Chapter 12, The Sweep and the Noble Lady Summary

During the pilgrimage to Mecca, pilgrims overhear a man apparently praying for the love of another man's wife, so they seize him and present him to the Emir. The Emir orders the man to be hanged, but the man pleads for the Emir to hear his story first. The man works as a sweep in the slaughterhouse and one day he is seized by eunuchs and brought to the home of a beautiful woman. He is bathed and clothed and fed by the woman who then sleeps with him that night. In the morning she gives him a handkerchief containing fifty miskals of gold. She brings him back and pays him for eight nights until her husband returns home one night, forcing the sweep to hide in the closet. While he...