One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  When her brother and cousins heard this her speech, their eyes were solaced thereby and they said, ‘O Julnar, thou knowest thy value in our eyes and the affection we bear thee and art certified that thou art to us the dearest of all creatures and that we seek but ease for thee, without travail or weariness. Wherefore, if thou be in unease, arise and go with us to our land and people; but, if thou be at shine ease here, in honour and happiness, this is our wish and our aim; for we desire only thy happiness in any case.’ Quoth she, ‘By Allah, I am here in the utmost ease and comfort and honour and have all that I desire!’ When the king heard what she said, his heart was set at rest and he rejoiced and thanked her [inwardly] for this [her speech]. Moreover, the love of her redoubled on him and entered his inmost heart, and he knew that she loved him as he loved her and desired to abide with him, that she might see his child by her.

  Then Julnar called for food and the waiting women laid the tables and set on all kinds of viands, which had been dressed in the kitchen under her own eyes, and fruits and sweetmeats, of which she ate, she and her kinsfolk. But, presently, they said to her, ‘O Julnar, thy lord is a stranger to us, and we have entered his house, without his leave or knowledge. Thou hast extolled to us his excellence and hast set before us of his victual and we have eaten; yet have we not companied with him nor seen him, neither hath he seen us nor come to our presence and eaten with us, so bread and salt might be between us.’ And they all left eating and were wroth with her, and fire issued from their mouths, as from cressets; which when the king saw, he was transported for excess of fear of them. But Julnar soothed them and going to the closet where was the king her lord, said to him, ‘O my lord, hast thou seen and heard how I praised thee and extolled thee to my people and what they said to me of their desire to carry me away with them?’ ‘I both heard and saw,’ answered he. ‘May God abundantly requite thee for me! By Allah, I knew not the measure of shine affection for me until this blessed hour and I doubted not of thy love of me!’

  ‘O my lord,’ rejoined she, ‘is the reward of kindness aught but kindness? Verily, thou hast dealt generously with me and hast entreated me with worship and done me all manner of honour and kindness and preferred me above all thou lovest and desires, and I have seen that thou lovest me with the utmost love. So how should my heart be content to leave thee and depart from thee, after all thy goodness to me? But now I desire of thy courtesy that thou come and salute my family, so thou mayst see them and they thee and love and friendship may be between you; for know, O king of the age, that my mother and brother and cousins love thee with an exceeding love, by reason of my praises of thee to them, and say, “By Allah, we will not depart from thee nor go to our country till we have foregathered with the king and saluted him.” For they desire to see thee and make acquaintance with thee.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ said the king; ‘for this is my own wish.’ So saying, he rose and went in to them and saluted them after the goodliest fashion; and they sprang up to him and received him with the utmost honour, after which he sat down and ate with them; and he entertained them thus for the space of thirty days. Then they took leave of the king and queen and departed to their own land, after he had done them all possible honour.

  Awhile after this, Julnar accomplished the days of her pregnancy and the time of her delivery being come, she bore a boy, as he were the moon at its full, whereat the utmost joy betided the king, for that he had never in his life [till then] been vouchsafed son or daughter. So they held high festival and decorated the city seven days, in the extreme of joy and happiness; and on the seventh day came Julnar’s mother and brother and cousins, whenas they knew of her delivery. The king received them with l joy and said to them, ‘I said that I would not give my son a name till you should come and name him of your knowledge.’ So they named him Bedr Basim, and all agreed upon this name. Then they showed the child to his uncle Salih, who took him in his arms and began to walk about the chamber with him. Presently he carried him forth of the palace and going down to the salt sea, fared on with him, till he was hidden from the king’s sight.

