Damascus is all gardens decked for the pleasance of the eyes; For
     the seeker there are black-eyed girls and boys of Paradise.”

Noureddin thanked him and they entered the slave-merchant’s house.  When the people of the house saw Abou Nuwas, they rose to do him worship, for that which they knew of his station with the Commander of the Faithful.  Moreover, the slave-dealer himself came up to them with two chairs, and they seated themselves thereon.  Then the slave-merchant went into the house and returning with the slave-girl, as she were a willow-wand or a bamboo-cane, clad in a vest of damask silk and tired with a black and white turban, the ends whereof fell down over her face, seated her on a chair of ebony; after which quoth he to those who were present, “I will discover to you a face as it were a full moon breaking forth from under a cloud.”  And they said, “Do so.”  So he unveiled the damsel’s face and behold, she was like the shining sun, with comely shape and day-bright face and slender [waist and heavy] hips; brief, she was endowed with elegance, the description whereof existeth not, [and was] even as saith of her the poet: 

A fair one, to idolaters if she herself should show, They’d leave
     their idols and her face for only Lord would know;
And if into the briny sea one day she chanced to spit, Assuredly
     the salt sea’s floods straight fresh and sweet would grow.

The dealer stood at her head and one of the merchants said, “I bid a thousand dinars for her.”  Quoth another, “I bid eleven hundred dinars;” [and a third, “I bid twelve hundred"].  Then said a fourth merchant, “Be she mine for fourteen hundred dinars.”  And the biddings stood still at that sum.  Quoth her owner, “I will not sell her save with her consent.  If she desire to be sold, I will sell her to whom she willeth.”  And the slave-dealer said to him, “What is her name?” “Her name is Sitt el Milah,"[FN#11] answered the other; whereupon the dealer said to her, “By thy leave, I will sell thee to yonder merchant for this price of fourteen hundred dinars.”  Quoth she, “Come hither to me.”  So he came up to her and when he drew near, she gave him a kick with her foot and cast him to the ground, saying, “I will not have that old man.”  The slave-dealer arose, shaking the dust from his clothes and head, and said, “Who biddeth more?  Who is desirous [of buying?]” Quoth one of the merchants, “I,” and the dealer said to her, “O Sitt el Milah, shall I sell thee to this merchant?” “Come hither to me,” answered she; but he said “Nay; speak and I will hearken to thee from my place, for I will not trust myself to thee,” And she said, “I will not have him.”