4447 - My turn is finished: set me free, espouse another, someone else.

4448 - O body with your hundred concerns bid me farewell: you have taken my life: seek another.

How a cadi was infatuated with the wife of Juhi and remained in a chest, and how the cadi’s deputy purchased the chest; and how next year Juhi’s wife came again, hoping to play the same trick last year, the cadi said, “Set me free and seek someone else”; and so on to the end of the story.

4449 - Every year, on account of poverty, Juhi would artfully turn to his wife and say, “O sweetheart,

4450 - Since you have the weapons, go; catch some game in order that we may get milk from your prey.

4451 - Why has God given you the bow of your eyebrow, the arrow of your amorous glance, and the snare of your craftiness ? For hunting.

4452 - Go; lay the snare for a big bird: show the bait, but do not let him eat it.

4453 - Show him his wish, but disappoint him: how can he eat the bait when he is imprisoned in the snare ?”

4454 - His wife went to the cadi to complain, saying, “I appeal for help against my faithless husband.”

4455 - To cut the tale short, the cadi fell a prey to the words and beauty of the fair woman.

4456 - He said, “There is such a noise in the court of justice I cannot understand this complaint;

4457 - If you will come to my private house, O cypress-slender one, and describe to me the injurious behaviour of your husband.”

4458 - “In your house,” she replied, “there will be a coming and going of every sort of people, good and bad, for the purpose of making complaints.”

4459 - If the house of the head be wholly filled with a mad passion, the breast will be full of anxiety and commotion.

4465 - “O adorable one,” said the cadi, “what can be contrived ?” She answered, “This handmaid’s house is quite empty.

4466 - The enemy has gone into the country, and the caretaker is not there either: it is a very good place for meeting in private.

4467 - Come there to-night if possible: what one does by night is without making hear of it or see it;

4468 - All the spies are intoxicated with the wine of sleep: all have been beheaded by the Negro, Night.”

4469 - The sugar-lipped chanted wondrous spells over the cadi - and then with what lips !

4470 - How often did Iblís chatter with Adam ! but when Eve told him to eat, then did he eat.

4471 - The first blood in this world of iniquity and justice was shed by Cain for the sake of a woman.

4472 - Whenever Noah was frying meat in the frying-pan, Wahila (Noah's wife) would throw stones at the frying-pan,

4473 - And his wife’s plotting would defeat his work; the clear water of his exhortation would become turbid;

4474 - She used to send secret messages to the folk, saying, “Preserve your religion from these erring men !”

How the cadi went to the house of Juhi’s wife, and how Juhi knocked angrily at the door, and how the cadi took refuge in a chest, etc.

4475 - The guile of woman is infinite. The sagacious cadi went at night to the wife for the sake of crawling .

4476 - The wife set two candles and the dessert for his entertainment. “Without this drink,” said he: “I am intoxicated.”

4477 - At that moment Juhi came and knocked at the door: the cadi looked for a place into which he could slink for refuge.

4478 - He saw no hiding-place but a chest: in his fright the man went into the chest.

4479 - Juhi came in and said, “O spouse, O you who are my plague in spring and autumn,

4480 - What do I possess that is not sacrificed to you: that you are always crying out at me ?

4481 - You have let loose your tongue at my dry crusts: now you call me ‘pauper,’ now ‘cuckold.’

4482 - If, my dear, I suffer from these two maladies, one comes from you and the other from God.

4483 - What do I possess but that chest, which is a source of suspicion and a ground for surmise ?

4484 - People think I keep gold in it, and because of these opinions charity is withheld from me.

4485 - The appearance of the chest is very pleasing, but it is quite empty of goods and silver and gold.

4486 - Like the hypocrite, handsome and dignified; in the basket you will find nothing except a snake.

4487 - To-morrow I will take the chest into the street and burn it in the midst of the market at the cross-ways,

4488 - That true believer and Zoroastrian and Jew may see there was nothing in this chest but cursing.”

