One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  VII. — Histoire du prince qui apprit un métier.

  A prince named Mohammed l’Avisé went to seek a wife, and fell in love with the daughter of a leek-grower. She would not accept him unless he learned a trade, so he learned the trade of a silk weaver, who taught him in five minutes, and he worked a handkerchief with the palace of his father embroidered upon it. Two years afterwards, the prince and the wazir took a walk, when they found a Maghrabi seated at the gate of the town, who invited them to take coffee. But he was a prisoner (or rather a murderer) who imprisoned them behind seven doors; and after three days he cooked the wazir, and was going to cook the prince, but he persuaded him to take his handkerchief to market where it was recognised, and the prince released from his peril. Two years later the king died, and the prince succeeded to the throne. The latter had a son and daughter, but he died when the boy was six and the girl eight, warning the boy not to marry until the girl was married, lest his wife should ill-use her. After two years the sister said, “Brother, if I show you the treasures of your father and mother, what will you do?” He answered, “I will buy a slipper for you and a slipper for me, and we will play with them among the stones.” “No,” said she, “you are still too little,” and waited a year before she asked him again. This time he answered, “I will buy a tambourine for you, and a flute for myself and we will play in the street.” She waited two more years, and this time he answered, “We will use them to repair the water-wheels and my father’s palaces, and we will sow and reap.” “Now you are big,” said she, and gave him the treasures, which he used to erect buildings in his father’s country. Soon afterwards, an old woman persuaded the youth to marry her daughter; but she herself went into the mountains, collected eggs of the bird Oumbar, which make virgins pregnant if they eat them, and gave them to the sister. The old woman reported the result to the king, who visited his sister to satisfy himself of the truth of the matter, and then left her, but sent her food by a slave. When the sister’s time came, four angels descended from heaven, and took her daughter, bringing the child to her mother to be nursed. The mother died of grief, and the angels washed and shrouded her and wept over her; and when the king heard it, he opened the door, and the angels flew away to heaven with the child. The king ordered a tomb to be built in the palace for his sister, and was so much grieved at her death that he went on pilgrimage. When he had been gone some time, and the time of his return approached, the old woman opened the sister’s tomb, intending to throw her body to the dogs to devour, and to put the carcase of a sheep in its place. The angels put the child in the tomb, and she reproached and threatened the old woman; who, however, seized upon her and dyed her black, pretending that she was a little black slave whom she had bought. When the king returned, he pitied her, and called her to sit by him, but she asked for a candle and candlestick to hold in her hand before all the company. Then she told her mother’s story, saying to the candle at every word, “Gutter for kings; this is my uncle, the chief of kings.” Then the candle threw mahboubs on her uncle’s knees. When the story was ended the king ordered proclamation to be made, “Let whosoever loves the Prophet and the Elect, bring wood and fire.” The people obeyed, and the old woman and her daughter were burned.

  VIII. — Histoire du Prince Amoureux.

  A woman prayed to God to give her a daughter, even if she should die of the smell of flax. When the girl was ten years old, the king’s son passed through the street, saw her at the window, and fell in love with her. An old woman discovered that he loved Sittoukan, the daughter of a merchant, and promised to obtain her. She contrived to set her to spin flax, when a splinter ran under her nail, and she fainted. The old woman persuaded her father and mother to build a palace in the midst of the river, and to lay her there on a bed. Thither she took the prince, who turned the body about, saw the splinter, drew it out, and the girl awoke. He remained with her forty days, when he went down to the door, where he found the wazir waiting, and they entered the garden. There they found roses and jasmines, and the prince said, “The jasmines are as white as Sittoukan, and the roses are like her cheeks; if you did not approve, I would still remain with her, were it only for three days.” He went up again for three days, and when he next visited the wazir, they saw a carob-tree, and the prince said, “Remember, wazir, the carob-tree is like the eyebrows of Sittoukan, and if you would not let me, I would still remain with her, were it only for three days.” Three days later, they saw a fountain, when the prince observed that it was like the form of Sittoukan, and he returned. But this time, she was curious to know why he always went and returned, and he found her watching behind the door, so he spat on her saying, “If you did not love men, you would not hide behind doors”; and he left her. She wandered into the garden in her grief, where she found the ring of empire, which she rubbed, and the ring said, “At your orders, what do you ask for ?” She asked for increased beauty, and a palace beside that of the prince. The prince fell in love with her, and sent his mother to propose for her hand. The mother took two pieces of royal brocade as a present, which the young lady ordered a slave in her hearing to cut up for dusters. Then the mother brought her an emerald collar worth four thousand diners, when she ordered it to be threshed, and thrown to the pigeons. The old lady acknowledged herself beaten, and asked Sittoukan if she wished to marry or not. The latter demanded that the prince should be wrapped in seven shrouds, and carried to the palace which she indicated, as if he were dead. Then she went and took off the shrouds one after another, and when she came to the seventh, she spat on him, saying, “If you did not love women, you would not be wrapped in seven shrouds.” Then he said, “Is it you?” and he bit his finger till he bit it off, and they remained together.

