The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 03 by Richard F. BurtonA Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments (page 7)

And As’ad em braced his brother, sobbing and repeating these couplets,

“O Thou to whom sad trembling wights in fear complain! * O ever ready whatso cometh to sustain! The sole resource for me is at Thy door to knock, * At whose door knock an Thou to open wilt not deign? O Thou whose grace is treasured in the one word, Be![FN#365] * Favour me, I beseech, in Thee all weals contain.”

Now when Amjad heard his brother’s weeping he wept also and pressing him to his bosom repeated these two couplets,

“O Thou whose boons to me are more than one! * Whose gifts and favours have nor count nor bound! No stroke of all Fate’s strokes e’er fell on me, * But Thee to take me by the hand I found.”

Then said Amjad to the treasurer, “I conjure thee by the One, Omnipotent, the Lord of Mercy, the Beneficent! slay me before my brother As’ad, so haply shall the fire be quencht in my heart’s core and in this life burn no more.” But As’ad wept and exclaimed, “Not so: I will die first;” whereupon quoth Amjad, “It were best that I embrace thee and thou embrace me, so the sword may fall upon us and slay us both at a single stroke.” Thereupon they embraced, face to face and clung to each other straitly, whilst the treasurer tied up the twain and bound them fast with cords, weeping the while. Then he drew his blade and said to them, “By Allah, O my lords, it is indeed hard to me to slay you! But have ye no last wishes that I may fulfil or charges which I may carry out, or message which I may deliver?” Replied Amjad, “We have no wish; and my only charge to thee is that thou set my brother below and me above him, that the blow may fall on me first, and when thou hast killed us and returnest to the King and he asketh thee, ‘What heardest thou from them before their death?’; do thou answer, ‘Verily thy sons salute thee and say to thee, Thou knewest not if we were innocent or guilty, yet hast thou put us to death and hast not certified thyself of our sin nor looked into our case.’ Then do thou repeat to him these two couplets,

‘Women are Satans made for woe o’ men; * I fly to Allah from their devilish scathe: Source of whatever bale befel our kind, * In wordly matters and in things of Faith.'”

Continued Amjad, “We desire of thee naught but that thou repeat to our sire these two couplets.”–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was ad the Two Hundred and Twenty-second Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Amjad added, speaking to the treasurer, “We desire of thee naught but that thou repeat to our sire these two couplets which thou hast just now heard; and I conjure thee by Allah to have patience with us, whilst I cite to my brother this other pair of couplets.” Then he wept with sore weeping and began,

“The Kings who fared before us showed * Of instances full many a show:
Of great and small and high and low * How many this one road have trod!”

Now when the treasurer heard these words from Amjad, he wept till his beard was wet, whilst As’ad’s eyes brimmed with tears and he in turn repeated these couplets,

“Fate frights us when the thing is past and gone; * Weeping is not for form or face alone[FN#366]: What ails the Nights?[FN#367] Allah blot out our sin, * And be the Nights by other hand undone! Ere this Zubayr-son[FN#368] felt their spiteful hate, * Who fled for refuge to the House and Stone: Would that when Khárijah was for Amru slain[FN#369] * They had ransomed Ali with all men they own.”

Then, with cheeks stained by tears down railing he recited also these verses,

“In sooth the Nights and Days are charactered * By traitor falsehood and as knaves they lie; The Desert-reek[FN#370] recalls their teeth that shine; * All horrid blackness is their K of eye: My sin anent the world which I abhor *
Is sin of sword when sworders fighting hie.”

Then his sobs waxed louder and he said,

“O thou who woo’st a World[FN#371] unworthy, learn * ‘Tis house of evils, ’tis Perdition’s net: A house where whoso laughs this day shall weep * The next: then perish house of fume and fret! Endless its frays and forays, and its thralls * Are ne’er redeemed, while endless risks beset. How many gloried in its pomps and pride, * Till proud and pompous did all bounds forget, Then showing back of shield she made them swill[FN#372] * Full draught, and claimed all her vengeance debt. For know her strokes fall swift and sure, altho’ * Long bide she and forslow the course of Fate: So look thou to thy days lest life go by * Idly, and meet thou more than thou hast met; And cut all chains of world-love and desire * And save thy soul and rise to secrets higher.”

Now when As’ad made an end of these verses, he strained his brother Amjad in his arms, till they twain were one body, and the treasurer, drawing his sword, was about to strike them, when behold, his steed took fright at the wind of his upraised hand, and breaking its tether, fled into the desert. Now the horse had cost a thousand gold pieces and on its back was a splendid saddle worth much money; so the treasurer threw down his sword, and ran after his beast.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-third Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when his horse ran away, the treasurer ran after it in huge concern, and ceased not running to catch the runaway till it entered a thicket. He followed it whilst it dashed through the wood, smiting the earth with its hoofs till it raised a dust-cloud which towered high in air; and snorting and puffing and neighing and waxing fierce and furious. Now there happened to be in this thicket a lion of terrible might; hideous to sight, with eyes sparkling light: his look was grim and his aspect struck fright into man’s sprite. Presentry the treasurer turned and saw the lion making towards him; but found no way of escape nor had he his sword with him. So he said in himself, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! This strait is come upon me for no other cause but because of Amjad and As’ad; and indeed this journey was unblest from the first!” Meanwhile the two Princes were grievously oppressed by the heat and grew sore athirst, so that their tongues hung out and they cried for succour, but none came to their relief and they said, “Would to Heaven we had been slain and were at peace from this pain! But we know not whither the horse hath fled, that the treasurer is gone and hath left us thus pinioned. If he would but come back and do us die, it were easier to us than this torture to aby.” Said As’ad, “O my brother, be patient, and the relief of Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) shall assuredly come to us; for the horse started not away save of His favour towards us, and naught irketh us but this thirst.” Upon this he stretched and shook himself and strained right and left, till he burst his pinion-bonds; then he rose and unbound his brother and catching up the Emir’s sword, said, “By Allah, we will not go hence, till we look after him and learn what is become of him.” Then they took to following on the trail till it led them to the thicket and they said to each other, “Of a surety, the horse and the treasurer have not passed out of this wood.” Quoth As’ad, “Stay thou here, whilst I enter the thicket and search it;” and Amjad replied, “I will not let thee go in alone: nor will we enter it but together; so if we escape, we shall escape together and if we perish, we shall perish together.” Accordingly both entered and found that the lion had sprang upon the treasurer, who lay like a sparrow in his grip, calling upon Allah for aid and signing with his hands to Heaven. Now when Amjad saw this, he took the sword and, rushing upon the lion, smote him between the eyes and laid him dead on the ground. The Emir sprang up, marvelling at this escape and seeing Amjad and As’ad, his master’s sons, standing there, cast himself at their feet and exclaimed, “By Allah, O my lords, it were intolerable wrong in me to do you to death. May the man never be who would kill you! Indeed, with my very life, I will ransom you.”–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-fourth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth the treasurer to Amjad and As’ad, “With my life will I ransom you both!” Then he hastily rose and, at once embracing them, enquired how they had loosed their bonds and come thither; whereupon they told him how the bonds of one of them had fallen loose and he had unbound the other, whereto they were helped by the purity of their intentions, and how they had tracked his trail till they came upon him. So he thanked them for their deed and went with them forth of the thicket; and, when they were in the open country, they said to him, “O uncle, do our father’s bidding.” He replied, “Allah forbid that I should draw near to you with hurt! But know ye that I mean to take your clothes and clothe you with mine; then will I fill two vials with the lion’s blood and go back to the King and tell him I have out vou to death. But as for you two, fare ye forth into the lands, for Allah’s earth is wide; and know, O my lords, that it paineth me to part from you.” At this, they all fell a-weeping; then the two youths put off their clothes and the treasurer habited them with his own. Moreover he made two parcels of their dress and, filling two vials with the lion’s blood, set the parcels before him on his horse’s back. Presently he took leave of them and, making his way to the city, ceased not faring till he went in to King Kamar al-Zaman and kissed the ground between his hands. The King saw him changed in face and troubled (which arose from his adventure with the lion) and, deeming this came of the slaughter of his two sons, rejoiced and said to him, “Hast thou done the work?” “Yes, O our lord,” replied the treasurer and gave him the two parcels of clothes and the two vials full of blood. Asked the King, “What didst thou observe in them; and did they give thee any charge?” Answered the treasurer, “I found them patient and resigned to what came down upon them and they said to me, ‘Verily, our father is excusable; bear him our salutation and say to him, ‘Thou art quit of our killing. But we charge thee repeat to him these couplets,

‘Verily women are devils created for us. We seek refuge with God from the artifice of the devils.
They are the source of all the misfortunes that have appeared among mankind in the affairs of the world and of religion.”'[FN#373]

When the King heard these words of the treasurer, he bowed his head earthwards, a long while and knew his sons’ words to mean that they had been wrongfully put to death. Then he bethought himself of the perfidy of women and the calamities brought about by them; and he took the two parcels and opened them and fell to turning over his sons’ clothes and weeping,–And Shahrazed perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when King Kamar la-Zaman opened the two bundles and fell to turning over his sons’ clothes and weeping, it so came to pass that he found, in the pocket of his son As’ad’s raiment, a letter in the hand of his wife enclosing her hair strings; so he opened and read it and understanding the contents knew that the Prince had been falsely accused and wrongously. Then he searched Amjad’s parcel of dress and found in his pocket a letter in the handwriting of Queen Hayat al-Nufus enclosing also her hair-strings; so he opened and read it and knew that Amjad too had been wronged; whereupon he beat hand upon hand and exclaimed, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! I have slain my sons unjustly.” And he buffeted his face, crying out, “Alas, my sons! Alas, my long grief!” Then he bade them build two tombs in one house, which he styled “House of Lamentations,” and had graved thereon his sons’ names; and he threw himself on Amjad’s tomb, weeping and groaning and lamenting, and improvised these couplets,

“O moon for ever set this earth below, * Whose loss bewail the stars which stud the sky! O wand, which broken, ne’er with bend and wave * Shall fascinate the ravisht gazer’s eye; These eyne for jealousy I ‘reft of thee, * Nor shall they till next life thy sight descry: I’m drowned in sea of tears for insomny * Wherefore, indeed in Sáhirah-stead[FN#374] I lie.”

Then he threw himself on As’ad’s tomb, groaning and weeping and lamenting and versifying with these couplets,

“Indeed I longed to share unweal with thee, * But Allah than my will willed otherwise: My grief all blackens ‘twixt mine eyes and space, * Yet whitens all the blackness from mine eyes:[FN#375] Of tears they weep these eyne run never dry, * And ulcerous flow in vitals never dries: Right sore it irks me seeing thee in stead[FN#376] * Where slave with sovran for once levelled lies.”

