ture, you still with marvellous art study to
augment them,--it pleaseth me to recount to you how ill-fortunedly
fair was a Saracen lady, whom it befell, for her beauty, to be in some
four years' space nine times wedded anew.

It is now a pretty while since there was a certain Soldan of
Babylon,[113] by name Berminedab, to whom in his day many things
happened in accordance with his pleasure.[114] Amongst many other
children, both male and female, he had a daughter called Alatiel, who,
by report of all who saw her, was the fairest woman to be seen in the
world in those days, and having, in a great defeat he had inflicted
upon a vast multitude of Arabs who were come upon him, been
wonder-well seconded by the King of Algarve,[115] had, at his request,
given her to him to wife, of especial favour; wherefore, embarking her
aboard a ship well armed and equipped, with an honourable company of
men and ladies and store of rich and sumptuous gear and furniture, he
despatched her to him, commending her to God.

[Footnote 113: _i.e._ Egypt, Cairo was known in the middle ages by the
name of "Babylon of Egypt." It need hardly be noted that the Babylon
of the Bible was the city of that name on the Euphrates, the ancient
capital of Chaldaea (Irak Babili). The names Beminedab and Alatiel are
purely imaginary.]

[Footnote 114: _i.e._ to his wish, to whom fortune was mostly
favourable in his enterprises.]

[Footnote 115: _Il Garbo_, Arabic El Gherb or Gharb, [Arabic: al
gharb], the West, a name given by the Arabs to several parts of the
Muslim empire, but by which Boccaccio apparently means Algarve, the
southernmost province of Portugal and the last part of that kingdom to
succumb to the wave of Christian reconquest, it having remained in the
hands of the Muslims till the second half of the thirteenth century.
This supposition is confirmed by the course taken by Alatiel's ship,
which would naturally pass Sardinia and the Balearic Islands on its
way from Alexandria to Portugal.]

The sailors, seeing the weather favourable, gave their sails to the
wind and departing the port of Alexandria, fared on prosperously many
days, and having now passed Sardinia, deemed themselves near the end
of their voyage, when there arose one day of a sudden divers contrary
winds, which, being each beyond measure boisterous, so harassed the
ship, wherein was the lady, and the sailors, that the latter more than
once gave themselves over for lost. However, li