The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (large screen ebook reader .txt) 📗

This is how the Tamil story of The Four Good Sisters begins (“Folk-Lore in Southern India,” Part iii., by Pandit S. M. Nat�sa S�stri[FN#403]): In the town of Ta�jai there reigned a king named Hariji, who was a very good and charitable sovereign. In his reign the tiger and the bull drank out of the same pool, the serpent and the peacock amused themselves under the same tree; and thus even birds and beasts of a quarrelsome and inimical disposition lived together like sheep of the same flock. While the brute creation of the great God was thus living in friendship and happiness, need it be said that this king’s subjects led a life of peace and prosperity unknown in any other country under the canopy of heaven? But for all the peace which his subjects enjoyed, Hariji himself had no joy: his face was always drooping, his lips never moved in laughter, and he was as sad as sad could be because he had no son.—After trying in vain the distribution of charitable gifts which his ministers and the priests recommended, the king resolves to retire into the wilderness and there endeavour to propitiate Mah�svara [i.e. Siva], hoping thus to have his desire fulfilled. He appoints his ministers to order the realm during his absence, and doffing his royal robes clothes himself in the bark of trees and takes up his abode in the desert. After practising the most severe austerities for the space of three years, Siva, mounted on his bull, with his spouse P�rvat� by his side, appears before the hermit, who is overjoyed at the sight of the deity. Siva bids him ask any boon and it should be granted. The royal ascetic desires to have a son. Then says Siva: “For thy long penance we grant thy request. Choose then—a son who shall always be with thee till death, but shall be the greatest fool in the whole world, or four daughters who shall live with thee for a short time, then leave thee and return before thy death, but who shall be the incarnation of learning. To thee is left to choose which thou wilt have,” and so saying, the deity gives him a mango fruit for his wife to eat, and then disappears. The king elects to have the four learned daughters, whose history is very entertaining.

Another tale in the Pandit’s collection (No. 4) informs us that once upon a time in a town named Va�jaim�nagar there ruled a king named Siv�char. He was a most just king and ruled so well that no stone thrown up fell down, no crow pecked at the new-drawn milk, the lion and the bull drank water from the same pond, and peace and prosperity reigned throughout the kingdom. Notwithstanding all these blessings, care always sat on his face. His days and nights he spent in praying that God might bless him with a son. Wherever he saw p�pal trees he ordered Brahmans to circumambulate them.[FN#404] Whatever medicines the doctors recommended he was ever ready to swallow, however bitter they might be. At last fortune favoured Siv�ch�r; for what religious man fails to obtain his desire? The king in his sixtieth year had a son, and his joy knew no bounds.

In like fashion does the Persian “Sindib�d N�ma” begin: There reigned in India a sage and mighty monarch, the bricks of whose palace were not of stone or marble but of gold; the fuel of whose kitchen was fresh wood of aloes; who had brought under the signet of his authority the kingdoms of R�m and Abyssinia; and to whom were alike tributary the Ethiop Mahar�j and the Roman Kaysar. He was distinguished above all monarchs for his virtue clemency, and justice. But although he was the refuge of the Khal�fate, he was not blessed with an heir: life and the world appeared profitless to him, because he had no fruit of the heart in the garden of his soul. One night, while reclining on his couch, sad and thoughtful, consumed with grief like a morning taper, he heaved a deep sigh upon which one of his favourite wives (he had a hundred in his harem), advancing towards him and kissing the ground, inquired the cause of his distress. He discloses it. His wife consoles him, encourages him to hope, and assures him that if he prayed, his prayers would be answered, but that at all events it was his duty to be resigned to the will of God. “Prayer is the only key that will open the door of difficulty.” The king fasted for a whole week and was assiduous in his devotions. One night he prayed with peculiar earnestness and self-abasement till morning. The companion of his couch was one of his wives, fairer than the sun and the envy of a pert. He clasped her in his embrace, exclaiming, “There is no strength, no power, save in God!” and he felt assured in his heart that his prayer was granted. In due time a son was born to him, and, eager to show his gratitude, he bestowed munificent gifts and lavished his treasures on all his subjects.

