There was once a Sultan's daughter, whose heart was taken with
love of a black slave: he abated her maidenhead and she became
passionately addicted to futtering, so that she could not do
without it a single hour and complained of her case to one of her
body women, who told her that no thing poketh and stroketh more
abundantly than the baboon.
FN$438 Now it so chanced one day,
that an ape-leader passed under her lattice, with a great ape; so
she unveiled her face and looking upon the ape, signed to him
with her eyes, whereupon he broke his bonds and chain and climbed
up to the Princess, who hid him in a place with her, and night
and day he abode there, eating and drinking and copulating. Her
father heard of this and would have killed her;--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-sixth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Sultan heard of this work he would have slain his daughter; but
she smoked his design; and, disguising herself in Mameluke's
dress, mounted horse after loading a mule with gold and bullion,
and precious stuffs past all account; then carrying with her the
ape, she fled to Cairo, where she took up her abode in one of the
houses without the city and upon the verge of the Suez-desert.
Now, every day, she used to buy meat of a young man, a butcher,
but she came not to him till after noonday; and then she was so
yellow and disordered in face that he said in his mind, "There
must indeed hang some mystery by this slave." "Accordingly (quoth
the butcher) one day when she came to me as usual, I went out
after her secretly, and ceased not to follow her from place to
place, so as she saw me not, till she came to her lodging on the
edge of her waste and entered; and I looked in upon her through a
cranny, and saw her as soon as she was at home, kindle a fire and
cook the meat, of which she ate enough and served up the rest to
a baboon she had by her and he did the same. Then she put off the
slave's habit and donned the richest of women's apparel; and so I
knew that she was a lady. After this she set on wine and drank
and gave the ape to drink; and he stroked her nigh half a score
times without drawing till she swooned away, when he spread over
her a silken coverlet and returned to his place. Then I went down
in the midst of the place and the ape, becoming aware of me,
would have torn me in pieces; but I made haste to pull out my
knife and slit his paunch and his bowels fell out. The noise
aroused the young lady, who awoke terrified and trembling; and,
when she saw the ape in this case, she shrieked such a shriek
that her soul well nigh fled her body. Then she fell down in a
fainting-fit and when she came to herself, she said to me, 'What
moved thee to do thus? Now Allah upon thee, send me after him!'
But I spoke her fair for a while and pledged myself to stand in
the ape's stead in the matter of much poking, till her trouble
subsided and I took her to wife. But when I came to perform my
promise I proved a failure and I fell short in this matter and
could not endure such hard labour: so I complained of my case and
mentioned her exorbitant requirements to a certain old woman who
engaged to manage the affair and said to me, 'Needs must thou
bring me a cooking-pot full of virgin vinegar and a pound of the
herb pellitory called wound-wort.'
FN#439 So I brought her what
she sought, and she laid the pellitory in the pot with the
vinegar and set it on the fire, till it was thoroughly boiled.
Then she bade me futter the girl, and I futtered her till she
fainted away, when the old woman took her up (and she
unconscious), and set her parts to the mouth of the cooking-pot.
The steam of the pot entered her slit and there fell from it
somewhat which I examined; and behold, it was two small worms,
one black and the other yellow. Quoth the old, woman, ''The black
was bred of the strokings of the negro and the yellow of stroking
with the baboon.' Now when she recovered from her swoon she abode
with me, in all delight and solace of life, and sought not
swiving as before, for Allah had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn
of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-seventh Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young
man continued: "In truth Allah had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled and acquainted her with the case.
Thereupon I lived with her and she took the old woman to be to
her in the stead of her mother." "And" (said he who told me the
tale) "the old woman and the young man and his wife abode in joy
and cheer till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and
the Sunderer of societies; and glory be to the Ever-living One,
who dieth not and in whose hand is Dominion of the world visible
and invisible!''
FN#440 And another tale they tell is that of