And his weeping and wailing redoubled; and, after he had ended his lamentations and his verse, he forsook his friends and intimates, and denying himself to his women and his family, cut himself off from the world in the House of Lamentations, where he passed his time in weeping for his sons. Such was his case; but as regards Amjad and As’ad they fared on into the desert eating of the fruits of the earth and drinking of the remnants of the rain for a full month, till their travel brought them to a mountain of black flint[FN#377] whose further end was unknown; and here the road forked, one line lying along the midway height and the other leading to its head. They took the way trending to the top and gave not over following it five days, but saw no end to it and were overcome with weariness, being unused to walking upon the mountains or elsewhere.[FN#378] At last, despairing of coming to the last of the road, they retraced their steps and, taking the other, that led over the midway heights,–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-sixth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Princes Amjad and As’ad returned from the path leading to the Mountain- head and took that which ran along the midway heights, and walked through all that day till nightfall, when As’ad, weary with much travel, said to Amjad, “O my brother, I can walk no farther, for I am exceeding weak.” Replied Amjad, “O my brother, take courage! May be Allah will send us relief.” So they walked on part of the night, till the darkness closed in upon them, when As’ad became weary beyond measure of weariness and cried out, “O my brother, I am worn out and spent with walking,” and threw himself upon the ground and wept. Amjad took him in his arms and walked on with him, bytimes sitting down to rest till break of day, when they came to the mountain-top and found there a stream of running water and by it a pomegranate-tree and a prayer-niche.[FN#379] They could hardly believe their eyes when they saw it; but, sitting down by that spring, drank of its water and ate of the fruit of that granado-tree; after which they lay on the ground and slept till sunrise, when they washed and bathed in the spring and, eating of the pomegranates, slept again till the time of mid-afternoon prayer. Then they thought to continue their journey, but As’ad could not walk, for both his feet were swollen. So they abode there three days till they were rested, after which they set out again and fared on over the mountain days and nights, tortured by and like to die of thirst, till they sighted a city gleaming afar off, at which they rejoiced and made towards it. When they drew near it, they thanked Allah (be His Name exalted!) and Amjad said to As’ad, “O my brother, sit here, whilst I go to yonder city and see what it is and whose it is and where we are in Allah’s wide world, that we may know through what lands we have passed in crossing this mountain, whose skirts had we followed, we had not reached this city in a whole year. So praised be Allah for safety!” Replied As’ad, “By Allah, O my brother, none shall go down into that city save myself, and may I be thy ransom! If thou leave me alone, be it only for an hour, I shall imagine a thousand things and be drowned in a torrent of anxiety on shine account, for I cannot brook shine absence from me.” Amjad rejoined, “Go then and tarry not. So As’ad took some gold pieces, and leaving his brother to await him, descended the mountain and ceased not faring on till he entered the city. As he threaded the streets he was met by an old man age-decrepit, whose beard flowed down upon his breast and forked in twain;[FN#380] he bore a walking-staff in his hand and was richly clad, with a great red turband on his head. When As’ad saw him, he wondered at his dress and his mien; nevertheless, he went up to him and saluting him said, “Where be the way to the market, O my master?” Hearing these words the Shaykh smiled in his face and replied, “O my son, meseemeth thou art a stranger?” As’ad rejoined, “Yes, I am a stranger.”–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Shaykh who met As’ad smiled in his face and said to him, “O my son, meseemeth thou art a stranger?” and As’ad replied, “Yes, I am a stranger.” Then rejoined the old man, “Verily, thou gladdenest our country with thy presence, O my son, and thou desolatest shine own land by reason of shine absence. What wantest thou of the market?” Quoth As’ad, “O uncle, I have a brother, with whom I have come from a far land and with whom I have journeyed these three months; and, when we sighted this city, I left him, who is my elder brother, upon the mountain and came hither, purposing to buy victual and what else, and return therewith to him, that we might feed thereon.” Said the old man, “Rejoice in all good, O my son, and know thou that to-day I give a marriage-feast, to which I have bidden many guests, and I have made ready plenty of meats, the best and most delicious that heart can desire. So if thou wilt come with me to my place, I will give thee freely all thou lackest without asking thee a price or aught else. Moreover I will teach thee the ways of this city; and, praised be Allah, O my son, that I, and none other have happened upon thee.” “As thou wilt,” answered As’ad, “do as thou art disposed, but make haste, for indeed my brother awaiteth me and his whole heart is with me.” The old man took As’ad by the hand and carried him to a narrow lane, smiling in his face and saying, “Glory be to Him who hath delivered thee from the people of this city!” And he ceased not walking till he entered a spacious house, wherein was a saloon and behold, in the middle of it were forty old men, well stricken in years, collected together and forming a single ring as they sat round about a lighted fire, to which they were doing worship and prostrating themselves.[FN#381] When As’ad saw this, he was confounded and the hair of his body stood on end though he knew not what they were; and the Shaykh said to them, “O Elders of the Fire, how blessed is this day!” Then he called aloud, saying, “Hello, Ghazbán!” Whereupon there came out to him a tall black slave of frightful aspect, grim-visaged and flat nosed as an ape who, when the old man made a sign to him, bent As’ad’s arms behind his back and pinioned them; after which the Shaykh said to him, “Let him down into the vault under the earth and there leave him and say to my slave girl Such-an-one, ‘Torture him night and day and give him a cake of bread to eat morning and evening against the time come of the voyage to the Blue Sea and the Mountain of Fire, whereon we will slaughter him as a sacrifice.'” So the black carried him out at another door and, raising a flag in the floor, discovered a flight of twenty steps leading to a chamber[FN#382] under the earth, into which he descended with him and, laying his feet in irons, gave him over to the slave girl and went away. Meanwhile, the old men said to one another, “When the day of the Festival of the Fire cometh, we will sacrifice him on the mountain, as a propitiatory offering whereby we shall pleasure the Fire.” Presently the damsel went down to him and beat him a grievous beating, till streams of blood flowed from his sides and he fainted; after which she set at his head a scone of bread and a cruse of brackish water and went away and left him. In the middle of the night, he revived and found himself bound and beaten and sore with beating: so he wept bitter tears; and recalling his former condition of honour and prosperity, lordship and dominion, and his separation from his sire and his exile from his native land.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say,

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-eighth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when As’ad found himself bound and beaten and sore with beating he recalled his whilome condition of honour and prosperity and dominion and lordship, and he wept and groaned aloud and recited these couplets,

“Stand by the ruined stead and ask of us; * Nor deem we dwell there as was state of us: The World, that parter, hath departed us; * Yet soothes not hate-full hearts the fate of us: With whips a cursed slave girl scourges us, * And teems her breast with rancorous hate of us: Allah shall haply deign to unpart our lives, * Chastise our foes, and end this strait of us.”

And when As’ad had spoken his poetry, he put out his hand towards his head and finding there the crust and the cruse full of brackish water he ate a bittock, just enough to keep life in him, and drank a little water, but could get no sleep till morning for the swarms of bugs[FN#383] and lice. As soon as it was day, the slave girl came down to him and changed his clothes, which were drenched with blood and stuck to him, so that his skin came off with the shirt; wherefor he shrieked aloud and cried, “Alas!” and said, “O my God, if this be Thy pleasure, increase it upon me! O Lord, verily Thou art not unmindful of him that oppresseth me; do Thou then avenge me upon him!” And he groaned and repeated the following verses,

“Patient, O Allah! to Thy destiny *
I bow, suffice me what Thou deign decree: Patient to bear Thy will, O Lord of me, * Patient to burn on coals of Ghazá-tree: They wrong me, visit me with hurt and harm; * Haply Thy grace from them shall set me free: Far be’s, O Lord, from thee to spare the wronger * O Lord of Destiny my hope’s in Thee!”

And what another saith,

“Bethink thee not of worldly state, * Leave everything to course of Fate;
For oft a thing that irketh thee *
Shall in content eventuate;
And oft what strait is shall expand, * And what expanded is wax strait.
Allah will do what wills His will * So be not thou importunate!
But ‘joy the view of coming weal *
Shall make forget past bale and bate.”

And when he had ended his verse, the slave-girl came down upon him with blows till he fainted again; and, throwing him a flap of bread and a gugglet of saltish water, went away and left him sad and lonely, bound in chains of iron, with the blood streaming from his sides and far from those he loved. So he wept and called to mind his brother and the honours he erst enjoyed.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-ninth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that As’ad called to mind his brother and the honours he erst enjoyed; so he wept and groaned and complained and poured forth tears in floods and improvised these couplets,

“Easy, O Fate! how long this wrong, this injury, * Robbing each morn and eve my brotherhood fro’ me? Is’t not time now thou deem this length sufficiency * Of woes and, O thou Heart of Rock, show clemency? My friends thou wrongedst when thou madst each enemy * Mock and exult me for thy wrongs, thy tyranny: My foeman’s heart is solaced by the things he saw * In me, of strangerhood and lonely misery: Suffice thee not what came upon my head of dole, * Friends lost for evermore, eyes wan and pale of blee? But must in prison cast so narrow there is naught * Save hand to bite, with bitten hand for company; And tears that tempest down like goodly gift of cloud, * And longing thirst whose fires weet no satiety. Regretful yearnings, singulfs and unceasing sighs, * Repine, remembrance and pain’s very ecstacy: Desire I suffer sore and melancholy deep, * And I must bide a prey to endless phrenesy: I find me ne’er a friend who looks with piteous eye, * And seeks my presence to allay my misery: Say, liveth any intimate with trusty love * Who for mine ills will groan, my sleepless malady? To whom moan I can make and, peradventure, he * Shall pity eyes that sight of sleep can never see? The flea and bug suck up my blood, as wight that drinks * Wine from the proffering hand of fair virginity: Amid the lice my body aye remindeth me * Of orphan’s good in Kázi’s claw of villainy: My home’s a sepulchre that measures cubits three, * Where pass I morn and eve in chained agony: My wines are tears, my clank of chains takes music’s stead, * Cares my dessert of fruit and sorrows are my bed.”

And when he had versed his verse and had prosed his prose, he again groaned and complained and remembered he had been and how he had been parted from his brother. Thus far concerning him; but as regards his brother Amjad, he awaited As’ad till mid-day yet he returned not to him: whereupon Amjad’s vitals fluttered, the pangs of parting were sore upon him and he poured forth abundant tears,–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Thirtieth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Amjad awaited his brother As’ad till mid-day and he returned not to him, Amjad’s vitals fluttered; the pangs of parting were sore upon him and he poured forth abundant tears, exclaiming, “Alas, my brother! Alas, my friend! Alas my grief! How I feared me we should be separated!” Then he descended from the mountain-top with the tears running down his cheeks; and, entering the city, ceased not walking till he made the market. He asked the folk the name of the place and concerning its people and they said, “This is called the City of the Magians, and its citizens are mostly given to Fire-worshipping in lieu of the Omnipotent King.” Then he enquired of the City of Ebony and they answered, “Of a truth it is a year’s journey thither by land and six months by sea: it was governed erst by a King called Armanus; but he took to son- in-law and made King in his stead a Prince called Kamar al-Zaman distinguished for justice and munificence, equity and benevolence.” When Amjad heard tell of his father, he groaned and wept and lamented and knew not whither to go. However, he bought a something of food and carried it to a retired spot where he sat down thinking to eat; but, recalling his brother, he fell a- weeping and swallowed but a morsel to keep breath and body together, and that against his will. Then he rose and walked about the city, seeking news of his brother, till he saw a Moslem tailor sitting in his shop so he sat down by him and told him his story; whereupon quoth the tailor, “If he have fallen into the hands of the Magians, thou shalt hardly see him again: yet it may be Allah will reunite you twain. But thou, O my brother,” he continued wilt thou lodge with me?” Amjad answered, “Yes”; and the tailor rejoiced at this. So he abode with him many days, what while the tailor comforted him and exhorted him to patience and taught him tailoring, till he became expert in the craft. Now one day he went forth to the sea-shore and washed his clothes; after which he entered the bath and put on clean raiment; then he walked about the city, to divert himself with its sights and presently there met him on the way a woman of passing beauty and loveliness, without peer for grace and comeliness. When she saw him she raised her face-veil and signed to him by moving her eyebrows and her eyes with luring glances, and versified these couplets,

“I drooped my glance when seen thee on the way * As though, O slim-waist! felled by Sol’s hot ray: Thou art the fairest fair that e’er appeared, * Fairer to-day than fair of yesterday:[FN#384] Were Beauty parted, a fifth part of it * With Joseph or a part of fifth would stay; The rest would fly to thee, shine ownest own; * Be every soul thy sacrifice, I pray!”

