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

that everyone was constrained to treat him as a real king. He had not only ministers and dignitaries among his playfellows, who prostrated themselves before him, and fulfilled all his behests, but whoever passed that way could not choose but pay him homage also.”[FN#412]

 

This is followed by an analogous story to that of Ah Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad, under the title of “The False Friend,” in which a merchant on a trading journey entrusts a friend with a valuable jewel to give to his wife on his return home, and the friend retaining it for his own use suborns two men to bear witness that they saw him deliver it to the merchant’s wife, so the King dismisses the suit. But the Boy-King undertakes to try the case de novo; causes the two witnesses to be confined in separate places, each with a piece of clay which he is required to make into the form of the jewel, and the models are found to be different one from the other, and both from the shape of the jewel as described by the false friend. A similar story occurs in several Indian collections, with a K�z� instead of the Boy-King.

 

A curious instance of precocity is related in the Third Book of the “Masnavi”

(see ante p. 365), of which Mr. E. H. Whinfield gives an outline in his admirable and most useful abridgment of that work: The boys wished to obtain a holiday, and the sharpest of them suggested that when the master came into school each boy should condole with him on his alleged sickly appearance.

Accordingly, when he entered, one said, “O master, how pale you are looking!

and another said, You are looking very ill to-day, and so on. The master at first answered that there was nothing the matter with him, but as one boy after another continued assuring him that he looked very ill, he was at length deluded into imagining that he must really be ill. So he returned to his house, making the boys follow him there, and told his wife that he was not well, bidding her mark how pale he was. His wife assured him he was not looking pale, and offered to convince him by bringing a mirror, but he refused to look at it, and took to his bed. He then ordered the boys to begin their lessons; but they assured him that the noise made his head ache, and he believed them, and dismissed them to their homes, to the annoyance of their mothers.

 

Another example of juvenile cleverness is found in a Persian collection of anecdotes entitled “Lat�‘yif At-Taw’�yif,” by ‘Al� ibn Husain Al-Va’iz Al-K�shif�: One day N�rsh�rv�n saw in a dream that he was drinking with a frog out of the same cup. When he awoke he told this dream to his vaz�r, but he knew not the interpretation of it. The king grew angry and said, “How long have I maintained thee, that if any difficulty should arise thou mightest unloose the knot of it, and if any matter weighed on my heart thou shouldst lighten it? Now I give thee three days, that thou mayest find out the meaning of this dream, and remove the trouble of my mind; and if, within that space, thou art not successful, I will kill thee.” The vaz�r went from the presence of N�rsh�rv�n confounded and much in trouble. He gathered together all the sages and interpreters of dreams, and told the matter to them, but they were unable to explain it; and the vaz�r resigned his soul to death. But this story was told in the city, and on the third day he heard that there was a mountain, ten farsangs distant from the city, in which was a cave, and in this cave a sage who had chosen the path of seclusion, and lived apart from mankind, and had turned his face to the wall. The vaz�r set out for this place of retirement, saying to himself, “Perhaps he will be able to lay a plaster on my wound, and relieve it from the throbbings of care.” So he mounted his horse, and went to find the sage. At the moment he arrived at the hill a company of boys were playing together. One of them cried out with a loud voice, “The vaz�r is running everywhere in search of an interpreter, and all avails him nothing; now the interpretation of the dream is with me, and the truth of it is clear to me.” When these words reached the ears of the vaz�r he drew in the reins, and calling the boy to him asked him, “What is thy name? He replied, “Buzurjmibr.” The vaz�r said “All the sages and interpreters have failed in loosing the knot of this difficulty—how dost thou, so young in years, pretend to be able to do it? He replied, “All the world is not given to every one.”

The vaz�r said, “If thou speakest truth, explain.” Said the boy “Take me to the monarch, that I may there unloose the knot of this difficulty.” The vaz�r said, “If thou shouldst fail, what then will come of it?” The boy replied, “I will give up my own blood to the king, that they may slay me instead of thee.”

The vaz�r took the boy with him, returned, and told the whole matter to the king and produced the boy in his presence. The king was very angry, and said, “All the wise men and dream interpreters of the court were unable to satisfy me, and thou bringest me a child, and expectest that he shall loose the knot of the difficulty.” The vaz�r bowed his head. And Buzurjmihr said, “Look not upon his youth, but see whether he is able to expound the mystery or not.” The king then said, “Speak.” He replied, “I cannot speak in this multitude.” So those who were present retired, and the monarch and the youth were left alone.

Then said the youth, “A stranger has found entrance into thy seraglio, and is dishonouring thee, along with a girl who is one of thy concubines.” The king was much moved at this interpretation, and looked from one of the wise men to another, and at length said to the boy, “This is a serious matter thou hast asserted; how shall this matter be proceeded in, and in what way fully known?”