  IX. — Histoire du musician ambulant et de son fils.

  This travelling musician was so poor that when his wife was confined, he went out to beg for their immediate necessities, and found a hen lying on the ground with an egg under her. He met a Jew to whom he sold the egg for twenty mahboubs. The hen laid an egg every day, which the Jew bought for twenty mahboubs, and the musician became rich and opened a merchant’s shop. When his son was grown, he built a school for him at his own expense, where poor children were taught to read. Then the musician set out on pilgrimage, charging his wife not to let the Jew trick her out of the hen. A fortnight afterwards, the Jew called, and persuaded the woman to sell him the hen for a casket of silver. He ordered her to cook it, but told her that if anybody else ate a piece, he would rip him up. The musician’s son came in, while the fowl was cooking, and as his mother would not give him any, he seized the gizzard, and ate it, when one of the slaves warned him to fly before the arrival of the Jew. The Jew pursued the boy, and would have killed him, but the latter took him up with one hand, and dashed him to pieces on the ground. The musician’s son continued his journey, and arrived at a town where thirty-nine heads of suitors who had failed to conquer the princess in wrestling, were suspended at the gate of the palace. On the first day the youth wrestled with the princess for two hours without either being able to overcome the other; but during the night the king ordered the doctors to drug the successful suitor, and to steal the talisman. Next morning when the youth awoke, he perceived his weakness, and fled. Presently he met three men quarrelling over a flying carpet, a food-producing cup, and a money mill. He threw a stone for them to run after and transported himself to Mount Kaf, where he made trial of the other talismans. Then he returned to the palace, called to the princess to come down to wrestle with him, and as soon as she stepped on the carpet, carried her away to Mount Kaf, when she promised to restore the gizzard, and to marry him. She deserted him, and he found two date-trees, one bearing red and the other yellow dates. On eating a yellow date, a horn grew from his head443 and twisted round the two date-trees. A red date removed it. He filled his pockets, and travelled night and day for two months.444 He cried dates out of season, and the princess bought sixteen yellow ones, and ate them all; and eight [sixteen ?] horns grew from her head,
four to each wall. They could not be sawn off, and the king offered his daughter to whoever could remove them. When the musician’s son married the princess, and became wazir, he said to his bride, “Where is my carpet, &c.” She replied, “Is it you?” “Yes,” said he, “Is my trick or yours the best?” She admitted that she was beaten, and they lived together in harmony.

  X. — Histoire du rossignol chanteur.

  Three brothers built a palace for their mother and sister after their father’s death. The sister loved someone of whom the brothers disapproved. An old woman advised the sister to send her brothers for the singing nightingale. The two eldest would not wait till the bird was asleep, but while they were trying to shut his cage, he dusted sand over them with his claws, and sunk them to the seventh earth. The beads and the ring gave warning of their deaths at home; but the third, who left a rose with his mother, to fade if he died captured the bird, and received sand from under the cage. When he scattered it on the ground, more than a thousand men rose up, some negroes and some Turks. The brothers were not among them, so the youngest was told to scatter white sand, when 500 more people emerged, including the brothers. Afterwards the eldest brother was sitting in his ship when a Maghrebi told him to clean his turban; which his mother interpreted to mean that his sister had misconducted herself, and he should kill her. He refused, and fled with her to the desert. Hearing voices, he entered a cave where thirty nine robbers were dividing rations; and he contrived to appropriate a share, and then to return it when missed; but as he was detected, he gave himself out as a fellow-robber, engaged himself to them, and watching his opportunity, slew them. Afterwards he brought his sister two young lions. She found a wounded negro in the cave, whom she nursed, and after having had two children by him, plotted against her brother. She pretended to be ill, and sent him to find the grapes of Paradise. He met a Ghúleh who gave him a ball which directed him to Paradise, and he returned safely. Then his sister sent him for the Water of Life when the two young lions followed him, and he could not drive them back. After travelling for a year the brother reached the Sea of the Water of Life, and while resting under a tree heard two pigeons telling each other that the king’s daughter was ill, and every doctor who failed to restore her was put to death, and she could only be cured by the Water of Life. “Mohammed l’Avisé” filled two bottles and a jar with the water, cured the princess with the water in the jar, married her, and after forty days, gave her one bottle, and set out to visit his family. At the sister’s instigation, the negro slew Mohammed, cut him to pieces, and put the remains into a sack, which they loaded on the ass. Then the lions drove the ass to the wife of Mohammed, who restored his life with the water which he had left with her. Mohammed then shut up the lions, dressed himself as a negro, and went to visit his sister, taking with him some rings and mastic (ladin). His sister recognised his eyes, and while she and the negro were disputing, Mohammed slew the negro and the three [sic] children, and buried his sister alive. He then returned to his wife, announced that his relations were dead, and asked for a hundred camels; and it took them a week to convey away the treasures of the robbers.

