The Scented Garden

The Shame of the Prodigal. 69 thy feet. Thou art no longer cheerful ; Laila in the night bade me observe that in thy song, which thou sangest to the eunuchs, there was a note of pain. Is it because thou hast not eaten for three days that thou hast lost thy good spirits ? Or wast thou ashamed, shooting the peppercorns ?3 No, by Allah, for thou hast no shame. It may be because I have clothed the male ass of Abdullah the tailor in costly trappings and made him pass throughout the whole city in charge of the pimp Mohammed Shaib the Maghraby4 saying : “ I go to fetch Habib from the House of El Qahar as a beautiful bride to this my master Khar-i-zakar-i-asal.5 The people of this city are laughing, Habib ; it is at thee ! Even thy Nubian called out in the ba- zaar : “ Beware, O presumptuous one ! Remember the ass that fell into the pit ! ”6 I love thee, Habib ; and that none the less that thou hast cured me of my folly for thee. I am the master, and thou the slave. See to it that thou be the slave of love7 ; then wilt thou live ever happily with El Qahar, the despiser of Sha- hrava.8 1. This passage is a clever parody on a well known Ghazal of Hafiz. 2. That is to say, phenomena are all alike to who perceives the Noumenon. 3. To amuse oneself at the expense of another, one may fill his rectum with peppercorns, and ap- ply a pinch of pepper to the nose. This causes the peppercorns to shoot forth, often noisily. 4. The Shaib are of the famous Riff tribe. The Moors are considered a very wild and boisterous crew, but very good-tempered. They are the Irish of Islam. Burton is, I think, a little hard on them when he writes : “ What conscience has the mur-