When Amjad heard these her words, they gladdened his heart which inclined to her and his bowels yearned towards her and the hands of love sported with him; so he sighed to her in reply and spoke these couplets,

“Above the rose of cheek is thorn of lance;[FN#385] * Who dareth pluck it, rashest chevisance? Stretch not thy hand towards it, for night long * Those lances marred because we snatched a glance! Say her, who tyrant is and tempter too * (Though justice might her tempting power enhance):– Thy face would add to errors were it veiled; * Unveiled I see its guard hath best of chance! Eye cannot look upon Sol’s naked face; * But can, when mist-cloud dims his countenance: The honey-hive is held by honey-bee;[FN#386] * Ask the tribe-guards what wants their vigilance? An they would slay me, let them end their ire * Rancorous, and grant us freely to advance: They’re not more murderous, an charge the whole * Than charging glance of her who wears the mole.”

And hearing these lines from Amjad she sighed with the deepest sighs and, signing to him again, repeated these couplets,

“‘Tis thou hast trodden coyness path not I: * Grant me thy favours for the time draws nigh: O thou who makest morn with light of brow, * And with loosed brow-locks night in lift to stye! Thine idol-aspect made of me thy slave, * Tempting as temptedst me in days gone by: ‘Tis just my liver fry with hottest love: * Who worship fire for God must fire aby: Thou sellest like of me for worthless price; * If thou must sell, ask high of those who buy.”

When Amjad heard these her words he said to her, “Wilt thou come to my lodging or shall I go with thee to shine?” So she hung her head in shame to the ground and repeated the words of Him whose Name be exalted, “Men shall have the pre-eminence above women, because of those advantages wherein Allah hath caused the one of them to excel the other.”[FN#387] Upon this, Amjad took the hint.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Thirty-first Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Amjad took the woman’s hint and understood that she wished to go with him whither he was going; he felt himself bounder to find a place wherein to receive her, but was ashamed to carry her to the house of his host, the tailor. So he walked on and she walked after him, and the two ceased not walking from street to street and place to place, till she was tired and said to him, “O my lord, where is thy house?” Answered he, “Before us a little way.” Then he turned aside into a handsome by-street, followed by the young woman, and walked on till he came to the end, when he found it was no thoroughfare and exclaimed, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!” Then raising his eyes, he saw, at the upper end of the lane a great doer with two stone benches; but it was locked. So Amjad sat down on one of the benches and she on the other; and she said to him, “O my lord, wherefore waitest thou?” He bowed his head awhile to the ground then raised it and answered, “I am awaiting my Mameluke who hath the key; for I bade him make me ready meat and drink and flowers, to deck the wine-service against my return from the bath.” But he said to himself, “Haply the time will be tedious to her and she will go about her business, leaving me here, when I will wend my own way.” However, as soon as she was weary of long waiting, she said, “O my lord, thy Mameluke delayeth; and here are we sitting in the street;” and she arose and took a stone and went up to the lock. Said Amjad, “Be not in haste, but have patience till the servant come.” However, she hearkened not to him, but smote the wooden bolt with the stone and broke it in half, whereupon the door opened. Quoth he, “What possessed thee to do this deed?” Quoth she, “Pooh, pooh, my lord! what matter it? Is not the house thy house and thy place?” He said, “There was no need to break the bolt.” Then the damsel entered, to the confusion of Amjad, who knew not what to do for fear of the people of the house; but she said to him, “Why dost thou not enter, O light of mine eyes and core of my heart?” Replied he, “I hear and obey; but my servant tarrieth long and I know not if he have done aught of what I bade him and specially enjoined upon him, or not.” Hereupon he entered, sore in fear of the people of the house, and found himself in a handsome saloon with four dais’d recesses, each facing other, and containing closets and raised seats, all bespread with stuffs of silk and brocade; and in the midst was a jetting fountain of costly fashion, on whose margin rested a covered tray of meats, with a leather tablecloth hanging up and gem-encrusted dishes, full of fruits and sweet- scented flowers. Hard by stood drinking vessels and a candlestick with a single wax-candle therein; and the place was full of precious stuffs and was ranged with chests and stools, and on each seat lay a parcel of clothes upon which was a purse full of monies, gold and silver. The floor was paved with marble and the house bore witness in every part to its owner’s fortune. When Amjad saw all this, he was confounded at his case and said to himself, “I am a lost man! Verily we are Allah’s and to Allah we are returning!” As for the damsel, when she sighted the place she rejoiced indeed with a joy nothing could exceed, and said to him, “By Allah, O my lord, thy servant hath not failed of his duty; for see, he hath swept the place and cooked the meat and set on the fruit; and indeed I come at the best of times.” But he paid no heed to her, his heart being taken up with fear of the house- folk; and she said, “Fie, O my lord, O my heart! What aileth thee to stand thus?” Then she sighed and, giving him a buss which sounded like the cracking of a walnut, said, “O my lord, an thou have made an appointment with other than with me, I will gird my middle and serve her and thee. Amjad laughed from a heart full of rage and wrath and came forwards and sat down, panting and saying to himself, “Alack, mine ill death and doom when the owner of the place shall return!” Then she seated herself by him and fell to toying and laughing, whilst Amjad sat careful and frowning, thinking a thousand thoughts and communing with himself, “Assuredly the master of the house cannot but come, and then what shall I say to him? he needs must kill me and my life will be lost thus foolishly.” Presently she rose and, tucking up her sleeves, took a tray of food on which she laid the cloth and then set it before Amjad and began to eat, saying, “Eat, O my lord.” So he came forward and ate; but the food was not pleasant to him; on the contrary he ceased not to look towards the door, till the damsel had eaten her fill, when she took away the tray of the meats and, setting on the dessert, fell to eating of the dried fruits. Then she brought the wine service and opening the jar, filled a cup and handed it to Amjad, who took it from her hand saying to him self, ‘ Ah, ah! and well away, when the master of the house cometh and seeth me!”; and he kept his eyes fixed on the threshold, even with cup in hand. While he was in this case, lo! in came the master of the house, who was a white slave, one of the chief men of the city, being Master of the Horse[FN#388] to the King. He had fitted up this saloon for his pleasures, that he might make merry therein and be private with whom he would, and he had that day bidden a youth whom he loved and had made this entertainment for him. Now the name of this slave was Bahádur,[FN#389] and he was open of hand, generous, munificent and fain of alms-giving and charitable works.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it wad the Two Hundred and Thirty-second Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Bahadur, the Master of the Horse and the owner of the house, came to the door of the saloon and found it open, he entered slowly and softly and looking in, with head advanced and out stretched neck, saw Amjad and the girl sitting before the dish of fruit and the wine-jar in front of them. Now Amjad at that moment had the cup in his hand and his face turned to the door; and when his glance met Bahadur’s eyes his hue turned pale yellow and his side-muscles quivered, so seeing his trouble Bahadur signed to him with his finger on his lips, as much as to say, “Be silent and come hither to me.” Whereupon he set down the cup and rose and the damsel cried, “Whither away?” He shook his head and, signing to her that he wished to make water, went out into the passage barefoot. Now when he saw Bahadur he knew him for the master of the house; so he hastened to him and, kissing his hands, said to him, “Allah upon thee, O my lord, ere thou do me a hurt, hear what I have to say.” Then he told him who he was from first to last and acquainted him with what caused him to quit his native land and royal state, and how he had not entered his house of his free will, but that it was the girl who had broken the lock-bolt and done all this.[FN#390] When Bahadur heard his story and knew that he was a King’s son, he felt for him and, taking compassion on him, said, “Hearken to me, O Amjad, and do what I bid thee and I will guarantee thy safety from that thou fearest; but, if thou cross me, I will kill thee.” Amjad replied, “Command me as thou wilt: I will not gainsay thee in aught; no, never, for I am the freedman of thy bounty.” Rejoined Bahadur, “Then go back forthwith into the saloon, sit down in thy place and be at peace and at shine ease; I will presently come in to thee, and when thou seest me (remember my name is Bahadur) do thou revile me and rail at me, saying, ‘What made thee tarry till so late?’ And accept no excuse from me; nay, so far from it, rise and beat me; and, if thou spare me, I will do away thy life. Enter now and make merry and whatsoever thou seekest of me at this time I will bring thee forthwith; and do thou spend this night as thou wilt and on the morrow wend thy way. This I do in honour of thy strangerhood, for I love the stranger and hold myself bounder to do him devoir.” So Amjad kissed his hand, and, returning to the saloon with his face clad in its natural white and red, at once said to the damsel, “O my mistress, thy presence hath gladdened this shine own place and ours is indeed a blessed night.” Quoth the girl, “Verily I see a wonderful change in thee, that thou now welcomest me so cordially!” So Amjad answered, “By Allah, O my lady, methought my servant Bahadur had robbed me of some necklaces of jewels, worth ten thousand diners each; however, when I went out but now in concern for this, I sought for them and found them in their place. I know not why the slave tarrieth so long and needs must I punish him for it.” She was satisfied with his answer, and they sported and drank and made merry and ceased not to be so till near sundown, when Bahadur came in to them, having changed his clothes and girt his middle and put on shoes, such as are worn of Mamelukes. He saluted and kissed the ground; then held his hands behind him and stood, with his head hanging down, as one who confesseth to a fault. So Amjad looked at him with angry eyes and asked, “Why hast thou tarried till now, O most pestilent of slaves?” Answered Bahadur, “O my lord, I was busy washing my clothes and knew not of thy being here; for our appointed time was nightfall and not day-tide.” But Amjad cried out at him, saying, “Thou liest, O vilest of slaves! By Allah, I must needs beat thee.” So he rose and, throwing Bahadur prone on the ground, took a stick and beat him gently; but the damsel sprang up and, snatching the stick from his hand, came down upon Bahadur so lustily, that in extreme pain the tears ran from his eyes and he ground his teeth together and called out for succour; whilst Amjad cried out to the girl “Don’t”; and she cried out, “Let me satisfy my anger upon him!” till at last he pulled the stick out of her hand and pushed her away. So Bahadur rose and, wiping away his tears from his cheeks, waited upon them the while, after which he swept the hall and lighted the lamps; but as often as he went in and out, the lady abused him and cursed him till Amjad was wroth with her and said, “For Almighty Allah’s sake leave my Mameluke; he is not used to this.” Then they sat and ceased not eating and drinking (and Bahadur waiting upon them) till midnight when, being weary with service and beating, he fell asleep in the midst of the hall and snored and snorted; whereupon the damsel, who was drunken with wine, said to Amjad, “Arise, take the sword hanging yonder and cut me off this slave’s head; and, if thou do it not, I will be the death of thee!” “What possesseth thee to slay my slave?” asked Amjad; and she answered, “Our joyaunce will not be complete but by his death. If thou wilt not kill him, I will do it myself.” Quoth Amjad, “By Allah’s rights to thee, do not this thing!” Quoth she, “It must perforce be;” and, taking down the sword, drew it and made at Bahadur to kill him; but Amjad said in his mind, “This man hath entreated us courteously and sheltered us and done us kindness and made himself my slave: shall we requite him by slaughtering him? This shall never be!” Then he said to the woman, “If my Mameluke must be killed, better I should kill him than thou.” So saying, he took the sword from her and, raising his hand, smote her on the neck and made her head fly from her body. It fell upon Bahadur who awoke and sat up and opened his eyes, when he saw Amjad standing by him and in his hand the sword dyed with blood, and the damsel lying dead. He enquired what had passed, and Amjad told him all she had said, adding, “Nothing would satisfy her but she must slay thee; and this is her reward.” Then Bahadur rose and, kissing the Prince’s hand, said to him, “Would to Heaven thou hadst spared her! but now there is nothing for it but to rid us of her without stay or delay, before the day-break.” Then he girded his loins and took the body, wrapped it in an Abá-cloak and, laying it in a large basket of palm-leaves, he shouldered it saying, “Thou art a stranger here and knowest no one: so sit thou in this place and await my return till day-break. If I come back to thee, I will assuredly do thee great good service and use my endeavours to have news of thy brother; but if by sunrise I return not, know that all is over with me; and peace be on thee, and the house and all it containeth of stuffs and money are shine.” Then he fared forth from the saloon bearing the basket; and, threading the streets, he made for the salt sea, thinking to throw it therein: but as he drew near the shore, he turned and saw that the Chief of Police and his officers had ranged themselves around him; and, on recognising him, they wondered and opened the basket, wherein they found the slain woman. So they seized him and laid him in bilboes all that night till the morning, when they carried him and the basket, as it was, to the King and reported the case. The King was sore enraged when he looked upon the slain and said to Bahadur, “Woe to thee! Thou art always so doing; thou killest folk and castest them into the sea and takest their goods. How many murders hast thou done ere this?” Thereupon Bahadur hung his head.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Thirty-third Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Bahadur hung down his head groundwards before the King, who cried out at him, saying, “Woe to thee! Who killed this girl?” He replied, “O my lord! I killed her, and there is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!”[FN#391] So the King in his anger, commanded to hang him; and the hangman went down with him by the King’s commandment, and the Chief of Police accompanied him with a crier who called upon all the folk to witness the execution of Bahadur, the King’s Master of the Horse; and on this wise they paraded him through the main streets and the market-streets. This is how it fared with Bahadur; but as regards Amjad, he awaited his host’s return till the day broke and the sun rose, and when he saw that he came not, he exclaimed, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! Would I knew what is become of him?” And, as he sat musing behold, he heard the crier proclaiming Bahadur’s sentence and bidding the people to see the spectacle of his hanging at midday; whereat he wept and exclaimed, “Verily, we are Allah’s and to Him we are returning! He meaneth to sacrifice himself unjustly for my sake, when I it was who slew her. By Allah, this shall never be!” Then he went from the saloon and, shutting the door after him, hurriedly threaded the streets till he overtook Bahadur, when he stood before the Chief of Police and said to him, “O my lord, put not Bahadur to death, for he is innocent. By Allah, none killed her but I.” Now when the Captain of Police heard these words, he took them both and, carrying them before the King, acquainted him with what Amjad had said; whereupon he looked at the Prince and asked him, “Didst thou kill the damsel?” He answered, “Yes” and the King said, “Tell me why thou killedst her, and speak the truth.” Replied Amjad, “O King, it is indeed a marvellous event and a wondrous matter that hath befallen me: were it graven with needles on the eye-corners, it would serve as a warner to whoso would be warned!” Then he told him his whole story and informed him of all that had befallen him and his brother, first and last; whereat the King was much startled and surprised and said to him, “Know that now I find thee to be excusable; but list, O youth! Wilt thou be my Wazír?” “Hearkening and obedience,” answered Amjad whereupon the King bestowed magnificent dresses of honour on him and Bahadur and gave him a handsome house, with eunuchs and officers and all things needful, appointing him stipends and allowances and bidding him make search for his brother As’ad. So Amjad sat down in the seat of the Wazirate and governed and did justice and invested and deposed and took and gave. Moreover, he sent out a crier to cry his brother throughout the city, and for many days made proclamation in the main streets and market-streets, but heard no news of As’ad nor happened on any trace of him. Such was his case; but as regards his brother, the Magi ceased not to torture As’ad night and day and eve and morn for a whole year’s space, till their festival drew near, when the old man Bahram[FN#392] made ready for the voyage and fitted out a ship for himself.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Thirty-fourth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Bahram, the Magian, having fitted out a ship for the voyage, took As’ad and put him in a chest which he locked and had it transported on board. Now it so came to pass that, at the very time of shipping it, Amjad was standing to divert himself by looking upon the sea; and when he saw the men carrying the gear and shipping it, his heart throbbed and he called to his pages to bring him his beast. Then, mounting with a company of his officers, he rode down to the sea-side and halted before the Magian’s ship, which he commended his men to board and search. They did his bidding, and boarded the vessel and rummaged in every part, but found nothing; so they returned and told Amjad, who mounted again and rode back. But he felt troubled in mind; and when he reached his place and entered his palace, he cast his eyes on the wall and saw written thereon two lines which were these couplets,

