ABU AL-ASWAD AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL

Abu al-Aswad bought a native-born slave-girl, who was blind of an eye, and she pleased him; but his people decried her to him; whereat he wondered and, turning the palms of his hands upwards, [FN#114] recited these two couplets,

    “They find me fault with her where I default ne’er find, *
         Save haply that a speck in either eye may show:
    But if her eyes have fault, of fault her form hath none, *
         Slim-built above the waist and heavily made below.”

And this is also told of