3.11.2
When he reached the ruler’s council chamber, the ruler said to him, “The news of your arrival on this island to stay with the Bag-man, of how he bothered you with his endless dreams, and of how, not content with that, he taught his wife to dream like him has reached me. So how would you feel now about taking on a task that will reduce his dreams and increase your purse?” “What might that be, my lord?” he asked. The ruler replied, “On this island there is a people with breath so foul that no one can bear to get close enough to them to understand them when they open their mouths.112 I hear that you know how to cure them. Would you be interested, then, in treating them and in earning yourself a goodly reward from us for doing so?” “It is for you to decide, my lord,” he replied. “I am, however, the priest of the Oneiromancer’s Chamber.” “I shall send someone to the Bag-man now,” said the ruler, “to inform him of this, so don’t worry about him doing you any mischief.” “May God reward you well!” said the Fāriyāq. “You are indeed deserving of God’s good fortune and bounty.” Then he left his presence, and without retreating backwards, for Frankish rulers do not rebuke a man if they see his nape, his back, or for that matter his belly; in fact, the bellies of those people are more conspicuous than their backs.
3.11.3
When he got home, he told his wife what had happened. She, who had just started learning how to read and write, said, “What a blessed day — I saw in a jeweler’s shop a rope of precious stones that seemed to me to bear letters that might have been p-r-o-f-i-t-f-r-o-m-t-h-e-f-o-u-l-o-f-b-r-e-a-t-h. Can any meaning be extracted from them?” “The meaning that may be extracted,” said the Fāriyāq, “is that I’m supposed to buy the necklace for you from the money I earn from the foul-of-breath job.” “Quite right,” said she, “for I used to hear my mother telling my father that if a man spends the ‘cap’ of whatever wealth he accrues on jewelry and clothes for his wife, God will reward him the ‘tail’ (meaning the ‘tail’ of his wealth, not of his wife).”113 “And what,” he asked, “would be the benefit of this expenditure if the benefit were to extend to only one of the two parties?” “The greater beauty of his wife!” she replied. “Speaking for myself,” he said, “I’m content with your present, natural beauty, so for whom this increase?” “It will make you love me even more,” she said, “and drive others to envy you and wish I were theirs.” “God protect us from the evil of such increase!” he thought. “But I shall have to buy the rope: better that than untie the knot”114 and he made her a promise to do so, which she accepted, praise God, touching her neck. A month later, when he received his salary, he fulfilled his promise, causing her to say, “It may come from the money from the foul of breath, but it’s better than ambergris. God has provided us with a most just division: take the earnings from the hag-ridden and give me those from the foul of breath — I declare myself satisfied before God with them (bihim).” “Don’t say ‘bihim,’” he told her, “say ‘bihā.’ ‘Bihim’ would refer to the foul of breath.”115 The Fāriyāq continued: “At this point, she started muttering words of which I could make out only the last: ‘… and what’s wrong with them?!’ so I answered her, ‘And what an ugly old matron you are!’ at which she turned to the door but could see no one, so asked me, ‘What patron?’”116
3.11.4
The Fāriyāq continued to hold the two abovementioned jobs, as oneiromancer and physician, long enough for him to take care of his wife’s needs and buy luxurious furnishings and good-quality pots and pans, and he began inviting people over and holding banquets for them. Now the ruler had a custom of inviting all the more distinguished persons in his service, on the eve of a certain feast, to dance in his presence, the men with the women, and the Fāriyāq and his wife were among those invited. When his wife saw the men dancing with their arms around the women’s waists, she asked her husband, “Are those women the wives of those men?” “Some are and some aren’t,” he replied. “Then how can they put their arms around their waists?” she asked. “Such is the custom of the people here and in all the lands of the Franks,” he answered. “And after the waist-holding?” she asked. “What happens then?” “I don’t know,” he said, “but when the party breaks up, everyone goes to his own home.” “As God is my witness,” she said, “no man puts his arm around a woman’s waist without next putting his belly on her belly!” “Don’t think badly of them. It’s just a custom they’ve adopted,” he said. “I grant you,” she responded, “that it may be a custom, and a fine one at that, but what of the feelings of the woman when a beautiful man touches her and puts his arm around her waist?” The Fāriyāq went on, “I told her, ‘I don’t know. I’m a man, not a woman.’ ‘I do know,’ said she. ‘God placed the waist in the middle to be a focus for both the higher and the lower sensations. That is why when women dance, or are pinched anywhere on their bodies, they bend from the waist.’ Then she heaved a deep sigh and said, ‘Would that my parents had taught me to dance, for I see nothing to bring a woman a contemptuous glance.’ I said, ‘If you’d “opened” the ṣād with each hemistich, it would have made a perfect line of verse,’117 to which she replied, ‘How dare you! How can you say such a thing118 in a gathering such as this?’ I replied, ‘To the house get thee! I’ve seen and heard enough tonight to quite suffice me!’ but she said, ‘I have to watch the dancing to the end!’” “So,” said the Fāriyāq, “we stayed until morning, when I took her away, she saying as she walked along, ‘Women dancing with men! Men dancing with women! Dancin’ girlies, dancin’ boys! Dancin’ boys ‘n dancin’ girls!’, which made me say, ‘Dah-da-dah-dah dah-da-dah! Dah-da-dah-da dah-da-dah!’119 She went on, ‘Men and women, boys and girls! How… when… where…?!’”
3.11.5
A few days later, the Fāriyāq was brought a difficult dream about a monster with horns, lots of tails, and marks and spots all over its skin, the master of the Oneiromancer’s Chamber demanding to know his interpretation of each horn and the secret of every spot. Finding it beyond his powers to give a succinct account of its meaning, he went home feeling miserable and angry. “What ails you?” asked his wife. “Worry and dudgeon!” he replied. “And what is their cause?” she asked. “Whenever I work my way clear of one pitfall, I find myself up to my knees in another that’s even worse,” he said. “First I had to eulogize the prince in ways that I didn’t want,120 then I became the companion of madmen,121 then an oneiromancer, and then a physician for the foul of breath, and all these were contrary to my own desires. What an awful way to live, and how straitened the world appears to me! Is there in life no broader prospect than this?”
3.11.6
“Cheer up, sir!” said she. “Everyone in the world has a portion of sorrow and worry coming to him. Even a woman is not free of worries. Every day it is her habit to pluck her eyebrows, put kohl on her eyes, rouge her cheeks, practice walking in a ladylike fashion, and look in the mirror a hundred times to make sure no hair is out of place. Then she talks to herself in the mirror, laughs, tries out a smile, whispers, winks, turns her neck and shoulders, heaves deep sighs, and so on, to find out how these actions may look on her to others’ eyes.” The Fāriyāq went on, “I told her, ‘Is this the time for jest? I tell you the monster has tails, horns, and marks that aren’t susceptible to interpretation at all and you talk to me about winking, smiling, and putting on kohl?’ to which she replied, ‘A monster like that doesn’t come to you every day, but a woman’s worries are a terrible trial to her every single morning and evening. Our living apart from our families is itself cause enough for worry and sorrow.’ I said, ‘You should be delighted here, where you enjoy the freedom to go out on your own and see and be seen by people in a way you never previously experienced in the land of the face veil and the wrap.’