Payne: The Woman's Trick Against Her Husband

[Go back to The Sons of Yehya Ben Khalid and Said Ben Salim El Bahili]

A man brought his wife a fish one Friday and bidding her cook it against the end of the congregational prayers, went out to his business. Meanwhile, there came in her friend, who bade her to a wedding at his house; so she agreed and laying the fish in a jar of water, went off with him and was absent a whole week, whilst her husband sought her from house to house and enquired after her; but none could give him any news of her.

On the following Friday, she came home, [and he fell to chiding and reproaching her;] but she brought out to him the fish alive from the jar and assembled the folk against him. He told them his case; but they credited him not and said, 'It cannot be that the fish should have remained alive all this while.' So they caused adjudge him mad and imprisoned him and laughed at him, whereupon he wept sore and recited the following verses:

A hag, that holds high rank, indeed, in lewdness! In her face Are witnesses that testify to filth and wantonness. When she's unclean, she bawds; and when she's clean, she plays the whore: So, all her time, she's either bawd or else adulteress.

[Go to The Devout Woman and the Two Wicked Elders]

Payne, John (1842-1916). The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. London. 1901. Gutenberg Vol. I. Gutenberg Vol. II. Gutenberg Vol. III. Gutenberg Vol. IV. Please consult the Gutenberg edition for footnotes; the footnotes have not been included in this web version. Wollamshram Vol. V. Wollamshram Vol. VI. Wollamshram Vol. VII. Wollamshram Vol. VIII. Wollamshram Vol. IX. Please consult the Wollamshram edition for footnotes; the footnotes have not been included in this web version.