“My friends! if ye are banisht from mine eyes, * From heart and mind ye ne’er go wandering: But ye have left me in my woe, and rob * Rest from my eyelids while ye are slumbering.”

And seeing them Amjad thought of his brother and wept. Such was his case; but as for Bahram, the Magian, he embarked and shouted and bawled to his crew to make sail in all haste. So they shook out the sails and departed and ceased not to fare on many days and nights; and, every other day, Bahram took out As’ad and gave him a bit of bread and made him drink a sup of water, till they drew near the Mountain of Fire. Then there came out on them a storm-wind and the sea rose against them, so that the ship was driven out of her course till she took a wrong line and fell into strange waters; and, at last they came in sight of a city builded upon the shore, with a castle whose windows overlooked the main. Now the ruler of this city was a Queen called Marjánah, and the captain said to Bahram, “O my lord, we have strayed from our course and come to the island of Queen Marjanah, who is a devout Moslemah; and, if she know that we are Magians, she will take our ship and slay us to the last man. Yet needs must we put in here to rest and refit.” Quoth Bahram, “Right is thy recking, and whatso thou seest fit that will I do!” Said the ship master, “If the Queen summon us and question us, how shall we answer her?”; and Bahram replied, “Let us clothe this Moslem we have with us in a Mameluke’s habit and carry him ashore with us, so that when the Queen sees him, she will suppose and say, ‘This is a slave.’ As for me I will tell her that I am a slave-dealer[FN#393] who buys and sells white slaves, and that I had with me many but have sold all save this one, whom I retained to keep my accounts, for he can read and write.” And the captain said “This device should serve.” Presently they reached the city and slackened sail and cast the anchors; and the ship lay still, when behold, Queen Marjanah came down to them, attended by her guards and, halting before the vessel, called out to the captain, who landed and kissed the ground before her. Quoth she, “What is the lading of this thy ship and whom hast thou with thee?”” Quoth he, “O Queen of the Age, I have with me a merchant who dealeth in slaves.” And she said, “Hither with him to me”; whereupon Bahram came ashore to her, with As’ad walking behind him in a slave’s habit, and kissed the earth before her. She asked, “What is thy condition?”; and he answered, “I am a dealer in chattels.” Then she looked at As’ad and, taking him for a Mameluke, asked him, “What is thy name, O youth?” He answered, “Dost thou ask my present or my former name?” “Hast thou then two names?” enquired she, and he replied (and indeed his voice was choked with tears), “Yes; my name aforetime was Al-As’ad, the most happy, but now it is Al- Mu’tarr–Miserrimus.” Her heart inclined to him and she said, “Canst thou write?” “Yes,” answered he, and she gave him ink- case and reed-pen and paper and said to him, “Write somewhat that I may see it.” So he wrote these two couplets,

“What can the slave do when pursued by Fate, * O justest Judge! whatever be his state?[FN#394] Whom God throws hand bound in the depths and says, * Beware lest water should thy body wet?”[FN#395]

Now when she read these lines, she had ruth upon him and said to Bahram, “Sell me this slave.” He replied, “O my lady, I cannot sell him, for I have parted with all the rest and none is left with me but he.” Quoth the Queen, “I must need have him of thee, either by sale or way of gift.” But quoth Bahram, “I will neither sell him nor give him.” Whereat she was wroth and, taking As’ad by the hand, carried him up to the castle and sent to Bahram, saying, “Except thou set sail and depart our city this very night, I will seize all thy goods and break up thy ship.” Now when the message reached the Magian, he grieved with sore grief and cried, “Verily this voyage is on no wise to be commended.” Then he arose and made ready and took all he needed and awaited the coming of the night to resume his voyage, saying to the sailors, “Provide yourselves with your things and fill your water-skins, that we may set sail at the last of the night.” So the sailors did their business and awaited the coming of darkness. Such was their case; but as regards Queen Marjanah, when she had brought As’ad into the castle, she opened the casements overlooking the sea and bade her handmaids bring food. They set food before As’ad and herself and both ate, after which the Queen called for wine.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Thirty-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Queen Marjanah bade her handmaids bring wine and they set it before her, she fell to drinking with As’ad. Now, Allah (be He extolled and exalted!) filled her heart with love for the Prince and she kept filling his cup and handing it to him till his reason fled; and presently he rose and left the hall to satisfy a call of nature. As he passed out of the saloon he saw an open door through which he went and walked on till his walk brought him to a vast garden full of all manner fruits and flowers; and, sitting down under a tree, he did his occasion. Then he rose and went up to a jetting fountain in the garden and made the lesser ablution and washed his hands and face, after which he would have risen to go away; but the air smote him and he fell back, with his clothes undone and slept, and night overcame him thus. So far concerning him; but as concerns Bahram, the night being come, he cried out to his crew, saying, “Set sail and let us away!”; and the’ answered, “We hear and obey, but wait till we fill our water- skins and then we will set sail.” So they landed with their water skins and went round about the castle, and found nothing but garden-walls: whereupon they climbed over into the garden and followed the track of feet, which led them to the fountain; and there they found As’ad lying on his back. They knew him and were glad to find him; and, after filling their water-skins, they bore him off and climbed the wall again with him and carried him back in haste to Bahram to whom they said, “Hear the good tidings of thy winning thy wish; and gladden thy heart and beat thy drums and sound thy pipes; for thy prisoner, whom Queen Marjanah took from thee by force, we have found and brought back to thee”; and they threw As’ad down before him. When Bahram saw him, his heart leapt for joy and his breast swelled with gladness. Then he bestowed largesse on the sailors and bade them set sail in haste. So they sailed forthright, intending to make the Mountain of Fire and stayed not their course till the morning. This is how it fared with them; but as regards Queen Marjanah, she abode awhile, after As’ad went down from her, awaiting his return in vain for he came not; thereupon she rose and sought him, yet found no trace of him. Then she bade her women light flambeaux and look for him, whilst she went forth in person and, seeing the garden- door open, knew that he had gone thither. So she went out into the garden and finding his sandals lying by the fountain, searched the place in every part, but came upon no sign of him; and yet she gave not over the search till morning. Then she enquired for the ship and they told her, “The vessel set sail in the first watch of the night”; wherefor she knew that they had taken As’ad with them, and this was grievous to her and she was sore an-angered. She bade equip ten great ships forthwith and, making ready for fight, embarked in one of the ten with her Mamelukes and slave-women and men-at-arms, all splendidly accoutred and weaponed for war. They spread the sails and she said to the captains, “If you overtake the Magian’s ship, ye shall have of me dresses of honour and largesse of money; but if you fail so to do, I will slay you to the last man.” Whereat fear and great hope animated the crews and they sailed all that day and the night and the second day and the third day till, on the fourth they sighted the ship of Bahram, the Magian, and before evening fell the Queen’s squadron had surrounded it on all sides, just as Bahram had taken As’ad forth of the chest and was beating and torturing him, whilst the Prince cried out for help and deliverance, but found neither helper nor deliverer: and the grievous bastinado sorely tormented him. Now while so occupied, Bahram chanced to look up and, seeing himself encompassed by the Queen’s ships, as the white of the eye encompasseth the black, he gave himself up for lost and groaned and said, “Woe to thee, O As’ad! This is all out of thy head.” Then taking him by the hand he bade his men throw him overboard and cried, “By Allah I will slay thee before I die myself!” So they carried him along by the hands and feet and cast him into the sea and he sank; but Allah (be He extolled and exalted!) willed that his life be saved and that his doom be deferred; so He caused him to sink and rise again and he struck out with his hands and feet, till the Almighty gave him relief, and sent him deliverance; and the waves bore him far from the Magian’s ship and threw him ashore. He landed, scarce crediting his escape, and once more on land he doffed his clothes and wrung them and spread them out to dry; whilst he sat naked and weeping over his condition, and bewailing his calamities and mortal dangers, and captivity and stranger hood. And presently he repeated these two couplets,