The seventh of Lal Behari Day’s “Folk-Tales of Bengal” opens as follows: Once on a time there reigned a king who had seven queens. He was very sad, for the seven queens were all barren. A holy mendicant, however, one day told the king that in a certain forest there grew a tree, on a branch of which hung seven mangoes; if the king himself plucked those mangoes and gave one to each of the queens they would all become mothers. So the king went to the forest, plucked the seven mangoes that grew upon one branch, and gave a mango to each of the queens to eat. In a short time the king’s heart was filled with joy as he heard that the seven queens were pregnant.—In Miss Stokes’ “Indian Fairy Tales,’ p. 91, R�j� Barb�l receives from an ascetic 160 lich� fruits, one of which he is to give to each of his 160 wives, who would have each a son.—

Similar instances occur in Steel and Temple’s “Wide Awake Stories,” from the Panj�b and Kashm�r, pp. 47 and 290, and in Nat�sa S�str�‘s “Dravidian Nights’

Entertainments” (a translation of the Tamil romance entitled “Madanak�mar�jankadai”), pp. 55, 56.—Among biblical instances of women having offspring after being long barren are: Sarah, the wife of Abraham (Gen. ch.

xv. 2 4, xxi. 1, 2); Rachel, the wife of Jacob (Gen. ch. xxx., 1, 22, 23); and Elisabeth, the wife of Zacharias, the high-priest, who were the parents of John the Baptist (Luke, ch. i.). Whether children be a “blessing,”

notwithstanding all that has been said and sung about the exquisite joys of paternity and maternity, is perhaps doubtful, generally speaking: one thing is certain, that many an honest fellow has had too much cause to “wonder why the devil he got an heir!”[FN#405]

Although no version or variant of the story of Khudadad and his Brothers has yet been found besides the one in the Turkish collection “Al-Far�j ba’d al-Shiddah,” yet the elements of which it is composed occur in many European and Asiatic tales. As we have in Galland a story of sisters who envied their cadette, so, by way of justice to the “fair sex,” we have likewise this tale of envious brothers, which is a favourite theme of popular fictions, only in the story of Khudadad, the brothers were not at first aware of the hero’s kinship to them, though they had been informed of it when they most ungratefully cut and slashed him with their swords as he lay asleep by the side of his beauteous bride the Princess of Daryab�r.

Sometimes it is not a brother, or brothers, but a treacherous friend or a secret, cowardly rival, who attempts the life of the hero and claims the credit and reward for his bold achievement. Many examples must occur to readers familiar with Icelandic, Norwegian, and German folk-tales which need not here be cited. In the old French romance of the Chevalier Berinus and his gallant son Aigres de l’Aimant, the King of Loquiferne is in love with the Princess Melia, daughter of a king named Absalon, who would give her only to the prince who should bring with him two knights prepared to combat with and slay two fierce lions, or would attempt this feat himself. None of the barons of the King of Loquiferne offering themselves for the adventure, Aigres undertakes it very readily, and is accompanied by a knight named A�ars, who has charge of a casket of jewels destined for the princess as a wedding-gift.

Young Aigres encounters and kills the lions singlehanded, and the lily-livered and faithless A�ars envies him the glory of his exploit. On their way back to Loquiferne with the Princess Melia, as they pass near a deep well A�ars purposely allows the casket of jewels to fall into it and pretends to be distracted at the misfortune. But the gallant Aigres securing one end of his horse’s reins to the top of the well descends by this improvised rope, and when he dives into the water to recover the casket the rascal A�ars cuts the reins and compels the princess and her maid to follow him. His triumph is brief, however, for Melia and her maid are taken from him, without his striking a blow in their defence, by a king who is in love with the princess.

A�ars proceeds to the court of the King of Loquiferne and tells him how the lady had been snatched out of his hands by a king who attacked him with a great army while Aigres had fled like a craven. Meanwhile Aigres contrives to get out of the well, and finds his steed and armour close by: he is fortunate in rescuing the princess and her maid from the king who had taken them from A�ars, and arriving at the court of Loquiferne denounces A�ars as a coward and traitor, and the princess Melia confirms his assertions; so the carpet-knight is for ever disgraced.

Another example not very generally known is found in the Urd� romance, “Gul-�

Bak�wal�:” When the hero, Taj al-Mal�k, the youngest son of King Zayn al-Mal�k, is born, the astrologers cast his horoscope and predict that the king will lose his sight as soon as he looks upon him. In order to prevent such a calamity, the king causes the child and his mother to be placed in a house far distant from the city, where Zayn al-Mal�k grows up into a handsome, courageous youth. By chance he meets his father, the king, while the latter is hunting, and the king no sooner casts his eyes on the youth than he becomes blind. The royal physicians tell him that only the Rose of Bak�wal� can restore his sight, and the four other sons of the king set out together to procure this wonderful flower. They fall victims to the wiles of a courtesan, who wins all their money at play and ultimately imprisons them in her house.

In the meantime Taj al-Mal�k has started on the same errand; he outwits the courtesan, obtains the liberation of his brothers, and then journeys to Jinnist�n, where, by the help of a friendly demon, he plucks the Rose in the garden of the beauteous fairy Bak�wal�, and retraces his way homeward. Meeting with his four brothers on the road, he acquaints them of his success, and on their doubting the virtue of the flower, it is applied to the eyes of a blind man, and his sight is instantly restored. Upon this the brothers take the flower from Taj al-Mal�k by force and hasten with it to their father. But the hero’s friends the demons build for him a splendid palace, and