4489 - “O husband,” cried the woman, “come now, and give up this idea !” He swore several times that he would do just as he had said.

4490 - Early he like the wind, fetched a porter, and immediately put the chest on his back.

4491 - The cadi inside the chest shouted in an agony, “O porter ! O porter !”

4492 - The porter looked to the right and the left to see from what direction the shouts and warnings were coming.

4493 - “I wonder,” Said he, “is it a hatif, this voice which is calling me, or is it a peri summoning me mysteriously ?”

4494 - When the shouts followed one another in succession and increased, he said, “’It is not a hatif,” and recovered himself.

4495 - At last he perceived that the shouts and cries for help came from the chest and that somebody was concealed in it.

4496 - The lover who has fallen passionately in love with an object of affection has gone into the chest, though he is outside.

4497 - He has spent his life in the chest on account of cares: he can see nothing of the world except a chest.

4498 - The head that is not above the sky, know that it is in that chest by its vain desires.

4499 - When he goes forth from the chest of the body, he will go from one tomb to another tomb.

4500 - This topic is endless. The cadi said to him, “O porter, O carrier of the chest,

4501 - Give news of me to my deputy at the court of justice and acquaint him with all this as quickly as possible,

4502 - In order that he may buy this with gold from this witless fellow and take it fastened, just as it is, to my house.”

4503 - O Lord, appoint a spiritually endowed company to redeem us from the chest of the body !

4504 - Who but the prophets and apostles can redeem the people from confinement in the chest of guile ?

4505 - Among thousands there is one person of comely aspect, who knows that he is inside the chest.

4506 - He must formerly have beheld the world, so that by means of that contrary this contrary should be made evident to him.

4507 - Because “knowledge is the true believer’s lost camel,” he recognises his own lost camel and feels certain.

4508 - He that has never seen good fortune, how will he be perturbed in this calamity ?

4509 - Either he fell into captivity in childhood, or was born a slave at first from his mother’s womb.

4510 - His soul has never known the delight of freedom: the chest of forms is his arena.

4511 - His mind is forever imprisoned in forms: he passes from cage into cage.

4512 - He has no means of passing beyond the cage aloft: he goes to and fro into cages.

4513 - In the Qur’an, “If you have the power, pass beyond”: these words came from Him to the Jinn and mankind.

4514 - He said, “There is no way for you to pass beyond the sky save by authority and by inspiration from Heaven.”

4515 - If he goes from chest to chest, he is not of Heaven, he is of the chest.

4516 - The pleasure of changing his chest stupefies him anew: he does not perceive that he is inside the chest.

4517 - If he is not deluded by these chests, he seeks release and deliverance, like the cadi.

4518 - Know that the mark of one who apprehends this is his crying for help and being in terror.

4519 - Like the cadi, he will be quaking: how should a breath of joy rise from his soul ?

The arrival of the cadi’s deputy in the bazaar and his purchase of the chest from Juhi, etc.

4520 - The deputy arrived and asked, “How much for your chest ?” “They are offering nine hundred pieces of gold and more,” said he,

4521 - “I will not come lower than a thousand: if you intend to buy, open your purse and produce.”

4522 - He replied, “Have some shame, you in the short felt frock ! The value of the chest is self-evident.” He said,

4523 - “To buy without seeing is an iniquity: our bargain is in the dark: this is not right.

4524 - I will open: if it is not worth, don’t buy, lest you be defrauded, O father !”

4525 - He said, “O Veiler, do not reveal the secret !”, “I will buy it with the lid on: come to terms with me.

4526 - Veil in order that veiling may be vouchsafed to you: do not deride any one till you see security.

4527 - Many like you have been left in this chest and have landed themselves in tribulation.

4533 - He said, “Yes, what I did is wrong, but at the same time know that the aggressor is the more unjust.”

4534 - The deputy replied, “We are aggressors, every one of us, but notwithstanding our blackness of face we are happy,

4535 - Like the Negro who is happy and pleased, he does not see his face, others see it.”

