Note 24 — ARABIC LITERATURE (continued 4)

This is one of the two Assemblies of Hariri which have been translated and annotated by De Sacy in his Chrestomathy. Harith in his wanderings comes to Alexandria, and, in accordance with his custom, makes the acquaintance of the Kadi, who, as appears in the sequel, is a good-natured and benevolent man. One evening, in winter, the Kadi is distributing the public alms, when an ill-looking old man is brought in by a young and handsome woman who accuses him of having married her on false pretenses. She declares that he had deceived her father by giving out that he had an excellent trade as a pearl-merchant; that he had been incautiously accepted, and that now, when it was too late, she had discovered that he had no business at all. Moreover, he had taken all her dress and furniture, piece by piece, and sold it to keep himself in idleness, leaving her and her child to starve. The Kadi is indignant, and threatens to send the husband to prison, unless he can clear himself of the charge. The defendant is in no way disconcerted, but at once improvises some elegant verses, in which he admits his poverty, and that he had sold his wife's effects, but denies that he had deceived her in calling himself a "pearl-stringer," for the pearls which he meant were the pearls of thought, by stringing which into elegant poems he had been accustomed to make a large income from the liberality of the rich and noble. Now, however, times were changed; war and trouble had come upon the earth, and a race of niggards had succeeded the generous patrons of the old days. The Kadi accepts the excuse, bids the woman submit herself to her husband, and gives them some of the alms-money; on receiving which the old man triumphantly carries off his wife.