She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when King Afridun heard these words, he fell into a fainting-fit with his nose under his feet; and, as soon as he revived, fear fluttered the scrotum[408] below his belly and he complained to the ancient dame, Zat al-Dawahi. Now this accursed old woman was a witch of the witches, past mistress in sorcery and deception; wanton and wily, deboshed and deceptious; with foul breath, red eyelids, yellow cheeks, dull-brown face, eyes bleared, mangy body, hair grizzled, back humped, skin withered and wan and nostrils which ever ran. But she had studied the scriptures of Al-Islam and had made the Pilgrimage to the Holy House of Meccah and all this that she might come to the knowledge of the Mohammedan ordinances and the miraculous versets of the Koran; and she had professed Judaism in the Holy City of Jerusalem[409] for two years' space, that she might master the magic of men and demons; so that she was a plague of plagues and a pest of pests, wrong-headed as to belief and to no religion lief. Now the chief reason of her sojourn with her son, King Hardub of Greece, was on account of the slave virgins at his court: for she was given to tribadism[410] and could not exist without sapphism or she went mad: so if any damsel pleased her, she was wont to teach her the art of rubbing clitoris against clitoris and would anoint her with saffron[411] till she fainted away for excess of volupty. Whoso obeyed her she was wont to favour and make her son incline towards her; but whoso repelled her she would contrive to destroy; and so she abode for a length of time. This was known to Marjanah and Rayhánah and Utrijah, the handmaids of Abrizah, and their Princess loathed the old woman and abhorred to lie with her, because of the rank smell from her armpits, the stench of her fizzles more fetid than carrion, and the roughness of her hide coarser than palm fibre. She was wont to bribe those who rubbed parts with her by means of jewels and instructions; but Abrizah held aloof from her and sought refuge with the Omnipotent, the Omniscient; for, by Allah, right well quoth the poet:—
Ho thou who grovellest low before the great ✿ Nor over-lording lesser men dost blench, Who gildest dross by dirham-gathering, ✿ No ottar-scent disguises carrion-stench!