Classical Arabic Stories

by Salma Khadra Jayyusi

  Now, set in the midst of the building was a marble fountain, filled with water like bars of silver, over which wheels turned. All the maidens now seated themselves on the edge of this fountain and began to move their hands and dangle their legs in the water; and all the while King Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan remained concealed in the foliage, watching them and seeing what they did. Then they all went out to the middle of the fountain, their hair spread on the face of the water, and began swimming together, diving and frolicking and laughing, swaying around one another; and so things continued for an hour.

  All this time the one maiden had remained on the ledge of the building, disinclined to come down with the others and take off her robes. At last one of the girls raised her head, saying: “Queen Munyat al-Nufus, why have you not come down with us and taken off your garments, as we have? If the queen does not seek to cheer her spirits, what is to become of the attendants in her service? The wise course, O Queen, would be to descend with us and take off all your garments, responding to your companions and rejoicing in your youth.”

  “As for me,” the queen replied, “my spirit has been cast down and my breast filled with foreboding since I descended into this garden, for my heart tells me there is a man here.”

  “What is this you say, O Queen?” said the maiden. “How is a man to come to this place? Had one come, the sentry of the place would have destroyed him, for it is set aside for maidens alone, with no place for a man to alight.” And still she spoke such words, till at last the queen descended from her ledge and came to stand before her chair, which was the greatest of them all, encrusted with gems and inlaid with red gold. Then she undid her buttons as her companions had done, and like them stripped off all her garments and enveloped herself in a wrap of silk, yellow and red and green. Then she approached the fountain, minded to enter it like her companions; and she was as the poet described it when he said:

  A beautiful girl stood there with loosened garments

  And I asked her, “Wherefore have you painted your fingers?”

  She said, “I wiped with them my lips of honey.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why are your lips so honeyed?”

  She said, “A bee visited them, mistaking them for its hive.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why does your hair hang loose?”

  She said, “My nurse is coming presently to comb it.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why are your eyes darkened with kohl?”

  She said, “Some black eyes have been gazing upon us.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why are your roses withered?”

  She said, “The morning breeze withered them for jealousy.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why is your neck so slender?”

  She said, “From the weight of the necklaces I wear.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why are your breasts showing?”

  She said, “From the tightness of the buttons which I use.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why is your waist so slim and small?”

  She said, “From the weight of my belts and tunics.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why are your pantaloons so loose?”

  She said, “I tripped over the girdle and it broke.”

  I said, “That’s true enough, but why are your genitals wet?

  She said, “I have my monthlies just like your women do.”

  I said, “You’re a fibber, I won’t take that excuse!”

  She said, “You’ve asked about something that’s not your property,

  To me you are a brainless nincompoop.

  How can your sort ever gain one like me

  Without the risk of death and of spilling blood?”

  Alas for me, how can I have any hope

  Of ever gaining possession of such a girl?

  I ask God’s pardon for all I say and do,

  From every misdeed of which I am guilty!

  And may God’s blessings rest on the purest of men,

  Muhammad, who delivered the eloquence of the Quran.

  Now, as King Sayf gazed on her, he was seized with imaginings, becoming ever more possessed, transported from one state to another. As for Queen Munyat al-Nufus, she went down into the fountain with the maidens and began to disport herself with them, and they with her, all making merry together, with none to keep watch over them. They began to embrace as a lover embraces his beloved, their perfumes wafting out from them, so that the garden was filled with musk and scent. At that King Sayf sensed fire and flame kindling in his loins and was seized with torment; unable to endure, he was ready almost to lose his mind, afflicted by love’s ailment over which no physician has power. “This is a plight indeed into which I am fallen,” he thought, “a thing from which I find no refuge or escape. Here I am now, trapped like a bird in the cage; for if I should come out and these maidens see me, it may be they will join together against me and destroy me, and I without power to lay so much as a hand on them. Were they to strive against me, I should lack all strength to withstand them in war and combat, so comely and lovely are they, above all this Munyat al-Nufus, to whom all dreams and hopes return. Were she to seize me, with her right hand or her left, my limbs would lose their vigor. She would consume me, striking me with the cutting swords of her glances, casting arrows into my soul from the bows of her eyes. Such a thing, by God, I never expected to find. In such affliction and tribulation none can aid me save God, the Exalted and Generous One. I shall return to ʿAqisa and recount to her what has passed.”

  All this while the maidens remained together in the water, mingling in joy and delight, and performing the strangest of deeds; each would spread her two palms for another, to aid her in floating on the face of the water, and they would tumble and turn across one another’s hands, and so it continued for a long time, until the sun began to set. Then King Sayf left them, contriving to make a way out of that garden and hasting between hills and mounts to where ʿAqisa stood awaiting him.

  When she saw the distress he was in, that he had departed from her sound of body and had returned sick and ailing, she said: “What has passed with you? Tell me what has occurred to afflict you in this fashion.” But he had no power to speak, for sorrow had overwhelmed him, and he fell into a fit of anguish, sobbing and sighing and moaning, in such a daze he could utter not a word, his soul ailing and his heart heavy with love.