The boy replied, “Command that every beautiful woman in thy seraglio pass before thee unveiled, that the truth of this matter may be made apparent.” The king ordered them to pass before him as the boy had said, and considered the face of each one attentively. Among them came a young girl extremely beautiful, whom the king much regarded. When she came opposite to him, a shuddering as of palsy, fell upon her, and she shook from head to foot, so that she was hardly able to stand. The king called her to him, and threatening her greatly, bade her speak the truth. She confessed that she loved a handsome slave and had privately introduced him into the seraglio. The king ordered them both to be impaled, and turning to the rewarding of Buzurjmihr, he made him the object of his special bounty.

 

This story has been imported into the “History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome,” the European form of the Book of Sindib�d, where the prince discovers to his father the paramour of his stepmother, the empress, in the person of a young man disguised as one of her maid-servants, and its presence in the work is quite inconsistent with the lady’s violent lust after the young prince.

There is a similar tale in the Hebrew version, “Mishl� Sandabar,” but the disguised youth is not detected. Vatsyayana, in his “K�ma Sutra” (or Aphorisms of Love), speaks of it as a common practice in India thus to smuggle men into the women’s apartments in female attire. In the Introduction to the “Kath�

Sarit S�gara,” Vararuchi relates how King Yogananda saw his queen leaning out of a window and asking questions of a B�hman guest that was looking up. That trivial circumstance threw the king into a passion, and he gave orders that the Br�hman should be put to death) for jealousy interferes with discernment.

Then as that Br�hman was being led off to the place of execution in order that he should be put to death, a fish in the market laughed aloud, though it was dead. The king hearing it immediately prohibited for the present the execution of the Br�hman, and asked Vararuchi the reason why the fish laughed. He desired time to think over the matter and learned from the conversation of a r�kshas� with her children that the fish said to himself, “All the king’s wives are dissolute, for in every part of his harem there are men dressed up as women, and nevertheless while those escape, an innocent Brahm�n is to be put to death;” and this tickled the fish so that he laughed. Mr. Tawney says that Dr. Liebrecht, in “Orient und Occident,” vol. i. p. 341, compares this story with one in the old French romance of Merlin. There Merlin laughs because the wife of Julius C sar had twelve young men disguised as ladies-in-waiting. Benfey, in a note on Liebrecht’s article, compares with the story of Merlin one by the Countess d’Aulnois, No. 36 of Basile’s “Pentamerone,” Straparola, iv. 1, and a story in the “Suka Saptati.” In this some cooked fish laugh so that the whole town hears them; the reason being the same as in the above story and in that of Merlin. In a Kashm�r� version, which has several other incidents and bears a close resemblance to No. 4 of M.

Legrand’s “Recueil de Contes Populaires Grecs,” to the story of “The Clever Girl” in Professor T. F. Crane’s “Italian Popular Tales,” and to a fable in the Talmud, the king requires his vaz�r to inform him within six months why the fish laughed in presence of the queen. The vaz�r sends his son abroad until the king’s anger had somewhat cooled—for himself he expects nothing but death. The vaz�r’s son learns from the clever daughter of a farmer that the laughing of the fish indicates that there is a man in the palace unknown to the king. He hastens home and tells his father the secret, who at once communicates it to the king. All the female attendants in the palace are called together and ordered to jump across the mouth of a pit which he has caused to be dug: the man would betray his sex in the trial. Only one person succeeded and he was found to be a man.[FN#413] Thus was the queen satisfied, and the faithful old vaz�r saved, and his son, of course, married the farmer’s clever daughter.

 

Prince Ahmad and the Peri Banu—p. 256.

 

How, in the name of all that is wonderful—how has it happened that this ever-delightful tale is not found in any text of The Nights? And how could it be supposed for a moment that Galland was capable of conceiving such a tale—

redolent, as it is, of the East and of Fairyland? Not that Fairyland where “True Thomas,” otherwise ycleped Thomas the Rymer, otherwise Thomas of Erceldoune, passed several years in the bewitching society of the Fairy Queen, years which appeared to him as only so many moments: but Eastern Fairyland, with all its enchanting scenes; where priceless gems are as plentiful as “autumnal leaves which strong the brooks in Vallombrosa;” where, in the royal banqueting hall, illuminated with hundreds of wax candles, in candelabra of the finest amber and the purest crystal are bands of charming damsels, fairest of form and feature, who play on sweet-toned instruments which discourse heart-ravishing strains of melody;—meanwhile the beauteous Per� B�n� is seated on