“Allah, my patience fails: I have no ward; * My breast is straitened and clean cut my cord; To whom shall wretched slave of case complain * Save to his Lord? O thou of lords the Lord!”

Then, having ended his verse, he rose and donned his clothes but he knew not whither to go or whence to come; so he fed on the herbs of the earth and the fruits of the trees and he drank of the streams, and fared on night and day till he came in sight of a city; whereupon he rejoiced and hastened his pace; but when he reached it,–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it Was the Two Hundred and Thirty-sixth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when he reached the city the shades of evening closed around him and the gates were shut. Now by the decrees of Pate and man’s lot this was the very city wherein he had been a prisoner and to whose King his brother Amjad was Minister. When As’ad saw the gate was locked, he turned back and made for the burial-ground, where finding a tomb without a door, he entered therein and lay down and fell asleep, with his face covered by his long sleeve.[FN#396] Meanwhile, Queen Marjanah, coming up with Bahram’s ship, questioned him of As’ad. Now the Magian, when Queen Marjanah overtook him with her ships, baffled her by his artifice and gramarye; swearing to her that he was not with him and that he knew nothing of him. She searched the ship, but found no trace of her friend, so she took Bahram and, carrying him back to her castle, would have put him to death, but he ransomed himself from her with all his good and his ship; and she released him and his men. They went forth from her hardly believing in their deliverance, and fared on ten days’ journey till they came to their own city and found the gate shut, it being eventide. So they made for the burial-ground, thinking to lie the night there and, going round about the tombs, as Fate and Fortune would have it, saw the building wherein As’ad lay wide open; whereat Bahram marvelled and said, “I must look into this sepulchre.” Then he entered and found As’ad lying in a corner fast asleep, with his head covered by his sleeve; so he raised his head, and looking in his face, knew him for the man on whose account he had lost his good and his ship, and cried, “What! art thou yet alive?” Then he bound him and gagged him without further parley, and carried him to his house, where he clapped heavy shackles on his feet and lowered him into the underground dungeon aforesaid prepared for the tormenting of Moslems, and he bade his daughter by name Bostán,[FN#397] torture him night and day, till the next year, when they would again visit the Mountain of Fire and there offer him up as a sacrifice. Then he beat him grievously and locking the dungeon door upon him, gave the keys to his daughter. By and by, Bostan opened the door and went down to beat him, but finding him a comely youth and a sweet-faced with arched brows and eyes black with nature’s Kohl,[FN#398] she fell in love with him and asked him, “What is thy name?” “My name is As’ad,” answered he; whereat she cried, “Mayst thou indeed be happy as thy name,[FN#399] and happy be thy days! Thou deservest not torture and blows, and I see thou hast been injuriously entreated.” And she comforted him with kind words and loosed his bonds. Then she questioned him of the religion of Al-Islam and he told her that it was the true and right Faith and that our lord Mohammed had approved himself by surpassing miracles[FN#400] and signs manifest, and that fire-worship is harmful and not profitable; and he went on to expound to her the tenets of Al-Islam till she was persuaded and the love of the True Faith entered her heart. Then, as Almighty Allah had mixed up with her being a fond affection for As’ad, she pronounced the Two Testimonies[FN#401] of the Faith and became of the people of felicity. After this, she brought him meat and drink and talked with him and they prayed together: moreover, she made him chicken stews and fed him therewith, till he regained strength and his sickness left him and he was restored to his former health. Such things befel him with the daughter of Bahram, the Magian; and so it happened that one day she left him and stood at the house-door when behold, she heard the crier crying aloud and saying, “Whoso hath with him a handsome young man, whose favour is thus and thus, and bringeth him forth, shall have all he seeketh of money; but if any have him and deny it, he shall be hanged over his own door and his property shall be plundered and his blood go for naught.” Now As’ad had acquainted Bostan bint Bahram with his whole history: so, when she heard the crier, she knew that it was he who was sought for and, going down to him, told him the news. Then he fared forth and made for the mansion of the Wazir, whom, when As’ad saw, exclaimed, “By Allah, this Minister is my brother Amjad!” Then he went up (and the damsel walking behind him) to the Palace, where he again saw his brother, and threw himself upon him; whereupon Amjad also knew him and fell upon his neck and they embraced each other, whilst the Wazir’s Mamelukes dismounted and stood round them. They lay awhile insensible and, when they came to themselves, Amjad took his brother and carried him to the Sultan, to whom he related the whole story, and the Sultan charged him to plunder Bahram’s house.–And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Two Hundred and Thirty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Sultan ordered Amjad to plunder Bahram’s house and to hang its owner. So Amjad despatched thither for that purpose a company of men, who sacked the house and took Bahram and brought his daughter to the Wazir by whom she was received with all honour, for As’ad had told his brother the torments he had suffered and the kindness she had done him. Thereupon Amjad related in his turn to As’ad all that had passed between himself and the damsel; and how he had escaped hanging and had become Wazir; and they made moan, each to other, of the anguish they had suffered for separation. Then the Sultan summoned Bahram and bade strike off his head; but he said, “O most mighty King, art thou indeed resolved to put me to death?” Replied the King, “Yes, except thou save thyself by becoming a Moslem.” Quoth Bahram, “O King, bear with me a little while!” Then he bowed his head groundwards and presently raising it again, made pro fession of The Faith and islamised at the hands of the Sultan. They all rejoiced at his conversion and Amjad and As’ad told him all that had befallen them, whereat he wondered and said, “O my lords, make ready for the journey and I will depart with you and carry you back to your father’s court in a ship.” At this they rejoiced and wept with sore weeping but he said, “O my lords, weep not for your departure, for it shall reunite you with those you love, even as were Ni’amah and Naomi.” “And what befel Ni’amah and Naomi?” asked they. “They tell,” replied Bahram, “(but Allah alone is All knowing) the following tale of

End of Vol. 3

Arabian Nights, Volume 3
Footnotes

[FN#1] This “horripilation,” for which we have the poetical term “goose-flesh,” is often mentioned in Hindu as in Arab literature.

[FN#2] How often we have heard this in England!

[FN#3] As a styptic. The scene in the text has often been enacted in Egypt where a favourite feminine mode of murdering men is by beating and bruising the testicles. The Fellahs are exceedingly clever in inventing methods of manslaughter. For some years bodies were found that bore no outer mark of violence, and only Frankish inquisitiveness discovered that the barrel of a pistol had been passed up the anus and the weapon discharged internally Murders of this description are known in English history; but never became popular practice.

[FN#4] Arab. “Zakar,” that which betokens masculinity. At the end of the tale we learn that she also gelded him; thus he was a “Sandal),” a rasé.

[FN#5] See vol. i. p. 104. {see Volume 1, Note 188}

[FN#6] The purity and intensity of her love had attained to a something of prophetic strain.

[FN#7] Lane corrupts this Persian name to Sháh Zemán (i. 568).

[FN#8] i.e. the world, which includes the ideas of Fate, Time, Chance.

[FN#9] Arab. “Bárid,” silly, noyous, contemptible; as in the proverb

Two things than ice are colder cold:– An old man young, a young man old.

A “cold-of-countenance”=a fool: “May Allah make cold thy face!”=may it show want and misery. “By Allah, a cold speech!”=a silly or abusive tirade (Pilgrimage, ii. 22).

[FN#10] The popular form is, “often the ear loveth before the eye.”

[FN#11] Not the first time that royalty has played this prank, nor the last, perhaps.

[FN#12] i.e. the Lady Dunya.

[FN#13] These magazines are small strongly-built rooms on the ground floor, where robbery is almost impossible.

[FN#14] Lit. “approbation,” “benediction”; also the Angel who keeps the Gates of Paradise and who has allowed one of the Ghilmán (or Wuldán) the boys of supernatural beauty that wait upon the Faithful, to wander forth into this wicked world.

[FN#15] In Europe this would be a plurale majestatis, used only by Royalty. In Arabic it has no such significance, and even the lower orders apply it to themselves; although it often has a soupçon of “I and thou.”

[FN#16] Man being an “extract of despicable water” (Koran xxxii. 7) ex spermate genital), which Mr. Rodwell renders “from germs of life,” “from sorry water.”

[FN#17] i.e. begotten by man’s seed in the light of salvation (Núr al-hudá).

[FN#18] The rolls of white (camphor-like) scarf-skin and sordes which come off under the bathman’s glove become by miracle of Beauty, as brown musk. The Rubber or Shampooer is called in Egypt “Mukayyis” (vulgarly “Mukayyisáti”) or “bagman,” from his “Kís,” a bag-glove of coarse woollen stuff. To “Johnny Raws” he never fails to show the little rolls which come off the body and prove to them how unclean they are, but the material is mostly dead scarf-skin

[FN#19] The normal phrase on such occasions (there is always a “dovetail” de rigueur) “Allah give thee profit!”

