Story 

  Having become tired of my friends in Damascus, I went into the

desert of Jerusalem and associated with animals till the time when I

became a prisoner of the Franks, who put me to work with infidels in

digging the earth of a moat in Tarapolis, when one of the chiefs of

Aleppo, with whom I had formerly been acquainted, recognized me and

said: 'What state is this?' I recited:

        'I fled from men to mountain and desert

        Wishing to attend upon no one but God.

        Imagine what my state at present is

        When I must be satisfied in a stable of wretches.

        The feet in chains with friends

        Is better than to be with strangers in a garden.'

  He took pity on my state and ransomed me for ten dinars from the

captivity of the Franks, taking me to Aleppo where he had a daughter

and married me to her with a dowry of one hundred dinars. After some

time had elapsed, she turned out to be ill-humoured, quarrelsome,

disobedient, abusive in her tongue and embittering my life:

        A bad wife in a good man's house

        Is his hell in this world already.

        Alas for a bad consort, alas!

        Preserve us, O Lord from the punishment of fire.

  Once she lengthened her tongue of reproach and said: 'Art thou not

the man whom my father purchased from the Franks for ten dinars?' I

replied: 'Yes, he bought me for ten dinars and sold me into thy

hands for one hundred dinars.'

     I heard that a sheep had by a great man

     Been rescued from the jaws and the power of a wolf.

     In the evening he stroked her throat with a knife

     Whereon the soul of the sheep complained thus:

     Thou hast snatched me away from the claws of a wolf,

     But at last I see thou art thyself a wolf.'