Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand and One Nights - Sir Richard Francis Burton (great books of all time .TXT) 📗

With you love is blest, pure and white of soul; Life’s sweet and my planet grows green and bright: By Allah, you-wards my pine ne’er ceased And your like is rare and right worthy hight.

Ask my eyes an e’er since the day ye went * They tasted sleep, looked on lover-wight:

My heart by the parting-day was broke * And my wasted body betrays my plight:

Could my blamers see in what grief am I, * They had wept in wonder my loss, my blight!

They had joined me in shedding torrential tears * And like me a-morn had shown thin and slight: How long for your love shall your lover bear * This weight o’er much for the hill’s strong height?

By Allah what then for your sake was doomed * To my heart, a heart by its woes turned white!

An showed I the fires that aye flare in me, * They had ‘flamed Eastern world and earth’s Western site.

But after this is my love fulfilled * With joy and gladness and mere delight;

And the Lord who scattered hath brought us back * For who doeth good shall of good ne’er lack.”

When King Al-Aziz heard the damsel’s song, both words and verses pleased him and he said to Al-Abbas, “O my son, verily long versifying hath tired these damsels, and indeed they make us yearn after the houses and the homesteads with the beauty of their songs. These five have adorned our meeting with the charm of their melodies and have done well in that which they have said before those who are present; so we counsel thee to free them for the love of Allah Almighty.” Quoth Al-Abbas, “There is no command but thy command;” and he enfranchised the ten damsels in the assembly; whereupon they kissed the hands of the King and his son and prostrated themselves in thanksgiving to the Lord of All-might. Then they put off that which was upon them of ornaments and laying aside the lutes and other instruments of music, kept to their houses like modest women and veiled, and fared not forth.[FN#442] As for King Al-Aziz, he lived after this seven years and was removed to the mercy of Almighty Allah; when his son Al-Abbas bore him forth to burial as beseemeth kings and let make for him perlections and professional recitations of the Koran. He kept up the mourning for his father during four successive weeks, and when a full-told month had elapsed he sat down on the throne of the kingship and judged and did justice and distributed silver and gold. He also loosed all who were in the jails and abolished grievances and customs dues and righted the oppressed of the oppressor; so the lieges prayed for him and loved him and invoked on him endurance of glory and continuance of kingship and length of life and eternity of prosperity and happiness. The troops submitted to him, and the hosts from all parts of the kingdom, and there came to him presents from each and every land: the kings obeyed him and many were his warriors and his grandees, and his subjects lived with him the most easeful of lives and the most delightsome. Meanwhile, he ceased not, he and his beloved, Queen Mariyah, in the most enjoyable of life and the pleasantest, and he was vouchsafed by her children; and indeed there befel friendship and affection between them and the longer their companionship was prolonged, the more their love waxed, so that they became unable to endure each from other a single hour, save the time of his going forth to the Divan, when he would return to her in the liveliest that might be of longing.

And after this fashion they abode in all solace of life and satisfaction till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and the Severer of societies. So extolled be the Eternal whose sway endureth for ever and aye, who never unheedeth neither dieth nor sleepeth! This is all that hath come down to us of their tale, and so the Peace!

SHAHRAZAD AND SHAHRYAR.[FN#443]

King Sjajruar marveled at this history[FN#444] and said, “By Allah, verily, injustice slayeth its folk!”[FN#445] And he was edified by that, wherewith Shahrazad bespoke him and sought help of Allah the Most High. Then said he to her, “Tell me another of thy tales, O Shahrazad; supply me with a pleasant story and this shall be the completion of the story-telling.“Shahrazad replied, “With love and gladness! I will tell thee a tale the like of which has never been heard before. It hath reached me, O

auspicious King, that a man once declared to his mates, �I will set forth to you a means of security against annoy.’ A friend of mine once related to me and said, “We attained to security against annoy, and the origin of it was other than this; that is, it was the following’”[FN#446]

TALE OF THE TWO KINGS AND THE WAZIR’S

DAUGHTERS[FN#447]