[FN#20] i.e. We are forced to love him only, and ignore giving him a rival (referring to Koranic denunciations of “Shirk,” or attributing a partner to Allah, the religion of plurality, syntheism not polytheism): see, he walks tottering under the weight of his back parts wriggling them whilst they are rounded like the revolving heavens.

[FN#21] Jannat al-Na’ím (Garden of Delight); the fifth of the seven Paradises made of white diamond; the gardens and the plurality being borrowed from the Talmud. Mohammed’s Paradise, by the by, is not a greater failure than Dante’s. Only ignorance or pious fraud asserts it to be wholly sensual; and a single verse is sufficient refutation: “Their prayer therein shall be ‘Praise unto thee, O. Allah!’ and their salutation therein shall be ‘Peace!’ and the end of their prayer shall be, ‘Praise unto God, the Lord of all creatures”‘ (Koran x. 10-11). See also lvi. 24- 26. It will also be an intellectual condition wherein knowledge will greatly be increased (lxxxviii viii. 17-20). Moreover the Moslems, far more logical than Christians, admit into Paradise the so-called “lower animals.”

[FN#22] Sed vitam faciunt balnea, vine, Venus! The Hammam to Easterns is a luxury as well as a necessity; men sit there for hours talking chiefly of money and their prowess with the fair; and women pass half the day in it complaining of their husbands’ over-amativeness and contrasting their own chaste and modest aversion to camel congress.

[FN#23] The frigidarium or cold room, coolness being delightful to the Arab.

[FN#24] The calidarium or hot room of the bath.

[FN#25] The Angel who acts door-keeper of Hell; others say he specially presides over the torments of the damned (Koran xliii. 78).

[FN#26] The Door-keeper of Heaven before mentioned who, like the Guebre Zamiyád has charge of the heavenly lads and lasses, and who is often charged by poets with letting them slip.

[FN#27] Lane (i. 616), says “of wine, milk, sherbet, or any other beverage.” Here it is wine, a practice famed in Persian poetry, especially by Hafiz, but most distasteful to a European stomach. We find the Mu allakah of Imr al-Keys noticing “our morning draught.” Nott (Hafiz) says a “cheerful cup of wine in the morning was a favourite indulgence with the more luxurious Persians. And it was not uncommon among the Easterns, to salute friend by saying.”May your morning potation be agreeable to you!” In the present day this practice is confined to regular debauchees.

[FN#28] Koran xii. 31. The words spoken by Zulaykhá’s women friends and detractors whom she invited to see Beauty Joseph.

[FN#29] A formula for averting fascination. Koran, chaps. cxiii. 1. “Falak” means “cleaving” hence the breaking forth of light from darkness, a “wonderful instance of the Divine power.”

[FN#30] The usual delicate chaff.

[FN#31] Such letters are generally written on a full-sized sheet of paper (“notes” are held slighting in the East) and folded till the breadth is reduced to about one inch. The edges are gummed, the ink, much like our Indian ink, is smeared with the finger upon the signet ring; the place where it is to be applied is slightly wetted with the tongue and the seal is stamped across the line of junction to secure privacy. I have given a specimen of an original love-letter of the kind in “Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley,” chaps. iv.

[FN#32] Arab. “Salb” which may also mean hanging, but the usual term for the latter in The Nights is “shanak.” Crucifixion, abolished by the superstitious Constantine, was practised as a servile punishment as late as the days of Mohammed Ali Pasha the Great e malefactors were nailed and tied to the patibulum or cross-piece without any sup pedaneum or foot-rest and left to suffer tortures from flies and sun, thirst and hunger. They often lived three days and died of the wounds mortifying and the nervous exhaustion brought on by cramps and convulsions. In many cases the corpses were left to feed the kites and crows; and this added horror to the death. Moslems care little for mere hanging. Whenever a fanatical atrocity is to be punished, the malefactor should be hung in pig-skin, his body burnt and the ashes publicly thrown into a common cesspool.

[FN#33] Arab “Shaytán” the insolent or rebellious one is a common term of abuse. The word I. Koramc, and borrowed as usual from the Jews. “Satan” occurs four times in the O.T. of which two are in Job where, however, he is a subordinate angel.

[FN#34] Arab. “Alak” from the Koran xxii. 5. ” O men…consider that we first created you of dust (Adam); afterwards of seed (Rodwell’s “moist germs of life”); afterwards of a little coagulated (or clots of) blood.” It refers to all mankind except Adam, Eve and Isa. Also chaps. xcvi. 2, which, as has been said was probably the first composed at Meccah. Mr. Rodwell (v. 10) translates by ‘Servant of God” what should be “Slave of Allah,” alluding to Mohammed’s original name Abdullah. See my learned friend Aloys Sprenger, Leben, etc., i.155.

[FN#35] The Hindus similarly exaggerate: “He was ready to leap out of his skin in his delight” (Katha, etc., p. 443).

[FN#36] A star in the tail of the Great Bear, one of the “Banát al-Na’ash,” or a star close to the second. Its principal use is to act foil to bright Sohayl (Canopus) as in the beginning of Jámí’s Layla-Majnún:–

To whom Thou’rt hid, day is darksome night: To whom shown, Sohá as Sohayl is bright.

See also al-Hariri (xxxii. and xxxvi.). The saying, “I show her Soha and she shows me the moon” (A. P. i. 547) arose as follows. In the Ignorance a beautiful Amazon defied any man to take her maidenhead; and a certain Ibn al-Ghazz won the game by struggling with her till she was nearly senseless. He then asked her, “How is thine eye-sight: dost thou see Soha?” and she, in her confusion, pointed to the moon and said, “That is it!”

[FN#37] The moon being masculine (lupus) and the sun feminine.

[FN#38] The “five Shaykhs” must allude to that number of Saints whose names are doubtful; it would be vain to offer conjectures. Lane and his “Sheykh” (i. 617) have tried and failed.

[FN#39] The beauties of nature seem always to provoke hunger in Orientals, especially Turks, as good news in Englishmen.

[FN#40] Pers. “Lájuward”: Arab. “Lázuward”; prob. the origin of our “azure,” through the Romaic and the Ital. azzurro; and, more evidently still, of lapis lazuli, for which do not see the Dictionaries.

[FN#41] Arab. “Maurid.” the desert-wells where caravans drink: also the way to water wells.

[FN#42] The famous Avicenna, whom the Hebrews called Aben Sina. The early European Arabists, who seem to have learned Arabic through Hebrew, borrowed their corruption, and it long kept its place in Southern Europe.

[FN#43] According to the Hindus there are ten stages of love- sickness: (1) Love of the eyes (2) Attraction of the Manas or mind; (3) Birth of desire; (4) Loss of sleep; (5) Loss of flesh; (6) Indifference to objects of sense; (7) Loss of shame, (8) Distraction of thought (9) Loss of consciousness; and (10) Death.

[FN#44] We should call this walk of “Arab ladies” a waddle: I have never seen it in Europe except amongst the trading classes of Trieste, who have a “wriggle” of their own.

[FN#45] In our idiom six doors.

[FN#46] They refrained from the highest enjoyment, intending to marry.

[FN#47] Arab. “Jihád,” lit. fighting against something; Koranically, fighting against infidels non- believers in Al-lslam (chaps. Ix. 1). But the “Mujáhidún” who wage such war are forbidden to act aggressively (ii. 186). Here it is a war to save a son.

[FN#48] The lady proposing extreme measures is characteristic: Egyptians hold, and justly enough, that their women are more amorous than men.

[FN#49] “O Camphor,” an antiphrase before noticed. The vulgar also say “Yá Taljí”=O snowy (our snowball), the polite “Ya Abú Sumrah !” =O father of brownness.

[FN#50] i.e. which fit into sockets in the threshold and lintel and act as hinges. These hinges have caused many disputes about how they were fixed, for instance in caverns without moveable lintel or threshold. But one may observe that the upper projections are longer than the lower and that the door never fits close above, so by lifting it up the inferior pins are taken out of the holes. It is the oldest form and the only form known to the Ancients. In Egyptian the hinge is called Akab=the heel, hence the proverb Wakaf’ al-báb alá ‘akabin; the door standeth on its heel; i.e. every thing in proper place.

[FN#51] Hence the addresses to the Deity: Yá Sátir and Yá Sattár- -Thou who veilest the sins of Thy Servants! said e.g., when a woman is falling from her donkey, etc.

[FN#52] A necessary precaution, for the headsman who would certainly lose his own head by overhaste.

[FN#53] The passage has also been rendered, “and rejoiced him by what he said” (Lane i, 600).

[FN#54] Arab. “Hurr”=noble, independent (opp. to ‘Abd=a servile) often used to express animæ nobilitas as in Acts xvii. 11; where the Berœans were “more noble” than the Thessalonians. The Princess means that the Prince would not lie with her before marriage.

[FN#55] The Persian word is now naturalized as Anglo-Egypeian.

[FN#56] Arab. “khassat hu” = removed his testicles, gelded him.

[FN#57] Here ends the compound tale of Taj al-Muluk cum Aziz plus Azizah, and we return to the history of King Omar’s sons.

[FN#58] “Zibl” popularly pronounced Zabal, means “dung.” Khan is “Chief,” as has been noticed; “Zabbál,” which Torrens renders literally “dung-drawer,” is one who feeds the Hammam with bois- de-vache, etc.

[FN#59] i.e one who fights the Jihád or “Holy War”: it is equivalent to our “good knight.”

[FN#60] Arab. “Malik.” Azud al Daulah, a Sultan or regent under the Abbaside Caliph Al-Tá’i li ‘llah (regn. A.H. 363-381) was the first to take the title of “Malik.” The latter in poetry is still written Malík.

[FN#61] A townlet on the Euphrates, in the “awwal Shám,” or frontier of Syria.

[FN#62] i.e., the son would look to that.

[FN#63] A characteristic touch of Arab pathos, tender and true.

[FN#64] Arab. “Mawarid” from “ward” = resorting to pool or water- pit (like those of “Gakdúl”) for drinking, as opposed to “Sadr”=returning after having drunk at it. Hence the “Sádir” (part. act.) takes precedence of the “Wárid” in Al-Hariri (Ass. of the Badawi).

[FN#65] One of the fountains of Paradise (Koran, chaps. Ixxvi.): the word lit. means “water flowing pleasantly down the throat.” The same chapter mentions “Zanjabíl,” or the Ginger-fount, which to the Infidel mind unpleasantly suggests “ginger pop.”

[FN#66] Arab. “Takhíl” = adorning with Kohl.

[FN#67] The allusions are far-fetched and obscure as in Scandinavian poetry. Mr. Payne (ii. 314) translates “Naml” by “net.” I understand the ant (swarm) creeping up the cheeks, a common simile for a young beard. The lovers are in the Lazá (hell) of jealousy etc., yet feel in the Na’ím (heaven) of love and robe in green, the hue of hope, each expecting to be the favoured one.

