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Dyeing thy hoary hairs disgracefully with black[1] And hiding what appears, with fraudulent intent;
As of the puppet-men thou wert, with one beard go’st And with another com’st again, incontinent.
And how well saith another:
Quoth she to me, “I see thou dy’st thy hoariness;” and I, “I do but hide it from thy sight, O thou my ear and eye!”[2]
She laughed out mockingly and said, “A wonder ’tis indeed! Thou so aboundest in deceit that even thy hair’s a lie.”
‘By Allah,’ quoth the broker, ‘thou hast spoken truly!’ The merchant asked what she said: so the broker repeated the verses to him, and he knew that she was in the right and desisted from buying her. Then another came forward and would have bought her at the same price; but she looked at him and seeing that he had but one eye, said, ‘This man is one-eyed; and it is of such as he that the poet saith:
Consort not with him that is one-eyed a day, And be on thy guard ’gainst his mischief and lies:
For God, if in him aught of good had been found, Had not curst him with blindness in one of his eyes.’
Then the broker brought her another bidder and said to her, ‘Wilt thou be sold to this man?’ She looked at him and seeing that he was short of stature and had a beard that reached to his navel, said, ‘This is he of whom the poet speaks, when he says:
I have a friend, who has a beard, that God Caused flourish without profit, till, behold,
’Tis, as it were, to look upon, a night Of middle winter, long and dark and cold.’
‘O my lady,’ said the broker, ‘look who pleases thee of
