The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 8 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (best e reader for epub .TXT) 📗

Nur al-Din began to excuse himself to his handmaid, saying, “By Allah, O my lady Miriam, verily runneth the Reed with whatso Allah hath decreed. The folk put a cheat on me to make me sell thee, and I fell into the snare and sold thee. Indeed, I have sorely failed of my duty to thee; but haply He who decreed our disunion will vouchsafe us reunion.” Quoth she, “I warned thee against this, for this it was I dreaded.” Then she strained him to her bosom and kissed him between the eyes, reciting these couplets,

 

“Now, by your love! your love I’ll ne’er forget, * Though lost my life for stress of pine and fret:

I weep and wail through livelong day and night * As moans the dove on sandhill-tree beset.

O fairest friends, your absence spoils my life; * Nor find I meeting-place as erst we met.”

 

At this juncture, behold, the Frank came in to them and went up to Miriam, to kiss her hands; but she dealt him a buffet with her palm on the cheek, saying, “Avaunt, O accursed! Thou hast followed after me without surcease, till thou hast cozened my lord into selling me! But O accursed, all shall yet be well, Inshallah!” The Frank laughed at her speech and wondered at her deed and excused himself to her, saying, “O my lady Mirian, what is my offence? Thy lord Nur al-Din here sold thee of his full consent and of his own free will. Had he loved thee, by the right of the Messiah, he had not transgressed against thee! And had he not fulfilled his desire of thee, he had not sold thee.” Quoth one of the poets,

 

‘Whom I irk let him fly fro’ me fast and faster * If I name his name I am no directer.

Nor the wide wide world is to me so narrow * That I act expecter to this rejecter.’”[FN#496]

 

Now this handmaid was the daughter of the King of France, the which is a wide an spacious city,[FN#497] abounding in manufactures and rarities and trees and flowers and other growths, and resembleth the city of Constantinople; and for her going forth of her father’s city there was a wondrous cause and thereby hangeth a marvellous tale which we will set out in due order, to divert and delight the hearer.[FN#498]—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

 

When it was the Eight Hundred and Seventy-ninth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the cause of Miriam the Girdle-girl leaving her father and mother was a wondrous and thereby hangeth a marvellous tale. She was reared with her father and mother in honour and indulgence and learnt rhetoric and penmanship and arithmetic and cavalarice and all manner crafts, such as broidery and sewing and weaving and girdle-making and silk-cord making and damascening gold on silver and silver on gold, brief all the arts both of men and women, till she became the union-pearl of her time and the unique gem of her age and day. Moreover, Allah (to whom belong Might and Majesty!) had endowed her with such beauty and loveliness and elegance and perfection of grace that she excelled therein all the folk of her time, and the Kings of the isles sought her in marriage of her sire, but he refused to give her to wife to any of her suitors, for that he loved her with passing love and could not bear to be parted from her a single hour. Moreover, he had no other daughter than herself, albeit he had many sons, but she was dearer to him than all of them. It fortuned one year that she fell sick of an exceeding sickness and came nigh upon death, werefore she made a vow that, if she recovered from her malady, she would make the pilgrimage to a certain monastery, situate in such an island, which was high in repute among the Franks, who used to make vows to it and look for a blessing therefrom. When Miriam recovered from her sickness, she wished to accomplish her vow anent the monastery and her sire despatched her to the convent in a little ship, with sundry daughters of the city-notables to wait upon her and patrician Knights to protect them all. As they drew near the island, there came out upon them a ship of the ships of the Moslems, champions of The Faith, warring in Allah’s way, who boarded the vessel and making prize of all therein, knights and maidens, gifts and monies, sold their booty in the city of Kayraw�n.[FN#499] Miriam herself fell into the hands of a Persian merchant, who was born impotent[FN#500]

and for whom no woman had ever discovered her nakedness; so he set her to serve him. Presently, he fell ill and sickened well nigh unto death, and the sickness abode with him two months, during which she tended him after the goodliest fashion, till Allah made him whole of his malady, when he recalled her tenderness and loving-kindness to him and the persistent zeal with which she had nurst him and being minded to requite her the good offices she had done him, said to her, “Ask a boon of me?”

She said, “O my lord, I ask of thee that thou sell me not but to the man of my choice.” He answered, “So be it. I guarantee thee.

