“Ye are the wish, the aim of me *And when, O Love, thy sight I
see177
The heavenly mansion openeth;178 * But Hell I see when
lost thy sight.
From thee comes madness; nor the less * Comes highest joy,
comes ecstasy:
Nor in my love for thee I fear * Or shame and blame, or hate and
spite.
When Love was throned within my heart * I rent the veil of
modesty;
And stints not Love to rend that veil * Garring disgrace on grace
to alight;
The robe of sickness then I donned * But rent to rags was
secrecy:
Wherefore my love and longing heart * Proclaim your high
supremest might;
The tear drop railing adown my cheek * Telleth my tale of
ignomy:
And all the hid was seen by all * And all my riddle ree’d aright.
Heal then my malady, for thou * Art malady and remedy!
But she whose cure is in thy hand * Shall ne’er be free of bane
and blight;
Burn me those eyne that radiance rain * Slay me the swords of
phantasy;
How many hath the sword of Love * Laid low, their high degree
despite?
Yet will I never cease to pine * Nor to oblivion will I flee.
Love is my health, my faith, my joy * Public and private, wrong
or right.
O happy eyes that sight thy charms * That gaze upon thee at their
gree!
Yea, of my purest wish and will * The slave of Love I’ll aye be
hight.”
When the damsel heard this elegy in quatrains she cried out “Alas! Alas!” and rent her raiment, and fell to the ground fainting; and the Caliph saw scars of the palm rod179 on her back and welts of the whip; and marvelled with exceeding wonder. Then the portress arose and sprinkled water on her and brought her a fresh and very fine dress and put it on her. But when the company beheld these doings their minds were troubled, for they had no inkling of the case nor knew the story thereof; so the Caliph said to Ja’afar, “Didst thou not see the scars upon the damsel’s body? I cannot keep silence or be at rest till I learn the truth of her condition and the story of this other maiden and the secret of the two black bitches.” But Ja’afar answered, “O our lord, they made it a condition with us that we speak not of what concerneth us not, lest we come to hear what pleaseth us not.” Then said the portress “By Allah, O my sister, come to me and complete this service for me.” Replied the procuratrix, “With joy and goodly gree;” so she took the lute; and leaned it against her breasts and swept the strings with her finger tips, and began singing: —
“Give back mine eyes their sleep long ravished * And say me
whither be my reason fled:
I learnt that lending to thy love a place * Sleep to mine eyelids
mortal foe was made.
They said, “We held thee righteous, who waylaid * Thy soul?” “Go
ask his glorious eyes,” I said.
I pardon all my blood he pleased to spill * Owning his troubles
drove him blood to shed.
On my mind’s mirror sun like sheen he cast * Whose keen
reflection fire in vitals bred
Waters of Life let Allah waste at will * Suffice my wage those
lips of dewy red:
An thou address my love thou’lt find a cause * For plaint and
tears or ruth or lustihed.
In water pure his form shall greet your eyne * When fails the
bowl nor need ye drink of wine.180 “
Then she quoted from the same ode: —
“I drank, but the draught of his glance, not wine, * And his
swaying gait swayed to sleep these eyne:
’Twas not grape juice grips me but grasp of Past * ’Twas not bowl
o’erbowled me but gifts divine:
His coiling curl-lets my soul ennetted * And his cruel will all
my wits outwitted.181 “
After a pause she resumed: —
“If we ‘plain of absence what shall we say? * Or if pain afflict
us where wend our way?
An I hire a truchman182 to tell my tale * The lover’s plaint
is not told for pay:
If I put on patience, a lover’s life * After loss of love will
not last a day:
Naught is left me now but regret, repine * And tears flooding
cheeks for ever and aye:
O thou who the babes of these eyes183 hast fled * Thou art
homed in heart that shall never stray
Would heaven I wot hast thou kept our pact * Long as stream shall
flow, to have firmest fey?
Or hast forgotten the weeping slave * Whom groans afflict and
whom griefs waylay?
Ah, when severance ends and we side by side * Couch, I’ll blame
thy rigours and chide thy pride!”
Now when the portress heard her second ode she shrieked aloud and said, “By Allah! ’tis right good!”; and laying hands on her garments tore them, as she did the first time, and fell to the ground fainting. Thereupon the procuratrix rose end brought her a second change of clothes after she had sprinkled water on her. She recovered and sat upright and said to her sister the cateress, “Onwards, and help me in my duty, for there remains but this one song.” So the provisioneress again brought out the lute and began to sing these verses: —
“How long shall last, how long this rigour rife of woe * May not
suffice thee all these tears thou seest flow?
Our parting thus with purpose fell thou dost prolong * Is’t not
enough to glad the heart of envious foe?
Were but this lying world once true to lover heart * He had not
watched the weary night in tears of woe:
Oh pity me whom overwhelmed thy cruel will * My lord, my king,
’tis time some ruth to me thou show:
To whom reveal my wrongs, O thou who murdered me? * Sad,
who of broken troth the pangs must undergo!
Increase wild love for thee and phrenzy hour by hour * And days
of exile minute by so long, so slow;
O Moslems, claim vendetta184 for this slave of Love *
Whose sleep Love ever wastes, whose patience Love lays low:
Doth law of Love allow thee, O my wish! to lie * Lapt in
another’s arms and unto me cry Go!?
Yet in thy presence, say, what joys shall I enjoy * When he I
love but works my love to overthrow?”
