The Story of the Merchant Who Lost his Luck.[FN#149]

There was once a merchant man, who prospered in trade, and at one time his every dirham won him fifty.  Presently, his luck turned against him and he knew it not; so he said to himself, “I have wealth galore, yet do I toil and travel from country to country; so better had I abide in my own land and rest myself in my own house from this travail and trouble and sell and buy at home.”  Then he made two parts of his money, and with one bought wheat in summer, saying, “Whenas winter cometh, I shall sell it at a great profit.”  But, when the cold set in wheat fell to half the price for which he had purchased it, whereat he was concerned with sore chagrin and left it till the next year.  However, the price then fell yet lower and one of his intimates said to him, “Thou hast no luck in this wheat; so do thou sell it at whatsoever price.”  Said the merchant, “Ah, long have I profited! so ’tis allowable that I lose this time.  Allah is all-knowing!  An it abide with me ten full years, I will not sell it save for a gaining bargain."[FN#150] Then he walled up in his anger the granary-door with clay, and by the ordinance of Allah Almighty, there came a great rain and descended from the terrace-roofs of the house wherein was the wheat so that the grain rotted; and the merchant had to pay the porters from his purse five hundred dirhams for them to carry it forth and cast it without the city, the smell of it having become fulsome.  So his friend said to him, “How often did I tell thee thou hadst no luck in wheat?  But thou wouldst not give ear to my speech, and now it behoveth thee to go to the astrologer[FN#151] and question him of thine ascendant.”  Accordingly the trader betook himself to the astrologer and questioned him of his star, and astrophil said to him, “Thine ascendant is adverse.  Put not forth thy hand to any business, for thou wilt not prosper thereby.”  However, he paid no heed to the astrologer’s words and said in himself, “If I do my business, I am not afraid of aught.”  Then he took the other half of his money, after he had spent the first in three years, and builded him a ship, which he loaded with a cargaison of whatso seemed good to him and all that was with him and embarked on the sea, so he might voyage questing gain.  The ship remained in port some days, till he should be certified whither he would wend, and he said, “I will ask the traders what this merchandise profiteth and in what land ’tis wanted and how much can it gain.”  They directed him to a far country, where his dirham should produce an hundredfold.  So he set sail and made for the land in question; but, as he went, there blew on him a furious gale, and the ship foundered.  The merchant saved himself on a plank and the wind cast him up, naked as he was, on the sea-shore, where stood a town hard by.  He praised Allah and gave Him thanks for his preservation; then, seeing a great village nigh hand, he betook himself thither and saw,