' When the prince heard this, he
bowed his head awhile, then raised it and said, 'O my father,
this is a thing that I will never do, though I drink the cup of
death. I know of a surety that God the Most High enjoins on me
obedience to thee; but in His name I conjure thee, press me not
in this matter of marriage, neither think that I will ever marry
my life long; for that I have read the books both of the ancients
and the moderns and have come to know all the troubles and
calamities that have befallen them through women and the
disasters that have sprung from their craft without end. How
well says the poet:
He, whom the baggages entrap, Deliverance shall never know,
Although a thousand forts he build, Plated with lead;--'gainst
such a foe
It shall not profit him to build Nor citadels avail, I trow.
Women are traitresses to all, Both near and far and high and low.
With fingers dyed and flowing hair Plaited with tresses, sweet of
show,
And eyelids beautified with kohl, They make one drink of bale and
woe.
And no less excellently saith another:
Women, for all to chastity they're bidden, everywhere Are carrion
tossed about of all the vultures of the air.
To-night their converse, ay, and all their secret charms are
thine, But on the morn their leg and wrist fall to another's
share;
Like to an inn in which thou lodg'st, departing with the dawn,
And one thou know'st not, after thee, lights down and lodges
there.
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