By Allah, O Miriam, I will not sell thee but to him of whom thou shalt approve, and I put thy sale in thine own hand.” And she rejoiced herein with joy exceeding. Now the Persian had expounded to her Al-Islam and she became a Moslemah and learnt of him the rules of worship. Furthermore during that period the Perisan had taught her the tenets of The Faith and the observances incumbent upon her: he had made her learn the Koran by heart and master somewhat of the theological sciences and the traditions of the Prophet; after which, he brought her to Alexandria-city and sold her to Nur al-Din, as we have before set out. Meanwhile, when her father, the King of France, heard what had befallen his daughter and her company, he saw Doomsday break and sent after her ships full of knights and champions, horsemen and footsmen; but they fell not in any trace of her whom they sought in the Islands[FN#501] of the Moslems; so all returned to him, crying out and saying, “Well-away!” and “Ruin!” and “Well worth the day!” The King grieved for her with exceeding grief and sent after her that one-eyed lameter, blind of the left,[FN#502] for that he was his chief Wazir, a stubborn tyrant and a froward devil,[FN#503] full of craft and guile, bidding him make search for her in all the lands of the Moslems and buy her, though with a shipload of gold. So the accursed sought her, in all the islands of the Arabs and all the cities of the Moslems, but found no sign of her till he came to Alexandria-city where he made quest for her and presently discovered that she was with Nur al-Din Ali the Cairene, being directed to the trace of her by the kerchief aforesaid, for that none could have wrought it in such goodly guise but she. Then he bribed the merchants to help him in getting her from Nur al-Din and beguiled her lord into selling her, as hath been already related. When he had her in his possession, she ceased not to weep and wail: so he said to her, “O my lady Miriam, put away from thee this mourning and grieving and return with me to the city of thy sire, the seat of thy kingship and the place of thy power and thy home, so thou mayst be among thy servants and attendants and be quit of this abasement and this strangerhood. Enough hath betided me of travail, of travel and of disbursing monies on thine account, for thy father bade me buy thee back, though with a shipload of gold; and now I have spent nigh a year and a half in seeking thee.” And he fell to kissing her hands and feet and humbling himself to her; but the more he kissed and grovelled she only redoubled in wrath against him, and said to him, “O accursed, may Almighty Allah not vouchsafe thee to win thy wish!” Presently his pages brought her a shemule with gold-embroidered housings and mounting her thereon, raised over her head a silken canopy, with staves of gold and silver, and the Franks walked round about her, till they brought her forth the city by the sea-gate,[FN#504] where they took boat with her and rowing out to a great ship in harbor embarked therein. Then the monocular Wazir cried out to the sailors, saying, “Up with the mast!” So they set it up forthright and spreading the newly bent sails and the colours manned the sweeps and put out to sea. Meanwhile Miriam continued to gaze upon Alexandria, till it disappeared from her eyes, when she fell a-weeping in her privacy with sore weeping.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

 

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eightieth Night, She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Wazir of the Frankish King put out to sea in the ship bearing Miriam the Girdle-girl, she gazed Alexandria-wards till the city was hidden from her sight when she wailed and wept copious tears and recited these couplets,

 

“O dwelling of my friends say is there no return * Uswards? But what ken I of matters Allah made?

Still fare the ships of Severance, sailing hastily And in my wounded eyelids tear have ta’en their stead, For parting from a friend who was my wish and will Healed every ill and every pain and pang allay’d.

Be thou, O Allah, substitute of me for him * Such charge some day the care of Thee shall not evade.”

 

Then she could not refrain from weeping and wailing. So the patrician[FN#505] knights came up to her and would have comforted her, but she heeded not their consoling words, being distracted by the claims of passion and love-longing. And she shed tears and moaned and complained and recited these couplets, “The tongue of Love within my vitals speaketh * Saying, ‘This lover boon of Love aye seeketh!’

And burn my liver hottest coals of passion * And parting on my heart sore suffering wreaketh.

How shall I face this fiery love concealing * When fro’ my wounded lids the tear aye leaketh?

 

In this plight Miriam abode during all the voyage; no peace was left her at all nor would patience come at her call. Such was her case in company with the Wazir, the monocular, the lameter; but as regards Nur al-Din the Cairene, when the ship had sailed with Miriam, the world was straitened upon him and he had neither peace nor patience. He returned to the lodging where they twain had dwelt, and its aspect was black and gloomy in his sight. Then he saw the m�tier wherewith she had been wont to make the zones and her dress that had been upon her beauteous body; so he pressed them to his breast, whilst the tears gushed from his eyes and he recited these couplets,

 

“Say me, will Union after parting e’er return to be * After long-lasting torments, after hopeless misery?

Alas! Alas! what wont to be shall never more return * But grant me still return of dearest her these eyne may see.

I wonder me will Allah deign our parted lives unite * And will my dear one’s plighted troth preserve with constancy!

Naught am I save the prey of death since