Prevod

He said: I have heard that there was once a merchant who was particular about his food and drink. One day he journeyed to a certain country, and as he was walking through its markets, he came upon an old woman with two loaves of bread. “Will you sell them?” he asked her. “Yes,” she replied. He bargained with her for the lowest price, bought the loaves, and took them back to his lodging, where he ate them that day. The next morning he returned to the same place and found the old woman with another two loaves, which he again bought from her. He continued in this way for twenty days, but then the old woman disappeared. He asked after her, but could learn nothing of her whereabouts. One day, as he was walking along one of the city’s streets, he came upon her. He stopped, greeted her, and asked why she had been absent and why she had ceased to bring him the two loaves. When the old woman heard his question, she was reluctant to answer, so he adjured her to tell him her story. “My lord,” she said, “hear my answer. The truth is that I was serving a man who had a flesh-eating sore on his back. His physician would take flour, mix it with clarified butter, and apply it to the painful spot, leaving it there all night until morning. Then I would take that flour, make it into two loaves, and sell them to you or someone else. But the man has died, and so I have no more loaves.” When the merchant heard this, he said, “To God we belong, and to Him we shall return! There is no power and no strength save in God, the Most High, the Almighty!” And dawn overtook Shahrazad, and she fell silent, leaving her tale untold.

When it was the five hundred and eighty-first night

She said: I have heard, O fortunate King, that when the old woman told the merchant the story of the two loaves, he said, “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Most High, the Almighty!” The merchant kept vomiting until he fell ill, and bitterly regretted what he had done, but his regret availed him nothing.