THE SCENE: Jafar gets an appropriate reward when he tries to please his master, the Khalifah, by giving terrible medical advise to a man he assumes is a fool.
THE TEXT: As the Khalifah went along with somber eyes and compressed lips, an old man passed by mounted upon an ass. The Khalifah turned to Jafar, saying: “Ask that old man where he is going.” The wazir, who up to that moment had been cudgeling his brains in vain for some distraction which might please the Khallfah, resolved to amuse him at the expense of the aged traveler, who was jogging along with the cord loose upon his donkey’s neck. Therefore he went up to him and asked; “Whither away, old man?” “I journey from Basrah to Baghdad,” the other answered.
“Why have you undertaken so long a journey?” demanded Jafar, and the traveler replied: “As Allah lives, I wish to find some learned doctor in Baghdad who will give me a collyrium for my eyes.”
Then said Jafar: “Chance and cure are in the hands of Allah, O sheikh. What will you give me if I save you expense and time by myself prescribing a remedy which will cure your eyes in one night?”
“Allah alone could reward such kindness,” murmured the old man.
Hearing this, Jafar turned to the Khalifah with a wink, and then said to the traveler: “Since that is so, good uncle, carefully remember the following simple prescription: Take three ounces of the breath of the wind, three ounces of sun rays, three ounces of moon rays, and three ounces of lamp rays; mix them carefully in a bottomless mortar and expose them to the air for three months. For a further three months pound the mixture, and then pour it into a porringer with holes in the bottom and leave it in the sun for another three months. By that time the cure will be ready, and you have only to apply it three hundred times to your eyes on the first night using three large pinches of it each time, to wake in the morning absolutely cured, if Allah wills.”
Hearing these words, the old man bent over flat on his belly on the ass in front of Jafar, in sign of gratitude and respect, and suddenly let a detestable fart, followed by two long funks, saying at the same time: “Be quick and gather them up, O learned doctor, before they float away, for they are the sole payment which I have about me for your windy remedy. Be sure, however, that, when I return to my own country, I will at once send you a female slave, with a bottom as ruddled as a ripe fig, who will give you such delight that you will die of it. Her grief, also, will be so great that, as she weeps over you, she will piss on your cold face and water your dry beard.”
Then the old man went on his way, while the Khalifah fell over on his backside and strangled with laughter, as he looked at the expression of Jafar, standing there surprised, embarrassed and without an answer.
– One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, 15th Century AD
