"Stay! grant one parting look before we part, * Nerving my heart
this severance to sustain:
But, an this parting deal thee pain and bane, * Leave me to die
of love and spare thee pain!"

Then he went down with her to the bazar and delivered her to the
broker and said to him, "O Hajj Hasan,[FN#29] I pray thee note
the value of her thou hast to cry for sale." "O my lord Nur al-
Din," quoth the broker, "the fundamentals are remembered;"[FN#30]
adding, "Is not this the Anis al-Jalis whom thy father bought of
me for ten thousand dinars?" "Yes," said Nur al-Din. Thereupon
the broker went round to the merchants, but found that all had
not yet assembled. So he waited till the rest had arrived and
the market was crowded with slave-girls of all nations, Turks,
Franks and Circassians; Abyssinians, Nubians and Takruris;[FN#31]
Tartars, Georgians and others; when he came forward and standing
cried aloud, "O merchants! O men of money! every round thing is
not a walnut and every long thing a banana is not; all reds are
not meat nor all whites fat, nor is every brown thing a
date![FN#32] O merchants, I have here this union-pearl that hath
no price: at what sum shall I cry her?" "Cry her at four thousand
five hundred dinars," quoth one of the traders. The broker opened
the door of sale at the sum named and, as he was yet calling, lo!
the Wazir Al-Mu'in bin Sawi passed through the bazar and, seeing
Nur al-Din Ali waiting at one side, said to himself, "Why is
Khakan's son[FN#33] standing about here? Hath this gallows-bird
aught remaining wherewith to buy slave-girls?" Then he looked
round and, seeing the broker calling out in the market with all
the merchants around him, said to himself, "I am sure that he is
penniless and hath brought hither the damsel Anis al-Jalis for