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Then I wept again and implored him, saying to myself, “I will work on him with words; so haply he may spare my life, though he take all I have.” So I complained to him of my sufferings and repeated the following verses:
If thou indeed wert just to me, thou wouldst not take my life. Alas! against the law of Death no arbiter is there!
Thou layst upon my back the load of passion and desire, When I for weakness scarce can lift the very gown I wear!
That so my soul should waste away, small wonder is to me; But oh! I wonder how my flesh can thine estrangement bear.
Then I wept again, and he looked at me and reviled and reproached me, repeating the following verses:
Thou hast forgotten my love in the arms of another than me; Thou shew’st me estrangement, though I was never unfaithful to thee.
So I will cast thee away, since thou wast the first to forsake, And by thy pattern content to live without thee will I be.
And (like thyself) in the arms of another thy charms I’ll forget; ’Tis thou that hast sundered our loves: thou canst not reproach it to me.
Then he called to the slave with the sword, saying, “Cut her in half and rid us of her, for we have no profit of her.” So the slave drew near to me and I gave myself up for lost and committed my affair to God the Most High; but, at this moment, in came the old woman and threw herself at my husband’s feet and kissed them, saying, “O my son, for the sake of my fosterage of thee and my service to thee, spare this young lady, for indeed she has done nothing deserving of death. Thou art a very young man, and I fear lest her death be laid to thy count, for it is said, ‘He who kills shall be killed.’ As for this wretched woman, put her away from thee and from thy thought and heart.” And she ceased not to weep and implore him, till he relented and said, “I pardon her, but I will set a mark on her that shall stay with her all her life.” Then he made the slaves strip off my clothes and hold me down, and taking a rod of quince-wood beat me with it on the back and sides, till I lost my senses