I overtravelled whileome lands and climes and towns and visited the cities of high renown and traversed the ways of dangers and hardships. Towards the last of my life, I entered a city of the cities of China,[FN#448] wherein was a king of the Chosro�s and the Tobbas[FN#449] and the C�sars.[FN#450] Now that city had been peopled with its inhabitants by means of justice and equity; but its then king was a tyrant dire who despoiled lives and souls at his desire; in fine, there was no warming oneself at his fire, [FN#451] for that indeed he oppressed the believing band and wasted the eland. Now he had a younger brother, who was king in Sarmarkand of the Persians, and the two kings sojourned a while of time, each in his own city and stead, till they yearned unto each other and the elder king despatched his Wazir to fetch his younger brother. When the Minister came to the King of Samarkand and acquainted him with his errand, he submitted himself to the bidding of his brother and answered, “To hear is to obey.” Then he equipped himself and made ready for wayfare and brought forth his tents and pavilions. A while after midnight, he went in to his wife, that he might farewell her, and found her with a strange man, lying by her in one bed. So he slew them both and dragging them out by the feet, cast them away and set forth on his march. When he came to his brother’s court, the elder king rejoiced in him with joy exceeding and lodged him in the pavilion of hospitality beside his own palace. Now this pavilion overlooked a flower-garden belonging to the elder brother and there the younger abode with him some days. Then he called to mind that which his wife had done with him and remembered her slaughter and bethought him how he was a king, yet was not exempt from the shifts of Time; and affected him with exceeding affect, so that it drave him to abstain from meat and drink, or, if he ate anything, it profited him naught. When his brother saw him on such wise, he deemed that this had betided him by reason of severance from his folk and family, and said to him, “Come, let us fare forth a-coursing and a-hunting.” But he refused to go with him; so the elder brother went to the chase, while the younger abode in the pavilion aforesaid. Now, as he was diverting himself by looking out upon the flower-garden from the latticed window of the palace, behold, he saw his brother’s wife and with her ten black slaves and ten slavegirls. Each slave laid hold of a damsel and another slave came forth and did the like with the queen; and when they had their wills one of other they all returned whence they came. Hereat there betided the King of Samarkand exceeding surprise and solace and he was made whole of his malady, little by little. After a few days, his brother returned, and finding him cured of his complaint, said to him, “Tell me, O my brother, what was the cause of thy sickness and thy pallor, and what is the reason of the return of health to thee and of rosiness to thy face after this?” So he acquainted him with the whole case and this was grievous to him; but they hid their affair and agreed to leave the kingship and fare forth a-pilgrimaging and adventuring at hap-hazard, for they deemed that there had befallen none the like of what had befallen them.

Accordingly, they went forth and as they journeyed, they saw by the way a woman imprisoned in seven chests, whereon were five padlocks, and sunken deep in the midst of the salt sea, under the guardianship of an Ifrit; yet for all this that woman issued out of the ocean and opened those padlocks and coming forth of those chests, did what she would with the two brothers, after she had practised upon the Ifrit. When the two kings saw that woman’s fashion and how she circumvented the Ifrit, who had lodged her in the abyss of the main, they turned back to their kingdoms and the younger betook himself to Samarkand, whilst the elder returned to China and contrived for himself a custom in the slaughter of damsels, which was, his Wazir used to bring him every night a girl, with whom he lay that night, and when he arose in the morning, he gave her to the Minister and bade him do her die.

After this fashion he abode a long time, and the commons cried out by reason of that grievous affair into which they were fallen and feared the wrath of Allah Almighty, dreading lest He destroy them by means of this. still the king persisted in that practice and in his blameworthy intent of the killing of damsels and the despoilment of maidens concealed by veils,[FN#452] wherefore the girls sought succor of the Lord of All-might, and complained to Him of the tyranny of the eking and of his oppression. Now the king’s Wazir had two daughters, sisters german, the elder of whom had read the books and made herself mistress of the sciences and studied the writings of the sages and the stories of the cup-companions,[FN#453] and she was a maiden of abundant lore and knowledge galore and wit than which naught can be more. She heard that which the folk suffered from that king in his misuage of their children; whereupon ruth for them gat hold of her and jealousy and she besought Allah Almighty that He would bring the king to renounce that his new accursed custom,[FN#454] and the Lord answered her prayer. Then she consulted her younger sister and said to her, “I mean to devise a device for freeing the children of folk; to wit, I will go up to the king and offer myself to marry him, and when I come to his presence, I will send to fetch thee. When thou comest in to me and the king had his carnal will of me, do thou say to me, �O my sister, let me hear a story of thy goodly stories, wherewith we may beguile the waking hours of our night, till the dawn, when we take leave of each other; and let the king hear it likewise!’” The other replied, “‘Tis well; forsure this contrivance will deter the king from this innovation he practiseth and thou shalt be requited with favour exceeding and recompense abounding in the world to come, for that indeed thou perilest thy life and wilt either perish or win to thy wish.” So she did this and Fortune favoured her and the Divine direction was vouchsafed to her and she discovered her