[FN#68] Arab. “Ukhuwán,” the classical term. There are two chamomiles, the white (Bábúnaj) and the yellow (Kaysún), these however are Syrian names and plants are differently called in almost every Province of Arabia

[FN#69] In nomadic life the parting of lovers happens so frequently that it become. a stock topic in poetry and often, as here, the lover complains of parting when he is not parted. But the gravamen lies in the word “Wasl” which may mean union, meeting, reunion Or coition. As Ka’ab ibn Zuhayr began his famous poem with “Su’ád hath departed,” 900 imitators (says Al-Siyuti) adopted the Násib or address to the beloved and Su’ad came to signify a cruel, capricious mistress.

[FN#70] As might be expected from a nation of camel-breeders actual cautery which can cause only counter-irritation, is a favourite nostrum; and the Hadis or prophetic saying is “Akhir al-dawá (or al-tibb) al-Kayy” = cautery is the end of medicine- cure; and “Fire and sickness cannot cohabit.” Most of the Badawi bear upon their bodies grisly marks Of this heroic treatment, whose abuse not unfrequently brings on gangrene. The Hadis (Burckhardt, Proverbs, No. 30) also means “if nothing else avail, take violent measures.

[FN#71] The Spaniards have the same expression: “Man is fire and woman is tinder.”

[FN#72] Arab. “Báshik” from Persian “Báshah” (accipiter Nisus) a fierce little species of sparrow-hawk which I have described in “Falconry in the Valley of the Indus” (p. 14, etc.).

[FN#73] Lit. “Coals (fit) for frying pan.”

[FN#74] Arab. “Libdah,” the sign of a pauper or religious mendicant. He is addressed “Yá Abu libdah!” (O father of a felt calotte!)

[FN#75] In times of mourning Moslem women do not use perfumes or dyes, like the Henna here alluded to in the pink legs and feet of the dove.

[FN#76] Koran, chaps. ii. 23. The idea is repeated in some forty Koranic passages.

[FN#77] A woman’s name, often occurring. The “daughters of Sa’ada” are zebras, so called because “they resemble women in beauty and graceful agility.”

[FN#78] Arab. “Tiryák” from Gr. a drug against venomous bites. It was compounded mainly of treacle, and that of Baghdad and Irák was long held sovereign. The European equivalent, “Venice treacle,” (Theriaca Andromachi) is an electuary containing many elements. Badawin eat for counter- poison three heads of garlic in clarified butter for forty days. (Pilgrimage iii 77 )

[FN#79] Could Cervantes have read this? In Algiers he might easily have heard it recited by the tale-tellers. Kanmakan is the typical Arab Knight, gentle and valiant as Don Quixote Sabbáh is the Grazioso, a “Beduin” Sancho Panza. In the “Romance of Antar” we have a similar contrast with Ocab who says: “Indeed I am no fighter: the sword in my hand-palm chases only pelicans ;” and, “whenever you kill a satrap, I’ll plunder him.”

[FN#80] i.e. The Comely, son of the Spearman, son of the Lion, or Hero.

[FN#81] Arab. “Ushári.” Old Purchas (vi., i. 9) says there are three kinds of camels (1 ) Huguin (=Hejin) of tall stature and able to carry 1,000 lbs. (2) Bechete (=Bukhti) the two-humped Bactrian before mentioned and, (3) the Raguahill (Rahíl) small dromedaries unfit for burden but able to cover a hundred miles in a day. The “King of Timbukhtu” (not “Bukhtu’s well” pop. Timbuctoo) had camels which reach Segelmesse (Sijalmas) or Darha, nine hundred miles in eight days at most. Lyon makes the Maherry (also called El-Heirie=Mahri) trot nine miles an hour for a long time. Other travellers in North Africa report the Sabayee (Saba’i=seven days weeder) as able to get over six hundred and thirty miles (or thirty-five caravan stages=each eighteen miles) in five to seven days. One of the dromedaries in the “hamlah” or caravan of Mr. Ensor (Journey through Nubia and Darfoor–a charming book) travelled one thousand one hundred and ten miles in twenty- seven days. He notes that his beasts were better with water every five to seven days, but in the cold season could do without drink for sixteen. I found in Al-Hijaz at the end of August that the camels suffered much after ninety hours without drink (Pilgrimage iii. 14). But these were “Júdi” fine-haired animals as opposed to “Khawár” (the Khowás of Chesney, p. 333), coarse-haired, heavy, slow brutes which will not stand great heat.

[FN#82] i.e. Fortune so willed it (euphemistically).

[FN#83] The “minaret” being feminine is usually compared with a fair young girl. The oldest minaret proper is supposed to have been built in Damascus by the Ommiade Caliph (No. X.) Al-Walid A.H. 86-96 (=705-715). According to Ainsworth (ii. 113) the second was at Kuch Hisar in Chaldea.

[FN#84] None of the pure Badawi can swim for the best of reasons, want of waters.

[FN#85] The baser sort of Badawi is never to be trusted: he is a traitor born, and looks upon fair play as folly or cowardice. Neither oath nor kindness can bind him: he unites the cruelty of the cat with the wildness of the wolf. How many Englishmen have lost their lives by not knowing these elementary truths! The race has not changed from the days of Mandeville (A.D. 1322) whose “Arabians, who are called Bedouins and Ascopards (?), are right felonious and foul, and of a cursed nature.” In his day they “carried but one shield and one spear, without other arm :” now, unhappily for travellers, they have matchlocks and most tribes can manufacture a something called by courtesy gunpowder.

[FN#86] Thus by Arab custom they become friends.

[FN#87] Our classical term for a noble Arab horse.

[FN#88] In Arab. “Khayl” is=horse; Husan, a stallion; Hudúd, a brood stallion; Faras, a mare (but sometimes used as a horse and meaning “that tears over the ground”), Jiyád a steed (noble); Kadísh, a nag (ignoble); Mohr a colt and Mohrah, a filly. There are dozens of other names but these suffice for conversation

[FN#89] Al-Katúl, the slayer; Al-Majnún, the mad; both high compliments in the style inverted.

[FN#90] This was a highly honourable exploit, which would bring the doer fame as well as gain.

[FN#91] This is a true and life-like description of horse- stealing in the Desert: Antar and Burckhardt will confirm every word. A noble Arab stallion is supposed to fight for his rider and to wake him at night if he see any sign of danger. The owner generally sleeps under the belly of the beast which keeps eyes and ears alert till dawn.

[FN#92] Arab. “Yaum al tanádi,” i.e. Resurrection-day.

[FN#93] Arab. “Bilád al-Súdan”=the Land of the Blacks, negro- land, whence the slaves came, a word now fatally familiar to English ears. There are, however, two regions of the same name, the Eastern upon the Upper Nile and the Western which contains the Niger Valley, and each considers itself the Sudan. And the reader must not confound the Berber of the Upper Nile, the Berderino who acts servant in Lower Egypt, with the Berber of Barbary: the former speaks an African language; the latter a “Semitic” (Arabic) tongue.

[FN#94] “Him” for “her.”

[FN#95] Arab. “Sáibah,” a she-camel freed from labour under certain conditions amongst the pagan Arabs; for which see Sale (Prel. Disc. sect. v.).

[FN#96] Arab. “Marba’.” In early spring the Badawi tribes leave the Rasm or wintering-place (the Turco-Persian “Kishlák”) in the desert, where winter-rains supply them, and make for the Yaylák, or summer-quarters, where they find grass and water. Thus the great Ruwala tribe appears regularly every year on the eastern slopes of the Anti-Libanus (Unexplored Syria, i. 117), and hence the frequent “partings.”

[FN#97] This “renowning it” and boasting of one’s tribe (and oneself) before battle is as natural as the war-cry: both are intended to frighten the foe and have often succeeded. Every classical reader knows that the former practice dates from the earliest ages. It is still customary in Arabia during the furious tribal fights, the duello on a magnificent scale which often ends in half the combatants on either side being placed hors-de- combat. A fair specimen of “renowning it” is Amrú’s Suspended Poem with its extravagant panegyric of the Taghlab tribe (p. 64, “Arabian Poetry for English Readers,” etc., by W. A. Clouston, Glasgow: privately printed MDCCCLXXXI.; and transcribed from Sir William Jones’s translation).

[FN#98] The “Turk” appeared soon amongst the Abbaside Caliphs. Mohammed was made to prophecy of them under the title Banú Kantúrah, the latter being a slave-girl of Abraham. The Imam Al- Shafi’i (A.H. 195=A.D. 810) is said to have foretold their rule in Egypt where an Ottoman defended him against a donkey-boy. (For details see Pilgrimage i. 216 ) The Caliph Al-Mu’atasim bi’llah (A.D. 833-842) had more than 10,000 Turkish slaves and was the first to entrust them with high office; so his Arab subjects wrote of him:–

A wretched Turk is thy heart’s desire; And to them thou showest thee dam and sire.

His successor Al-Wásik (Vathek, of the terrible eyes) was the first to appoint a Turk his Sultan or regent. After his reign they became praetorians and led to the downfall of the Abbasides.

[FN#99] The Persian saying is “First at the feast and last at the fray.”

[FN#100] i.e. a tempter, a seducer.

[FN#101] Arab. “Wayl-ak” here probably used in the sense of “Wayh-ak” an expression of affectionate concern.

[FN#102] Firdausi, the Homer of Persia, affects the same magnificent exaggeration. The trampling of men and horses raises such a dust that it takes one layer (of the seven) from earth and adds it to the (seven of the) Heavens. The “blaze” on the stallion’s forehead (Arab. “Ghurrah”) is the white gleam of the morning.

[FN#103] A noted sign of excitement in the Arab blood horse, when the tail looks like a panache covering the hind-quarter.

[FN#104] i.e. Prince Kanmakan.

[FN#105] The “quality of mercy” belongs to the noble Arab, whereas the ignoble and the Bada win are rancorous and revengeful as camels.

[FN#106] Arab. “Khanjar,” the poison was let into the grooves and hollows of the poniard.

[FN#107] The Pers. “Bang”, Indian “Bhang”, Maroccan “Fasúkh” and S. African “Dakhá.” (Pilgrimage i. 64.) I heard of a “Hashish- orgie” in London which ended in half the experimentalists being on their sofas for a week. The drug is useful for stokers, having the curious property of making men insensible to heat. Easterns also use it for “Imsák” prolonging coition of which I speak presently.

[FN#108] Arab. “Hashsháshín;” whence De Sacy derived “Assassin.” A notable effect of the Hashish preparation is wildly to excite the imagination, a kind of delirium imaginans sive phantasticum .

[FN#109] Meaning “Well done!” Mashallah (Má sháa ‘llah) is an exclamation of many uses, especially affected when praising man or beast for fear lest flattering words induce the evil eye.

[FN#110] Arab. “Kabkáb” vulg. “Kubkáb.” They are between three and ten inches high, and those using them for the first time in the slippery Hammam must be careful.

