سندبادنامه 377.27

377.27

18. The Story of the Son's Wife with the Father-in-Law and the Lover
and upright, chaste and prosperous. He spent the white of day earning a livelihood, and kept the black
of night alive in the pursuit of obedience. He was a farmer, and from tillage and cultivation
he ate his bread. And he had a wife who was fox-like in promises, lion-hunting in coquetry; her face
like the day of the righteous, and her tress like the night of sinners; and she had a lover
of cypress-like stature, graceful gait, and handsome face. One day the peasant was absent from home;
the lover circumambulated around the precinct of her house like pilgrims, and sought refuge at the Kaʿba of union with her,
so that he might kiss the Black Stone and offer reverence to the Sacred Mosque. The beloved
was standing on the roof of the house; when her eyes fell on the lover, she shook her head, rubbed her hand
on her neck, ear, and breast, and came down from the roof. The man did not understand those gestures;
in bewilderment and reflection he came home, and to an old hag on whose head the dust of the mill of time's vicissitudes
had settled, and the hand of fate the juggler had washed her cheeks with saffron water,
he explained this matter, and sought approval and instruction from her opinion.