," he replied. I rejoined, "Tell me who and what she is."

He said, "The Lady Zubaydah, queen consort of Harun al-Rashid, brought her up as a ward and has advanced her to be stewardess of the Harim, and gave her the right of going in and out of her own sweet will. She spoke to her lady about you and begged her to marry her to you. But she said, 'I will not do this till I see the young man, and if he be worthy of you, I will marry you to him.' So now we look for the moment to smuggle you into the Palace. If you succeed in entering secretly, you will win your wish to wed her. But if the affair comes to light, the Lady Zubaydah will strike off your head. What say you to this?"

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I answered, "I will go with you and abide the risk whereof you speak." He said, "As soon as it is night, go to the Mosque built by the Lady Zubaydah on the Tigris and pray the night prayers and sleep there." "With love and gladness," I cried. So at nightfall I repaired to the Mosque, where I prayed and passed the night. With earliest dawn, behold, came sundry eunuchs in a skiff with a number of empty chests which they deposited in the Mosque. Then all of them went their ways but one, and looking curiously at him, I saw he was our go-between. Presently, in came the handmaiden, my mistress, walking straight up to us. I rose to her and embraced her while she kissed me and shed tears. We talked awhile, after which she made me get into one of the chests which she locked upon me. Presently, the other eunuchs came back with a quantity of packages and she fell to stowing them in the chests, which she locked down one by one, till all were shut. When all was done, the eunuchs embarked the chests in the boat and made for the Lady Zubaydah's palace. With this, thought began to beset me and I said to myself, "Truly your lust and wantonness will be the death of you. And the question is, after all, will you win to your wish or not?"

I began to weep, boxed up as I was in the chest and suffering from cramp. I prayed Allah that He deliver me from the dangerous strait I was in, while the boat continued on till it reached the Palace gate where they lifted out the chests, including the one in which I was. Then they carried them in, passing through a troop of eunuchs, guardians of the Harim and of the ladies behind the curtain, till they came to the post of the Eunuch in Chief who started up from his slumbers and shouted to the handmaiden, "What is in those chests?" "They are full of wares for the Lady Zubaydah!" "Open them, one by one, that I may see what is in them."

"And why would you open them?" "Give me no words and exceed not in talk! These chests must and shall be opened." So saying, he sprang to his feet, and the first which they brought to him to open was the one in which I was. When I felt his hands upon it, my senses failed me and I lost control in my funk, the water running out of the box. Then she said to the Eunuch in Chief, "O steward! You will cause me to be killed and yourself too, for you have damaged goods worth ten thousand dinars. This chest contains coloured dresses and four-gallon flasks of Zemzem water, and now one of them has come unstoppered and the water is running out over the clothes and will spoil their colours." The eunuch answered, "Take up your boxes and get you gone to the curse of God!" So the slaves carried off all the chests, including mine, and hastened on with them till suddenly I heard the voice of one saying, "Alas, alas! The Caliph! The Caliph!" When that cry struck my ears I died in my skin and said a saying which never yet shamed the sayer, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! I and only I have brought this calamity upon myself." Presently, I heard the Caliph say to my mistress, "A plague on you, what is in those boxes?" She answered, "Dresses for the Lady Zubaydah." Thereupon he said, "Open them before me!" When I heard this I died my death outright and said to myself, "By God, today is the very last of my days in this world. If I come safe out of this I will marry her and say no more, but detection stares me in the face and my head is as good as stricken off." Then I repeated the profession of Faith, saying, "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is the Apostle of God!"

When it was the Twenty eighth night

I heard my mistress the handmaid declare to the Caliph,

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"These chests, O Commander of the Faithful, have been committed to my charge by the Lady Zubaydah, and she does not wish their contents to be seen by any one." "No matter!" The Caliph, said, "needs must they be opened, I will see what is in them"; and he cried aloud to the eunuchs, "Bring the chests here before me." At this I made sure of death (without benefit of a doubt) and swooned away. Then the eunuchs brought the chests up to him one after another and he fell to inspecting the contents, but he saw in them only ottars and stuffs and fine dresses; and they did not stop opening the chests and he did not stop looking to see what was in them, finding only clothes and such matters, till none remained unopened but the box in which I was boxed. They put forth their hands to open it, but my mistress the handmaid made haste and said to the Caliph, "This one you will see only in the presence of the Lady Zubaydah, for that which is in it is her secret." When he heard this he gave orders to carry in the chests; so they took up that in which I was and bore it with the rest into the Harim and set it down in the midst of the saloon; and indeed my spittle was dried up out of sheer fear.

