Note 252 — ABDULLAH[232] THE FISHERMAN AND ABDULLAH THE MERMAN.
Richard Francis Burton translation · Edition 2
The European reader, especially feminine, will think this a hard fate for the pious first wife but the idea would not occur to the Moslem mind. After bearing ten children a woman becomes “Umm al-banáti w’ al-banín” = a mother of daughters and sons, and should hold herself unfit for love-disport. The seven ages of womankind are thus described by the Arabs and I translate the lines after a well-known (Irish) model:—
From ten years to twenty—
Of beauty there’s plenty.
From twenty to thirty—
Fat, fair and alert t’ye.
From thirty to forty—
Lads and lasses she bore t’ye.
From forty to fifty—
An old ’un and shifty.
From fifty to sixty—
A sorrow that sticks t’ye.
From sixty to seventy—
A curse of God sent t’ye.
For these and other sentiments upon the subject of women and marriage see Pilgrimage ii. 285–87.