[FN#111] Arab. “Majlis”=sitting. The postures of coition, ethnologically curious and interesting, are subjects so extensive that they require a volume rather than a note. Full information can be found in the Ananga-ranga, or Stage of the Bodiless One, a treatise in Sanskrit verse vulgarly known as Koka Pandit from the supposed author, a Wazir of the great Rajah Bhoj, or according to others, of the Maharajah of Kanoj. Under the title Lizzat al-Nisá (The Pleasures–or enjoying–of Women) it has been translated into all the languages of the Moslem East, from Hindustani to Arabic. It divides postures into five great divisions: (1) the woman lying supine, of which there are eleven subdivisions; (2) lying on her side, right or left, with three varieties; (3) sitting, which has ten, (4) standing, with three subdivisions, and (5) lying prone, with two. This total of twenty- nine, with three forms of “Purusháyit,” when the man lies supine (see the Abbot in Boccaccio i. 4), becomes thirty-two, approaching the French quarante façons. The Upavishta, majlis, or sitting postures, when one or both “sit at squat” somewhat like birds, appear utterly impossible to Europeans who lack the pliability of the Eastern’s limbs. Their object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles which would shorten the period of enjoyment. In the text the woman lies supine and the man sits at squat between her legs: it is a favourite from Marocco to China. A literal translation of the Ananga range appeared in 1873 under the name of Káma-Shástra; or the Hindoo Art of Love (Ars Amoris Indica); but of this only six copies were printed. It was re-issued (printed but not published) in 1885. The curious in such matters will consult the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, privately printed, 1879) by Pisanus Fraxi (H. S. Ashbee).

[FN#112] i.e. Le Roi Crotte.

[FN#113] This seems to be a punning allusion to Baghdad, which in Persian would mean the Garden (bágh) of Justice (dád). See “Biographical Notices of Persian Poets” by Sir Gore Ouseley, London, Oriental Translation Fund, 1846

[FN#114] The Kardoukhoi (Carduchi) of Xenophon; also called (Strabo xv.) “Kárdakís, from a Persian word signifying manliness,” which would be “Kardak”=a doer (of derring do). They also named the Montes Gordæi the original Ararat of Xisisthrus- Noah’s Ark. The Kurds are of Persian race, speaking an old and barbarous Iranian tongue and often of the Shi’ah sect. They are born bandits, highwaymen, cattle-lifters; yet they have spread extensively over Syria and Egypt and have produced some glorious men, witness Sultan Saláh al-Din (Saladin) the Great. They claim affinity with the English in the East, because both races always inhabit the highest grounds they can find.

[FN#115] These irregular bands who belong to no tribe are the most dangerous bandits in Arabia, especially upon the northern frontier. Burckhardt, who suffered from them, gives a long account of their treachery and utter absence of that Arab “pundonor” which is supposed to characterise Arab thieves.

[FN#116] An euphemistic form to avoid mentioning the incestuous marriage.

[FN#117] The Arab form of our “Kinchin lay.”

[FN#118] These are the signs of a Shaykh’s tent.

[FN#119] These questions, indiscreet in Europe, are the rule throughout Arabia, as they were in the United States of the last generation.

[FN#120] Arab. “Khizáb” a paste of quicklime and lamp-black kneaded with linseed oil which turns the Henna to a dark olive. It is hideously ugly to unaccustomed eyes and held to be remarkably beautiful in Egypt.

[FN#121] i.e. the God of the Empyrean.

[FN#122] A blow worthy of the Sa’alabah tribe to which he belonged.

[FN#123] i.e. “benefits”; also the name of Mohammed’s Mu’ezzin, or crier to prayer, who is buried outside the Jábiah gate of Damascus. Hence amongst Moslems, Abyssinians were preferred as mosque-criers in the early ages of Al-Islam. Egypt chose blind men because they were abundant and cheap; moreover they cannot take note of what is doing on the adjoining roof terraces where women and children love to pass the cool hours that begin and end the day. Stories are told of men who counterfeited blindness for years in order to keep the employment. In Moslem cities the stranger required to be careful how he appeared at a window or on the gallery of a minaret: the people hate to be overlooked and the whizzing of a bullet was the warning to be off. (Pilgrimage iii. 185.)

[FN#124] His instinct probably told him that this opponent was a low fellow but such insults are common when “renowning it.”

[FN#125] Arab. “Dare’ ” or “Dira’,” a habergeon, a coat of ring- mail, sometimes worn in pairs. During the wretched “Sudan” campaigns much naïve astonishment was expressed by the English Press to hear of warriors armed cap-à-pie in this armour like medieval knights. They did not know that every great tribe has preserved, possibly from Crusading times, a number of hauberks, even to hundreds. I have heard of only one English traveller who had a mail jacket made by Wilkinson of Pall Mall, imitating in this point Napoleon III. And (according to the Banker-poet, Rogers) the Duke of Wellington. That of Napoleon is said to have been made of platinum-wire, the work of a Pole who received his money and an order to quit Paris. The late Sir Robert Clifton (they say) tried its value with a Colt after placing it upon one of his coat-models or mannequins. It is easy to make these hauberks arrow-proof or sword-proof, even bullet-proof if Arab gunpowder be used: but against a modern rifle-cone they are worse than worthless as the fragments would be carried into the wound. The British serjeant was right in saying that he would prefer to enter battle in his shirt: and he might even doff that to advantage and return to the primitive custom of man–gymnomachy.

[FN#126] Arab. “Jamal” (by Badawin pronounced “Gamal” like the Hebrew) is the generic term for “Camel” through the Gr. : “Ibl” is also the camel-species but not so commonly used. “Hajín” is the dromedary (in Egypt, “Dalúl” in Arabia), not the one- humped camel of the zoologist (C. dromedarius) as opposed to the two-humped (C. Bactrianus), but a running i.e. a riding camel. The feminine is Nákah for like mules females are preferred. “Bakr” (masc.) and “Bakrah” (fem.) are camel-colts. There are hosts of special names besides those which are general. Mr. Censor is singular when he states (p.40) “the male (of the camel) is much the safer animal to choose ;” and the custom of t e universal Ease disproves his assertion. Mr. McCoan (“Egypt as it is”) tells his readers that the Egyptian camel has two humps, in fact, he describes the camel as it is not.

[FN#127] So, in the Romance of Dalhamah (Zát al-Himmah, the heroine the hero Al-Gundubah (“one locust-man”) smites off the head of his mother’s servile murderer and cries, I have taken my blood-revenge upon this traitor slave'” (Lane, M. E. chaps. xx iii.)

[FN#128] This gathering all the persons upon the stage before the curtain drops is highly artistic and improbable.

[FN#129] He ought to have said his dawn prayers.

[FN#130] Here begins what I hold to be the oldest subject matter in The Nights, the apologues or fables proper; but I reserve further remarks for the Terminal Essay. Lane has most objectionably thrown this and sundry of the following stories into a note (vol. ii., pp. 53-69).

[FN#131] In beast stories generally when man appears he shows to disadvantage.

[FN#132] Shakespeare’s “stone bow” not Lane’s “cross-bow” (ii. 53).

[FN#133] The goad still used by the rascally Egyptian donkey-boy is a sharp nail at the end of a stick; and claims the special attention of societies for the protection of animals.

[FN#134] “The most ungrateful of all voices surely is the voice of asses” (Koran xxxi. 18); and hence the “braying of hell” (Koran Ixvii.7). The vulgar still believe that the donkey brays when seeing the Devil. “The last animal which entered the Ark with Noah was the Ass to whose tail Iblis was clinging. At the threshold the ass seemed troubled and could enter no further when Noah said to him:–“Fie upon thee! come in.” But as the ass was still troubled and did not advance Noah cried:–“Come in, though the Devil be with thee!”, so the ass entered and with him Iblis. Thereupon Noah asked:–“O enemy of Allah who brought thee into the Ark ?”, and Iblis answered:–“Thou art the man, for thou saidest to the ass, ‘come in though the Devil be with thee!” (Kitáb al-Unwán fi Makáid al-Niswán quoted by Lane ii. 54).

[FN#135] Arab. “Rihl,” a wooden saddle stuffed with straw and matting. In Europe the ass might complain that his latter end is the sausage. In England they say no man sees a dead donkey: I have seen dozens and, unfortunately, my own.

[FN#136] The English reader will not forget Sterne’s old mare. Even Al-Hariri, the prince of Arab rhetoricians, does not distain to use “pepedit,” the effect being put for the cause–terror. But Mr. Preston (p. 285) and polite men translate by “fled in haste” the Arabic farted for fear.”

[FN#137] This is one of the lucky signs and adds to the value of the beast. There are some fifty of these marks, some of them (like a spiral of hair in the breast which denotes that the rider is a cuckold) so ill-omened that the animal can be bought for almost nothing. Of course great attention is paid to colours, the best being the dark rich bay (“red” of Arabs) with black points, or the flea-bitten grey (termed Azrak=blue or Akhzar=green) which whitens with age. The worst are dun, cream coloured, piebald and black, which last are very rare. Yet according to the Mishkát al- Masábih (Lane 2, 54) Mohammed said, ‘The best horses are black (dark brown?) with white blazes (Arab. “Ghurrah”) and upper lips; next, black with blaze and three white legs (bad, because white- hoofs are brittle):next, bay with white blaze and white fore and hind legs.” He also said, “Prosperity is with sorrel horses;” and praised a sorrel with white forehead and legs; but he dispraised the “Shikál,” which has white stockings (Arab. “Muhajjil”) on alternate hoofs (e.g. right hind and left fore). The curious reader will consult Lady Anne Blunt’s “Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, with some Account of the Arabs and their Horses” (1879); but he must remember that it treats of the frontier tribes. The late Major Upton also left a book “Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia” (1881); but it is a marvellous production deriving e.g. Khayl (a horse generically) from Kohl or antimony (p. 275). What the Editor was dreaming of I cannot imagine. I have given some details concerning the Arab horse especially in Al-Yaman, among the Zú Mohammed, the Zú Husayn and the Banu Yam in Pilgrimage iii. 270. As late as Marco Polo’s day they supplied the Indian market via Aden; but the “Eye o Al-Yaman” has totally lost the habit of exporting horses.

[FN#138] The shovel-iron which is the only form of spur.

[FN#139] Used for the dromedary: the baggage-camel is haltered.

[FN#140] Arab. “Harwalah,” the pas gymnastique affected when circumambulating the Ka’abah (Pilgrimage iii. 208).

[FN#141] “This night” would be our “last night”: the Arabs, I repeat, say “night and day,” not “day and night.”

[FN#142] The vulgar belief is that man’s fate is written upon his skull, the sutures being the writing.

[FN#143] Koran ii. 191.

[FN#144] Arab. “Tasbíh”=saying, “Subhán’ Allah.” It also means a rosary (Egypt. Sebhah for Subhah) a string of 99 beads divided by a longer item into sets of three and much fingered by the would- appear pious. The professional devotee carries a string of wooden balls the size of pigeons’ eggs.

[FN#145] The pigeon is usually made to say, ‘ “Wahhidú Rabba-kumu ”llazi khalaka-kum, yaghfiru lakum zamba-kum” = “Unify (Assert the Unity of) your Lord who created you; so shall He forgive your sin!” As might be expected this “language” is differently interpreted. Pigeon-superstitions are found in all religions and I have noted (Pilgrimage iii, 218) how the Hindu deity of Destruction- reproduction, the third Person of their Triad, Shiva and his Spouse (or active Energy), are supposed to have dwelt at Meccah under the titles of Kapoteshwara (Pigeon-god) and Kapoteshí (Pigeon-goddess).

[FN#146] I have seen this absolute horror of women amongst the Monks of the Coptic Convents.

[FN#147] After the Day of Doom, when men’s actions are registered, that of mutual retaliation will follow and all creatures (brutes included) will take vengeance on one another.