Then my mistress opened the box and took me out, saying, "Fear not: no harm shall happen you now nor dread; but broaden your breast and strengthen your heart and sit you down till the Lady Zubaydah come, and surely you will win your wish of me." So I sat down and, after a while, in came ten hand maidens, virgins like moons, and ranged themselves in two rows, five facing five; and after them twenty other damsels, high bosomed virginity, surrounding the Lady Zubaydah who could hardly walk for the weight of her raiment and ornaments. As she drew near, the slave girls dispersed from around her, and I advanced and kissed the ground between her hands. She signed to me to sit and, when I sat down before her chair, she began questioning me of my forbears and family and condition, to which I made such answers that pleased her, and she said to my mistress, "Our nurturing of you, O damsel, has not disappointed us." Then she said to me, "Know that this handmaiden is to us even as our own child and she is a trust committed to you By God." I again kissed the ground before her, well pleased that I should marry my mistress, and she bade me abide ten days in the palace.

So I abode there ten days, during which time I saw not my mistress nor any body save one of the concubines, who brought me the morning and evening meals. After this the Lady Zubaydah took counsel with the Caliph on the marriage of her favourite handmaid, and he gave leave and assigned to her a wedding portion of ten thousand gold pieces. So the Lady Zubaydah sent for the Kazi and witnesses who wrote our marriage contract, after which the women made ready sweetmeats and rich viands and distributed them among all the Odahs of the Harim. Thus they did other ten days, at the end of which time my mistress went to the baths. Meanwhile, they set before me a tray of food on which were various meats and among those dishes, which were enough to daze the wits, was a bowl of cumin ragout containing chickens' breasts, fricandoed and flavoured with sugar, pistachios, musk and rose water. Then, By God, fair sirs, I did not long hesitate; but took my seat before the ragout and fell to and ate of it till I could no more. After this I wiped my hands, but forgot to wash them; and sat till it grew dark, when the grow candles were lighted and the singing women came in with their tambourines and proceeded to display the bride in various dresses and to carry her in procession from room to room all round the palace, getting their palms crossed with gold.

Then they brought her to me and disrobed her. When I found myself alone with her on the bed I embraced her, hardly believing in our union; but she smelt the strong odours of the ragout upon my hands and immediately cried out with an exceeding loud cry, at which the slave girls came running to her from all sides. I trembled with alarm, unknowing what was the matter, and the girls he asked, "What ails you, O our sister?" She answered them, "Take this mad man away from me: I had thought he was a man of sense!" I to her, said, "What makes you think me mad?" She said, "You madman! What made you eat of cumin ragout and forget to wash your hand? By God, I will requite you for your misconduct. Shall the like of you come to bed with the like of me with unclean hands?" Then she took from her side a plaited scourge and came down with it on my back and the place where I sit till her forearms were benumbed and I fainted away from the much beating; when she said

The Reeve's Tale. 287 to the handmaids, "Take him and carry him to the Chief of Police, that he may strike off the hand wherewith he ate of the cumin ragout, and which he did not wash." When I heard this I said, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah! Will you cut off my hand, because I ate of a cumin ragout and did not wash?" The handmaidens also interceded with her and kissed her hand saying, "O our sister, this man is a simpleton, punish him not for what he has done this nonce;" but she answered, "By God, there is no help but that I dock him of somewhat, especially the offending member." Then she went away and I saw no more of her for ten days, during which time she sent me meat and drink by a slave girl who told me that she had fallen sick from the smell of the cumin ragout. After that time she came to me and said, "O black of face! I will teach you how to eat cumin ragout without washing your hands!" Then she cried out to the handmaids, who pinioned me; and she took a sharp razor and cut off my thumbs and great toes; even as you see, O fair assembly!

Thereupon I swooned away, and she sprinkled some powder of healing herbs upon the stumps and when the blood was staunched, I said, "Never again will I eat of cumin ragout without washing my hands forty times with potash and forty times with galangale and forty times with soap!" And she took of me an oath and bound me by a covenant to that effect. When, therefore, you brought me the cumin ragout my colour changed and I said to myself, "It was this very dish that caused the cutting off of my thumbs and great toes;" and, when you forced me, I said, "Needs must I fulfil the oath I have sworn." "And what befell you after this?" asked those present; and he answered, "When I swore to her, her anger was appeased and I slept with her that night. We abode thus awhile till she said to me one day, 'truly the Palace of the Caliph is not a pleasant place for us to live in, and none ever entered it save yourself; and you only by grace of the Lady Zubaydah. Now she has given me fifty thousand dinars,' adding, 'Take this money and go out and buy us a fair dwelling house.'

So I fared forth and bought a fine and spacious mansion, where she removed all the wealth she owned and what riches I had gained in stuffs and costly rarities. Such is the cause of the cutting off of my thumbs and great toes." We ate (continued the Reeve), and were returning to our homes when there befell me with the Hunchback that you know of. This then is my story, and peace be with you! The King, said, "This story is on no wise more delectable than the story of the Hunchback; nay, it is even less so, and there is no help for the hanging of the whole of you." Then came forward the Jewish physician and kissing the ground said, ",

I will tell you an history more wonderful than that of the Hunchback." "Tell on," said the King of China; so he began the