When the portress heard the third song she cried aloud; and, laying hands on her garments, rent them down to the very skirt and fell to the ground fainting a third time, again showing the scars of the scourge. Then said the three Kalandars, “Would Heaven we had never entered this house, but had rather righted on the mounds and heaps outside the city! for verily our visit hath been troubled by sights which cut to the heart.” The Caliph turned to them and asked, “Why so?” and they made answer, “Our minds are sore troubled by this matter.” Quoth the Caliph, “Are ye not of the household?” and quoth they, “No; nor indeed did we ever set eyes on the place till within this hour.” Hereat the Caliph marvelled and rejoined, “This man who sitteth by you, would he not know the secret of the matter?” and so saying he winked and made signs at the Porter. So they questioned the man but he replied, “By the All might of Allah, in love all are alike!185 I am the growth of Baghdad, yet never in my born days did I darken these doors till to day and my companying with them was a curious matter.” “By Allah,” they rejoined, “we took thee for one of them and now we see thou art one like ourselves.” Then said the Caliph, “We be seven men, and they only three women without even a fourth to help them; so let us question them of their case; and, if they answer us not, fain we will be answered by force.” All of them ag
reed to this except Ja’afar who said,186 “This is not my recking; let them be; for we are their guests and, as ye know, they made a compact and condition with us which we accepted and promised to keep: wherefore it is better that we be silent concerning this matter; and, as but little of the night remaineth, let each and every of us gang his own gait.” Then he winked at the Caliph and whispered to him, “There is but one hour of darkness left and I can bring them before thee to morrow, when thou canst freely question them all concerning their story.” But the Caliph raised his head haughtily and cried out at him in wrath, saying, “I have no patience left for my longing to hear of them: let the Kalandars question them forthright.” Quoth Ja’afar, “This is not my rede.” Then words ran high and talk answered talk, and they disputed as to who should first put the question, but at last all fixed upon the Porter. And as the jingle increased the house mistress could not but notice it and asked them, “O ye folk! on what matter are ye talking so loudly?” Then the Porter stood up respectfully before her and said, “O my lady, this company earnestly desire that thou acquaint them with the story of the two bitches and what maketh thee punish them so cruelly; and then thou fallest to weeping over them and kissing them; and lastly they want to hear the tale of thy sister and why she hath been bastinado’d with palm sticks like a man. These are the questions they charge me to put, and peace be with thee.”187 Thereupon quoth she who was the lady of the house to the guests, “Is this true that he saith on your part?” and all replied, “Yes!” save Ja’afar who kept silence. When she heard these words she cried, “By Allah, ye have wronged us, O our guests. with grievous wronging; for when you came before us we made compact and condition with you, that whoso should speak of what concerneth him not should hear what pleaseth him not. Sufficeth ye not that we took you into our house and fed you with our best food? But the fault is not so much yours as hers who let you in.” Then she tucked up her sleeves from her wrists and struck the floor thrice with her hand crying, “Come ye quickly;” and lo! a closet door opened and out of it came seven negro slaves with drawn swords in hand to whom she said, “Pinion me those praters’ elbows and bind them each to each.” They did her bidding and asked her, “O veiled and virtuous! is it thy high command that we strike off their heads?”; but she answered, “Leave them awhile that I question them of their condition, before their necks feel the sword.” “By Allah, O my lady!” cried the Porter, “slay me not for other’s sin; all these men offended and deserve the penalty of crime save myself. Now by Allah, our night had been charming had we escaped the mortification of those monocular Kalandars whose entrance into a populous city would convert it into a howling wilderness.” Then he repeated these verses :
“How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother! * And
fairest fair when shown to weakest brother:
By Love’s own holy tie between us twain, * Let one not suffer for
the sin of other.”
When the Porter ended his verse the lady laughed. And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When It was the Eleventh Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the lady, after laughing at the Porter despite her wrath, came up to the party and spake thus, “Tell me who ye be, for ye have but an hour of life; and were ye not men of rank and, perhaps, notables of your tribes, you had not been so froward and I had hastened your doom.” Then said the Caliph, “Woe to thee, O Ja’afar, tell her who we are lest we be slain by mistake; and speak her fair be fore some horror befal us.” “’Tis part of thy deserts,”replied he; whereupon the Caliph cried out at him saying, “There is a time for witty words and there is a time for serious work.” Then the lady accosted the three Kalandars and asked them, “Are ye brothers?”; when they answered, “No, by Allah, we be naught but Fakirs and foreigners.” Then quoth she to one among them, “Wast thou born blind of one eye?”; and quoth he, “No, by Allah, ’twas a marvellous matter and a wondrous mischance which caused my eye to be torn out, and mine is a tale which, if it were written upon the eye corners with needle gravers, were a warner to whoso would be warned.”188 She questioned the second and third Kalandar; but all replied like the first, “By Allah, O our mistress, each one of us cometh from a different country, and we are all three the sons of Kings, sovereign Princes ruling over suzerains and capital cities.” Thereupon she turned towards them and said, “Let each and every of you tell me his tale in due order and explain the cause of his coming to our place; and if his story please us let him stroke his head189 and wend his way.” The first to come forward was the Hammal, the Porter, who said, “O my lady, I am a man and a porter. This dame, the cateress, hired me to carry a load and took me first to the shop of a vintner, then to the booth of a butcher; thence to the stall of a fruiterer; thence to a grocer who also sold dry fruits; thence to a confectioner and a perfumer cum druggist and from him to this place where there happened to me with you what happened. Such is my story and peace be on us all!” At this the lady laughed and said, “Rub thy head and wend thy ways!”; but he cried, “By Allah, I will not stump it till I hear the stories of my companions.” Then came forward one of the Monoculars and began to tell her
One Thousand and One Nights Page 558