  When Shehriman saw him take his son and disappear with him in the abysses of the sea, he gave the child up for lost and fell to weeping and wailing; but Julnar said to him, ‘O king of the age, fear not neither grieve for thy son, for I love my child more than thou and he is with my brother; so reck thou not of the sea neither fear drowning for him. Except my brother knew that no harm would betide the little one, he had not done this; and he will presently bring thee thy son safe, if it please God the Most High.’ Nor was an hour past before the sea became

  troubled and King Salih came forth, with the little one safe in his arms, quiet and with a face like the moon on the night of her full, and [rising into the air] flew till he reached the palace and came in to them. Then said he to the king, ‘Belike thou fearedst harm for thy son, whenas I plunged into the sea with him?’ ‘Yes, O my lord,’ replied the king; ‘I did indeed fear for him and thought he would never be saved therefrom.’ ‘O king of the land,’ rejoined Salih, ‘we pencilled his eyes with an eye-powder we know of and recited over him the names engraver upon the seal of Solomon son of David (on whom be peace!), for this is what we use to do with children born among us; and now thou needst not fear for him drowning or suffocation in all the waters of the world, if he should go down into them; for, even as ye walk on the land, so walk we in the sea.’

  Then he pulled out of his pocket a casket, graven and sealed, and breaking open the seals, emptied it; whereupon there fell from it strings of all manner jacinths and other jewels, besides three hundred bugles of emerald and other three hundred hollow jewels, as big as ostrich eggs, whose light outshone that of sun and moon. Quoth Salih, ‘O king of the age, these jewels and jacinths are a present from rne to thee. We never yet brought thee a present, for that we knew not Julnar’s abiding-place neither had we any tidings of her; but now that we see thee to be united with her and we are all become as one thing, we have brought thee this present; and every little while, God willing, we will bring thee the like thereof for that these jewels and jacinths are more plentiful with us than pebbles on the earth and we know the good and bad of them and their whereabouts and the way to them and they are easy to us.’

  When the king saw the jewels, his reason was confounded and his mind bewildered and he said, ‘By Allah, one of these jewels is worth my kingdom!’ Then he thanked Salih for his bounty and said to Julnar, ‘I am abashed before thy brother, for that he hath dealt munificently by me and bestowed on me this splendid present, whereto the folk of the land may not avail.’ So she thanked her brother for his deed and he said, ‘O king of the age, thou hast the prior claim on us and it behoves us to thank thee, for thou hast entreated our sister with kindness and we have entered thy dwelling and eaten of thy victual; and the poet says:

  Had I, or ever Suada did, to weep for love been fain, I should, before repentance came, have solaced heart and brain.

  But she before my vveeping wept; her tears drew mine, and so Quoth I, “Unto the precedent the merit cloth pertain.”

  And if we stood in thy service, O king of the age, a thousand years, yet might we not avail to requite thee, and this were but a scantling of thy due.’

  The king thanked him with effusion and they all abode with him forty days’ space, at the end of which time Salih arose and kissed the earth before his brother-in-law. Quoth the latter, ‘What wantest thou, O Salih?’ And he answered, saying, ‘O king of the age, indeed thou hast done us [many] favours, and we crave of thy bounties that thou deal charitably with us and give us leave [to depart]; or we yearn after our people and country and kiusfoll and our homes; so will we never forsake thy service nor that of my sister and her son; and by Allah, O king of the age, it is not pleasant to my heart to part from thee; but how shall we do, seeing that we have been reared in the sea and that [the sojourn of] the land liketh us not?’ When the king heard this, he rose to his feet and took leave of Salih of the sea and his mother and cousins, and they
all wept, because of parting, and said to him, ‘We will be with thee again anon, nor will we forsake thee, but will visit thee every few days.’ Then they flew off and descending into the sea, disappeared from sight.

  After this, King Shehriman redoubled in honour and kindness to Julnar, and the little one grew up and flourished, whilst his uncle and grandmother and cousins visited the king every few days and abode with him a month or two months [at a time]. The boy ceased not to increase in beauty and grace, with increase of years, till he attained the age of fifteen and was unique in his perfection and symmetry. He learnt reading and writing and history and syntax and lexicography and archery and spearplay and horsemanship and what not else behoveth the sons of kings; nor was there one of the children of the folk of the city, men or women, but would talk of the youth’s charms, for he was of surpassing beauty and perfection, even such an one as as described in the saying of the poet:

  The whiskers write upon his cheek, with ambergris on pearl, Two lines, as ‘twere with jet upon an apple, line for line.

