Seven Global Designs

M ISTRESS, I am going to tell you the things which led up to the shaving of my beard and the loss of my eye. Know that my father was a king and that he had a brother who was king over another city. Also it was fated that, on the day of my birth, a son was born to my uncle. Years passed, and my cousin and I grew to manhood. I must tell you that it was my custom from time to time to visit my uncle and stay some months with him. The last time I visited him, my cousin gave me great and generous welcome, killed the finest sheep for me, clarified the rarest wines in my honour. When we had drunken and the wine had somewhat got the better of us, my cousin said to me:   ‘Dear friend and best loved cousin, I have a favour to ask of you which I beg you not to refuse.’ ‘I grant it with all my heart,’ I answered, and also, at his request, swore on our sacred Religion that I would do as he bid me. Thereon he went away and came back in a few minutes with a sumptuously dressed, delicately-perf...

T HERE WAS ONCE a young man in the city of Baghd a d, who was by faith a bachelor and by trade a porter. One day, as he was leaning idly against his basket in the market place, a woman, wearing a full veil of Mosul silk, tasselled with gold and turned with rare brocade, stopped before him and raised the veil a little from her face. Above it there showed dark eyes with long lashes of silk and lids to set a man dreaming. Her body was slight, her feet were very small, and clear perfection shone about her. She said, and oh, but her voice was sweet: ‘Take up your basket, porter, and follow me.’ Hardly believing that so exquisite words could have been said to him, the porter took up his basket and followed the girl, who stopped eventually before the door of a house. She knocked at the door and immediately a Christian opened to her, who gave her, in exchange for a d ( n a r, a great measure of olive-clear wine which she put into the basket, saying to the porter: ‘L...