Ženina ukana možu

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Ženina ukana možu

Among the tales they tell is that of a woman who played a trick on her husband. One Friday, he brought her a fish and told her to cook it and have it ready after Friday prayers, then went off about his business. Her friend came and invited her to a wedding at his house. She accepted, put the fish in an earthenware water jar, and went with him. She stayed away from home until the following Friday, while her husband searched the houses and asked after her, but no one could tell him anything of her whereabouts. Then, on the second Friday, she returned, brought out the fish alive, gathered the people around her husband, and told them the story. But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she fell silent, leaving her tale untold.

Then, when it was the three hundred and ninety-fourth night,

She said: It has reached me, O fortunate King, that when the woman returned to her husband on the second Friday, she took the fish out of the water jar alive and gathered the people around him. He told them what had happened, but they called him a liar, saying, “No fish could stay alive all that time.” They declared him mad, locked him up, and began to laugh at him. Then tears streamed from his eyes, and he recited these two verses:

A crone who holds high office in all things vile—her face bears witness to her shameless deeds. When she has her courses, she plays the bawd; when she is clean, she whores: all her life, now whore, now bawd.