  Death harbours in his languid eye and slays with every glance; And in his cheeks is drunkenness, and not in any wine.

  And in that of another:

  Upon the table of his cheek, a fringe of jet, I wis, The whiskers grow, and sore threat my soul’s amazement is;

  As if his visage were a lamp that burns all night, hung up, Beneath the darkness of his hair, with chains of ambergris.

  And indeed the king loved him with an exceeding great love and summoning his vizier and emirs and the chief officers of state and grandees of his reahn, required of them a binding oath that they would make Bedr Basim king over them after himself; and they took the oath gladly, for the king was beneficent to the people, pleasant in speech and saying nought but that wherein was advantage for them, brief, a very compend of goodness.

  On the morrow Shehriman mounted, with all his troops and emirs and grandees, and went forth into the city and returned. When they drew near the palace, the king dismounted, to wait upon his son, whilst the latter abode on horseback, and he and all the emirs and grandees bore the saddle-cloth of honour before him, each in his turn till they came to the vestibule of the palace, where the prince alighted and his father and the emirs embraced him and seated him on the throne of kingship, whilst they all stood before him. Then Bedr judged the people deposing the unjust and appointing the just, till near upon midday, when he descended from the throne and went in to his mother, Julnar of the Sea, with the crown on his head, as he were the moon. When she saw him with the king before him, she rose and kissing him, gave him joy of the sultanate and wished him and his father length of life and victory over their enemies. He sat with her and rested till the hour of afternoon-prayer, when he took horse and repaired, with the emirs before him, to the tilting-ground, where he played at arms with his father and his grandees, till night-fall, when he returned to the palace, preceded by all the folk.

  He rode forth thus every day to the tilting-ground, returning to sit and judge the people and do justice between amir and poor man; and thus he did a whole year, at the end of which time he began to ride out a-hunting and to go round about in the cities and countries under his rule, proclaiming peace and security and doing after the fashion of kings; and he was unique among the people of his day for glory and velour and just dealing among the folk.

  One day, the old king fell sick and his heart forebode him of translation to the mansion of eternity. His sickness increased on him till he was nigh upon death, when he called his son and commended his mother and subjects to his care and caused all the emirs and grandees once more swear allegiance to the prince and assured himself of them by oaths; after which he lingered a few days and was admitted to the mercy of God the Most High. His son and widow and all the grandees and emirs and viziers mourned over him, and they built him a tomb and buried him therein.

  They ceased not to mourn for him a whole month, till Salih and his mother and cousins arrived and condoled with them for the king and said, ‘O Julnar, though the king is dead, yet hath he left this noble and peerless youth, the fierce lion and the shining moon; and whoso leaveth the like of him is not dead.’ Moreover, the grandees and notables of the empire went in to Bedr

  and said to him, ‘O king, there is no harm in mourning for the king: but [continuance of] mourning beseemeth none save women; wherefore occupy thou not thy heart and ours with mourning for thy father; for he hath left thee behind him, and whoso leaveth the like of thee is not dead.’ Then they comforted him and diverted him and carried him to the bath. When he came out thence, he donned a rich robe, wroughten with gold and embroidered with jewels and jacinths, and setting the royal crown on his head, sat down on his throne of kingship and ordered the affairs of the folk, doing equal justice between the weak and the strong and exacting from the amir the poor man’s due; wherefore the people loved him with an exceeding love. Thus he abode a great while, whilst, every now and then, his kinsfolk of the sea visited him, and his life was pleasant and his eye unheated [by tears].