4536 - The altercation in bidding was prolonged: he paid a Thousand dinars and bought it from him.

4537 - O you that find wickedness agreeable, you are always in the chest: the hatifs and those who belong to the Unseen are redeeming you.

Expounding the Tradition that Mustafá said, the blessings of God be upon him: “When I am the protector of any one, ‘Alí too is his protector (Mowla),” so that the Hypocrites asked sarcastically, “Was not he satisfied with the obedience and service rendered by us to himself that he bids us render the same service to a snivelling child ?” etc

4538 - For this reason the Prophet, who laboured with the utmost zeal, applied the name “protector” (Mowla) to himself and to Alí.

4539 - He said, “My cousin Alí is the protector and friend of everyone who is under my protection.”

4540 - Who is the “protector” (Mowla) ? He that sets you free and removes the fetters of servitude from your feet.

4541 - Since prophethood is the guide to freedom, freedom is bestowed on true believers by the prophets.

4542 - Rejoice O community of true believers: show yourselves to be “free” as the cypress and the lily;

4543 - But do you, like the green -coloured garden, at every moment give unspoken thanks to the Water.

4544 - The cypresses and the green orchard mutely thank the water and show gratitude for the justice of spring:

4545 - Clad in robes and trailing their skirts, drunken and dancing and jubilant and scattering perfume;

4546 - Every part impregnated by royal spring, their bodies as caskets filled with pearly fruit;

4547 - Like Maries, having no husband, yet big with a Messiah; silent ones, wordless and devoid of articulate expression,

4548 - “Our Moon has shone brightly without speech: every tongue has derived its speech from our beauty.”

4549 - The speech of Jesus is from the beauty of Mary; the speech of Adam is a ray of the Breath.

4550 - In order that from thanksgiving, O men of trust, increase may accrue; then other plants are amidst the herbage.

4551 - Here the reverse is, he that is content shall be abased; in this case, he that covets shall be exalted.

4552 - Do not go so much into the sack of your fleshly soul; do not be forgetful of your purchasers.

How next year Juhi’s wife returned to the court of the cadi, hoping for the same contribution as last year, and how the cadi recognised her, and so on to the end of the story.

4553 - After a year Juhi, in consequence of the afflictions, turned to his wife and said, “O clever wife,

4554 - Renew last year’s contribution: complain of me to the cadi.”

4555 - The wife came before the cadi with women: she made a certain woman her interpreter,

4556 - Lest the cadi should recognise her by her speech and remember his past misfortune.

4557 - The coquettish glances of a woman are fascinating, but that is increased a hundredfold by her voice.

4558 - Since she durst not raise a sound, the wife’s ogling looks alone were of no avail.

4559 - “Go,” said the cadi, “and fetch the defendant, that I may settle your quarrel with him.”

4560 - Juhi arrived; the cadi did not recognise him at once, for at meeting he was in the chest.

4561 - He had heard his voice outside, during the buying and selling and chaffering.

4562 - He said, “Why won’t you give your wife all the money she needs for expenses ?” He replied, “I am devoted with soul to the religious law,

4563 - But if I die I do not possess the shroud: I am bankrupt in this game, I have gambled everything away.”

4564 - From these words the cadi, as it happened, recognised him and called to mind his roguery and the trick he had played.

4565 - “You played that game with me,” he said: “last year you put me out of action.

4566 - My turn is past: this year try that gamble on someone else and keep your hands off me !”

4567 - The knower of God has been isolated from the six and the five: he has become on his guard against the sixes and fives of the backgammon.

4568 - He has escaped from the five senses and the six directions: he has made you acquainted with beyond all that.

4582 - How is a spirit like this meet for the body ? Listen, O body, wash your hands of this spirit !

4583 - O body that has become the spirit’s dwelling-place, it is enough: how long can the Sea abide in a water-skin ?

4577 - Where shall I get a comparison that is without frailty ? One to match him will not come, and never has come.

4588 - He is not the form: rub your eye well, that you may behold the radiance of the light of glory !

Ya Ali Madad