  It was hardship for ʿAqisa to be parted even for an hour from King Sayf, so tenderly did she love him; and seeing him now in this condition, weeping and lamenting and stammering in his speech, she said once more: “What has passed with you?” And when he told her of the things he had seen, she beat her face, saying: “Did I not warn you, Brother, on no account to enter the building? Yet you paid no heed. This is a distant hope, hard indeed to attain. To this garden it is that the daughters of kings come to disport themselves, borne there by the jinn, and some have garments fashioned by sorcery, through which they have power to fly. Did you discover the name of her you saw?”

  “Her name,” he replied, “is Munyat al-Nufus.”

  When ʿAqisa heard this, she once more beat her face, weeping so that the tears streamed down.

  “I weep from love and passion,” King Sayf said then. “But for what reason do you weep, daughter of noble lineage?”

  “Brother,” she said, “it is for the passion that has afflicted you. This is an ailment that has no remedy, for this Munyat al-Nufus you have named has a father called Qasim al-ʿAbous, who is the ruler of the Diamond Isle, an enchanted island lying at the end of the world, at a distance of thirty-four years from us. He is an obdurate and mighty king, full of malice, with troops more numerous than the pebbles or grains of sand. Over forty realms he rules on that island, each with its cities and fortresses and villages and regions and lesser provinces, not one of them lacking a king of its own, with troops and men and warriors and elephants and wizards and sorcerers. As for his own city, where he hi
mself holds sway, it has a full four million troops, set one and all in readiness for war and combat. They have no wives, nor do they possess crafts or houses of merchandise, nor do they have any kind of work to do; rather, they await war and combat, prepared to enter the tumult and tribulation of battle. He has, too, three hundred and sixty wizards, one for each of the days of the year, and each day one of them appears before him. All the kingdoms stand in utmost awe of his might; China and all its followers send him tribute and fear his unrelenting wrath. Sagacious in such weighty matters, he has made for his daughter and her companions enchanted feather robes, as though they were birds, and when a maiden puts one on, she takes on the very likeness of a bird, able to fly whenever she wishes and go anywhere as she desires; for in a single hour of daylight she will traverse the span of a full year’s journey. All the world is theirs; the lands with their cities and valleys and plains and seas are like a mere quarter in which they move swiftly from house to house, and the road does not stretch out long before them as it does for the traveler. If such, Brother, is the condition of your beloved, how are you to meet with her unless Almighty God, the All-Generous and Exalted One, should will it?”

  “For what reason,” King Sayf asked then, “did they come and alight in that garden?”

  “Brother,” she replied, “it is their custom to come every year to that place for recreation and repose. There they dwell for seven days, in prosperity and joy and laughter, eating and drinking wine; and then, when the seven days have passed, they depart in safety. Such is their custom, son of noble lineage. Deliver yourself therefore from the burdens of love and passion, for they will bring you only misery and sickness. I counseled you against the course you took, and you paid no heed, and now this is the affliction and punishment into which you have fallen. The wise course is to let me bear you back safe to your land, where you may comfort yourself with your wives and children, and all your troops may have sight of you.”

  “Sister,” said King Sayf, “I will not, by God, hear such talk from you or any other. I will not listen to the chider’s reproof, nor will I turn back from this queen till I have attained my hope with her and lain in union with her; or else I shall perish beneath the hooves of high-stepping horses, my breath choked from me by the blades of well-tempered swords and the spikes of tapering lances.”

  “Will you dwell in a land that is not your own,” asked ʿAqisa, “and forsake all your family and children and troops?”

  “Sister,” said Sayf, “I have neither children, nor family, nor kinsfolk, nor friends, nor loved ones. I will heed nothing and brook no question. My beloved I must have, by craft or through war and combat.”

  “And how will you come to meet her?” asked ʿAqisa.

  At that the king wept, the turmoil within him growing ever fiercer. “Sister,” he said, “my patience and endurance are at an end and the fire of passion burns in my body. If you have power to help me, then help me; and if you lack such power, Sister, then you stand excused and may go about your business. As for me, I shall not move from this place till I have possession of this queen, Munyat al-Nufus, though I were to drink the cup of bitterest death.”

  When ʿAqisa saw how King Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan was fallen into the net of love and passion, and that wise counsel would be all to no avail, she wept for him, the tears of compassion streaming down her cheeks. “Brother,” she said, “I have, by God, no power to come to her country, nor am I able to enter the building where she is.”

  “ʿAqisa, my sister,” he replied, “I do not ask you to bear me to her country. There she is in the garden. How could I bear to wait till she flies on her way, leaving me to dwell here after her, ablaze in the scorching fire?” Then he sang out the following words:

  O ʿAqisa, cease to blame me. My heart is ground down with love,

  My ears complain of the din of words

  And they are intolerable to me.

  I have seen in this place the sister of celestial nymphs.

  She had my heart drink deep of love

  O ʿAqisa, what shall I do? I have seen Munyat al-Nufus,

  Her beauty’s greater than the sun’s, and I want her to be my bride.

