phial and whence then knewest that the water therein was that of
a man, and he a stranger and a Jew, and that his ailment was
indigestion?' ' It is well,' answered the weaver. ' Thou must
know that we people of Persia are skilled in physiognomy[FN#23]
and I saw the woman to be rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed and tall. Now
these attributes belong to women who are enamoured of a man and
are distraught for love of him;[FN#24] moreover, I saw her
consumed [with anxiety]; wherefore I knew that the patient was
her husband. As for his strangerhood, I observed that the woman's
attire differed from that of the people of the city, wherefore I
knew that she was a stranger; and in the mouth of the phial I
espied a yellow rag,[FN#25] whereby I knew that the patient was a
Jew and she a Jewess. Moreover, she came to me on the first day
[of the week];[FN#26] and it is the Jews' custom to take
pottages[FN#27] and meats that have been dressed overnight[FN#28]
and eat them on the Sabbath day,[FN#29] hot and cold, and they
exceed in eating; wherefore indigestion betideth them. On this
wise I was directed and guessed that which thou hast heard.'

When Galen heard this, he ordered the weaver the amount of his
wife's dowry and bade him pay it to her and divorce her.
Moreover, he forbade him from returning to the practice of physic
and warned him never again to take to wife a woman of better
condition than himself; and he gave him his spending-money and
bade him return to his [former] craft. Nor," added the vizier,
"is this more extraordinary or rarer than the story of the two
sharpers who cozened each his fellow."

When King Shah Bekht heard this, he said in himself, "How like is
this story to my present case with this vizier, who hath not his