The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad

1 2 3

When the portress heard the third song, she cried aloud and, laying hands on her garments, rent them down to the very skirt and fell to the ground fainting a third time, again showing the scars of the scourge. Then said the three Kalandars, "Would Heaven we had never entered this house, but had rather nighted on the mounds and heaps outside the city! For verily our visit hath been troubled by sights which cut to the heart." The Caliph turned to them and asked, "Why so?" and they made answer, "Our minds are sore troubled by this matter." Quoth the Caliph, "Are ye not of the household?" and quoth they, "No, nor indeed did we ever set eyes on the place till within this hour." Hereat the Caliph marveled and rejoined, "This man who sitteth by you, would he not know the secret of the matter?" And so saying he winked and made signs at the porter. So they questioned the man, but he replied: "By the All-might of Allah, in love all are alike! I am the growth of Baghdad, yet never in my born days did I darken these doors till today, and my companying with them was a curious matter." "By Allah," they rejoined, "we took thee for one of them and now we see thou art one like ourselves."
Then said the Caliph: "We be seven men, and they only three women without even a fourth to help them, so let us question them of their case. And if they answer us not, fain we will be answered by force." All of them agreed to this except Ja’afar, who said, "This is not my recking. Let them be, for we are their guests and, as ye know, they made a compact and condition with us which we accepted and promised to keep. Wherefore it is better that we be silent concerning this matter, and as but little of the night remaineth, let each and every of us gang his own gait." Then he winked at the Caliph and whispered to him, "There is but one hour of darkness left and I can bring them before thee tomorrow, when thou canst freely question them all concerning their story." But the Caliph raised his head haughtily and cried out at him in wrath, saying: "I have no patience left for my longing to hear of them. Let the Kalandars question them forthright." Quoth Ja’afar, "This is not my rede."
Then words ran high and talk answered talk, and they disputed as to who should first put the question, but at last all fixed upon the porter. And as the jangle increased the house mistress could not but notice it and asked them, "O ye folk! On what matter are ye talking so loudly?" Then the porter stood up respectfully before her and said: "O my lady, this company earnestly desire that thou acquaint them with story of the two bitches and what maketh thee punish them so cruelly, and then thou fallest to weeping over them and kissing them. And lastly, they want to hear the tale of thy sister and why she hath been bastinadoed with palm sticks like a man. These are the questions they charge me to put, and peace be with thee." Thereupon quoth she who was the lady of the house to the guests, "Is this true that he saith on your part?" and all replied, "Yes!" save Ja’afar, who kept silence.
When she heard these words she cried: "By Allah, ye have wronged us, O our guests, with grievous wronging, for when you came before us we made compact and condition with you that whoso should speak of what concerneth him not should hear what pleaseth him not. Sufficeth ye not that we took you into our house and fed you with our best food? But the fault is not so much yours as hers who let you in." Then she tucked up her sleeves from her wrists and struck the floor thrice with her hand, crying, "Come ye quickly!" And lo! a closet door opened and out of it came seven Negro slaves with drawn swords in hand, to whom she said, "Pinion me those praters’ elbows and bind them each to each." They did her bidding and asked her: "O veiled and virtuous! Is it thy high command that we strike off their heads?" But she answered, "Leave them awhile that I question them of their condition before their necks feel the sword." "By Allah, O my lady!" cried the porter, "slay me not for other’s sin. All these men offended and deserve the penalty of crime save myself. Now, by Allah, our night had been charming had we escaped the mortification of those monocular Kalandars whose entrance into a populous city would convert it into a howling wilderness." Then he repeated these verses:

"How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother!

And fairest fair when shown to weakest brother.

By Love’s own holy tie between us twain,

Let one not suffer for the sin of other."

When the porter ended his verse, the lady laughed despite her wrath, and came up to the party and spake thus: "Tell me who ye be, for ye have but an hour of life. And were ye not men of rank and perhaps notables of your tribes, you had not been so froward and I had hastened your doom." Then said the Caliph: "Woe to thee, O Ja’afar, tell her who we are lest we be slain by mistake, and speak her fair before some horror befall us." "’Tis part of thy deserts," replied he, whereupon the Caliph cried out at him, saying, "There is a time for witty words and there is a time for serious work." Then the lady accosted the three Kalandars and asked them, "Are ye brothers?" when they answered, "No, by Allah, we be naught but fakirs and foreigners." Then quoth she to one among them, "Wast thus born blind of one eye?" and quoth he, "No, by Allah, ’twas a marvelous matter and a wondrous mischance which caused my eye to be torn out, and mine is a tale which, if it were written upon the eye corners with needle gravers, were a warner to whoso would be warned." She questioned the second and third Kalandar, but all replied like the first, "By Allah, O our mistress, each one of us cometh from a different country, and we are all three the sons of kings, sovereign princes ruling over suzerains and capital cities."
Thereupon she turned toward them and said: "Let each and every of you tell me his tale in due order and explain the cause of his coming to our place, and if his story please us, let him stroke his head and wend his way." The first to come forward was the hammal, the porter, who said: "O my lady, I am a man and a porter. This dame, the cateress, hired me to carry a load and took me first to the shop of a vintner, then to the booth of a butcher, thence to the stall of a fruiterer, thence to a grocer who also sold dry fruits, thence to a confectioner and a perfumer-cum-druggist, and from him to this place, where there happened to me with you what happened. Such is my story, and peace be on us all!" At this the lady laughed and said, "Rub thy head and wend thy ways!" But he cried, "By Allah, I will not stump it till I hear the stories of my companions!" Then came forward one of the monoculars and began to tell her...

1 2 3