  It chanced that his uncle Salih went in one night to Julnar and saluted her; whereupon she rose and embracing him, made him sit by her side and asked him how he did, he and his mother and cousins. ‘O my sister,’ answered he, ‘they are well and in great good case, lacking nought save the sight of thy face.’ Then she set food before him and he ate, after which talk ensued between them and they spoke of Bedr Basim and his beauty and grace and symmetry and skill in horsemanship and his wit and good breeding. Now Bedr was reclining [upon a day-bed within ear-shot], and hearing his mother and uncle speak of him, he feigned sleep and listened to their talk. Presently Salih said to his sister, ‘Thy son is now seventeen years old and is unmarried, and I fear lest aught befall him and he have no son; wherefore it is my wish to marry him to a princess of the princesses of the sea, who shall be a match for him in beauty and grace.’ Quoth Julnar, ‘Name them to me, for I know them all.’

  So Salih proceeded to name them to her, one by one, but to each she said, ‘This one liketh me not for my son; I will not marry him but to one who is his like in beauty and grace and wit and piety and good breeding and worth and dominion and rank and lineage.’ Quoth Salih, ‘I know none other of the daughters of the kings of the Gear for I have enumerated to thee more than an hundred girls and none of them pleaseth thee: but see, O my sister, whether thy son be asleep or no,’ So she felt Bedr and finding on him the signs of sleep, said to Salih, ‘He is asleep; what hast thou to say and what is shine object in [assuring thyself of] his sleeping?’ ‘O my sister,’ replied Salih, ‘know that I have bethought me of a girl of the girls of the sea who befitteth thy son; but I fear to name her, lest he be awake and his heart be taken with her love and maybe we shall not avail to win to her; so should he and we and the grandees of the realm be wearied [in vain] and trouble betide us through this; for, as saith the poet:

  Love, at the first, is as a drip of water, verily; But, when the mastery it gains, ’tis as a spreading sea.

  ‘Tell me the name and condition of this girl,’ rejoined Julnar; ‘for I know all the damsels of the sea, kings’ daughters and others; and if I judge her worthy of him, I will demand her in marriage for him of her father, though I spend on her all that my hand possesseth. So tell me who and what she is and fear nought, for my son is asleep.’ Quoth Salih, ‘I fear lest he be awake; and the poet says:

  I fell in love with him, what time his charms described heard I; For while it chances that the ear doth love before the eye.’

  But Julnar said, ‘Speak and be brief and fear nothing, O my brother.’ So he said, ‘O my sister, none is worthy of thy son save the princess Jauhereh, daughter of King Es Semendel, for that she is like unto him in beauty and grace and brightness and perfection; nor is there, in the sea or on the land, a sweeter or pleasanter of parts than she; for she is fair and graceful and shapely, with red cheeks and flower-white brows, teeth like jewels and great black eyes, heavy buttocks and slender waist and a lovely face. When she t
urns, she shames the wild cattle and the gazelles, and when she walks, the willow branch is jealous of her. When she unveils, her face outshines the sun and the moon and she enslaves all that look on her; and she is sweet-lipped and soft-sided.’

  When Julnar heard what Salih said, she answered, ‘Thou sayst sooth, O my brother! By Allah, I have seen her many a time and she was my companion, when we were little; but now I have not set eyes on her for eighteen years and we have no knowledge of each other, for constraint of distance. By Allah, none but she is worthy of my son!’ Now Bedr heard all they said and fell in love with the princess on report, wherefore fire was kindled in his heart on her account and he was drowned in a sea without shore or bottom. Then said Salih, ‘By Allah, O my sister, there is no greater fool among the kings of the sea than her father nor one more violent of temper! So name not thou the girl to thy son, till we demand her in marriage of her father. If he favour us with his assent we will praise God the Most High; and if he refuse to give her to thy son to wife, we will say no more about it and seek another in marriage.’ ‘It is well judged of thee,’ answered Julnar, and they said no more; but Bedr passed the night with a heart on fire with passion for the princess Jauhereh. However, he concealed his case and spoke not of her to his mother or his uncle, albeit he was on coals of fire for love of her.