  My heart burns in the fire of longing. My body and my patience are spent.

  There’s no escape from the spilling of blood

  Until I reach the fulfillment of my hope,

  For now I have nothing left but tears.

  King Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan it was who recited these verses, the tears streaming down his cheeks, while ʿAqisa listened, her heart ready to break with sorrow on his account. And when she knew that he had fallen into the trap from which there was no escape, she said: “By God, Brother, if such is your condition, I will come to your aid, striving for you to have possession of this maiden, though my soul should perish and I be torn from all my family and kin. But so that I may know rest and reassurance, recount to me everything that passed. When you entered the garden, did you view them there, or did they come to it after you reached it?”

  “Sister,” he said, “when first I entered, I viewed the whole garden, and then I went into the building, where I saw the chairs and cushions and furnishings but no living being, human or jinn. Then, seeing the foliage, I sat on the ground in the midst of it, finding its scent sweet. So it was that things began, and before I knew it these birds were descending and all that happened, happened. Then, when my heart grew heavy, I came to you and told you of what had passed. Such is my tale, Sister, and peace be upon you.”

  With that King Sayf wept, the tears streaming down, he being rent by love and passion as the mighty had been before him. Then ʿAqisa said: “The day is at an end. Rise now, so that I may bring you food, then rest your heart with sleep; and after that return to them under cover of darkness, and strive to steal the feather robe. If you are able to take it, place it beneath your clothes, then conceal yourself beneath the waterwheel. They will search all through the garden for you, everywhere except that place, for they have acquired the nature of birds, and birds will not venture to approach a thing that spins round. When they have searched for it and do not find you, she will tell them to go and bring her another robe like the first. Then, when they leave her and she remains there alone, reveal yourself to her and show her the robe, saying: ‘This is yours.’ At that she will rise and hurl herself upon you, and you must turn and run full tilt not stopping till you are forty feet beyond the garden. Return then and seize her. I will be with you when you do so and keep hold of her for you.”

  “And what, sister,” said King Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan, “if she should send some of the birds only, keeping the rest in her company?”

  “Brother,” said ʿAqisa, “that would be your evil fortune. But things will not pass so, because the country is a distant one and only the whole group may journey to it. When you have taken the robe, conceal yourself, as I said, beneath the waterwheel. She will not come out before the end of the day, and when she sees that the robe is not on the chair, she will think one of the maidens is playing a prank on her. ‘Maidens,’ she will say then, ‘which of you has taken my enchanted feather robe?’ Then they will say: ‘By God, O Queen, we have no knowledge of it.’ Then she will be filled with anger, crying out at them furiously, saying: ‘Woe to you! Search the garden and see who has come here to this place.’ They will conduct their search with fear and foreboding but will not venture near the waterwheel. Then, when they have searched the whole garden and failed to find it, they will say to her: ‘O Queen, we have not found it and do not know who has dared take it.’ And she will say: ‘It may be that its servant has taken it and fled, but I will stay here in this place, which is enchanted, as you know, and you I command to go to my country and bring me another robe. But hasten back to me, lest harm befall me from some enemy.’ When they see her vexed, they will all rush off, putting on their clothes and departing straightaway for their country, leaving her there. And know, Brother, that, even traveling with all dispatch, through daylight and darkness, it will take them a full th
ree days to reach their country, and three days more to return in full haste. Know, too, that she rules over the Island of Maidens and everyone on it, and that her soldiers number a hundred thousand; bold and resolute she is, one of the great and mighty. When you see, Brother, that the maidens have departed for their land and she remains alone in the garden, come out as I told you and reveal yourself to her. And if she says, ‘Who brought you to this place?’ tell her: ‘The power of God, the Sovereign Lord, brought me here.’ Then she will say: ‘Leave this place.’ ‘And you,’ you shall say then, ‘why do you remain here without your people?’ She will say: ‘On account of something that has been lost.’ Say to her: ‘No doubt it is this feather robe.’ Then, keeping your distance from her, take a single feather from the collar. When she sees this in your possession, she will spring at you, and you must take care to keep yourself from her, running always ahead of her. She will pursue you with the swiftness of the ostrich, and you must take heed she does not catch you while you are there in the garden, for there she will destroy you were you the most accomplished knight on earth, and give you the cup of destruction to drink. Run still ahead of her till you are forty feet beyond the garden, then return to her, as I said. There she will be humbled at your hands, for when you take hold of her braid, she will submit, saying: ‘Take pity on your captive.’ But pay no heed to her words, drawing her on to me by the ends of her hair, and then I will tell you what you should do. All this is if you succeed in taking hold of her. If you do not, then be patient for a further year.”

  When Sayf heard these words, he rose and walked on to the gate of the garden, placing his trust in God the Almighty Sovereign. Then he entered beneath the cover of the trees, treading lighter than the dust of the air, till he reached the building where the maidens were. There he found them still as they had been before, within the fountain, tumbling and turning in the water like glittering stars; and there was Munyat al-Nufus among them, like the moon amid the stars.