  XI . — Histoire d’ Arab-Zandyq.

  This story is translated by Mr. W. A. Clouston, Suppl. Nights, iii., , and need not be repeated here.

  XII. — Histoire du prince et de son cheval.

  A prince and foal were born at the same time, and some time afterwards the mother and the mare died. The king married again, and the new queen had an intrigue with a Jew. They plotted to poison the prince, but his horse wept and warned him. Then the queen pretended to be ill, and asked for the heart of the horse, but the prince fled to another kingdom, and bought clothes from a poor man, packing his own on his horse. Then he parted from the horse, who gave him a hair and a flint, telling him to light the hair when ever he needed him. The prince then went to a town, and engaged himself as under gardener to the king. He was set to drive the ox which turned the water-wheel, but one day he called his horse, put on his own clothes, and galloped about the garden, where the youngest princess saw “Mohammed l’Avisé” from the window, and fell in love with him. He then returned to the water-wheel, and when the head-gardener returned and found the garden in disorder, he wanted to beat him; but the princess interfered and ordered the prince to receive a fowl and a cake of bread every day. The princess then persuaded her mother and sisters that it was time to be married, so the king ordered everybody to pass under the window of the seven princesses, each of whom threw down a handkerchief on the man of her choice. But the youngest would look at no one till at last they fetched the gardener’s boy, when the king was angry, and confined them in a room. The king fell ill with vexation, and the doctors ordered him to drink bear’s milk in the hide of a virgin bear. The king’s six sons-in-law were ordered to seek it, and Mohammed too set forth mounted on a lame mare, while the people jeered him. Presently he summoned his own horse, and ordered him to pitch a camp of which the beginning and the end could not be seen, and which should contain nothing but bears. When the six sons-in-law passed, they dismounted, and asked the attendants for what they required, but they referred them to their king. The latter offered them what they asked, but branded a ring and a circle on the back of each of the sons-in-law. However, he gave them only the milk and hide of old she-bears, while he himself took the milk of a virgin445 bear that had just cubbed for the first time, slaughtered it, put the milk into the skin, and then remounted his lame mare, saying to the horse, “God reward you.” He returned to town, and gave the milk to his wife who took it to her mother. Then the six sons-in-law brought the milk to the doctors, but when they looked at it, they said, “This is the milk of an old she-bear and is good for nothing.” Then they gave the king the other milk, and cured him, but he was much annoyed to hear who had brought it. Soon afterwards a war broke out, and the king pitched his camp outside the town in face of the enemy. Mohammed set out again on his lame mare, the people shouting after him, “Go back, sir, for the soldiers have been defeated.” Then he summoned his horse, put on his own clothes, and said to the horse, “Let your hair shoot forth fire.” Then he came before the king, saying, “I declare for you and your six sons-in-law.” He rushed into battle, smiting with his sword, while his horse shot forth fire. They slew a third of the enemy, and then disappeared, while the king lamented. “Ah, if my six sons-in-law had only done this!” After his exertions Mohammed was tired, and went home to sleep. Next day the same thing happened, but the king put his own ring on his finger. On the third day he slew the remaining third of his enemies, but his arm was wounded, and the king bound it up with his own handkerchief before he departed.

  The king gathered together the horses and the spoil, and returned to town, much vexed that his sons-in-law had done nothing. Then the youngest princess asked her mother to send for her father to look at the ring and the handkerchief, when he fell down and kissed the feet of Mohammed, who rose up giddy from sleep, but when he was asked his history, he answered, “I am a prince like yourself, and your six sons-in-law are mamelouks of my father. I beat them, and they took to flight, and through fear of my father, I set out in search of them. I came here and found that they were your sons-in-law, but I imposed silence on them. But as regards your daughter, she saw me in the garden, and recognised my real rank; here is your daughter, O king; she is still a virgin.” Then the wedding was celebrated with great pomp, and Mohammed remained with his father-in-law for some time, until he desired to return to his own country. On his arrival he found that his father had died, so he ascended the throne, and ordered his mother-in-law and the Jew to be burned.

  Carlo de Landberg, Básim le Forgeron et Haron Er-Rachid, 8vo., Leyden, 1888.

  Text and translation of a modern Arabic story of an unfortunate smith and hashish-eater whom Harun encounters on one of his usual nocturnal rambles. Harun plays a succession of practical jokes on him, driving him out of his employment every day, and supping with him every night. At last he bastinadoes him, and throws him into
prison, where a jinniyah takes pity on him, and confers unlimited power on him, which he enjoys for a week, and then dies, to the great grief of Harun.

  Additional Note to Suppl. Vol. V. (P-320).

  Compare Boccaccio’s story of the Devil in Hell (Day iii. No. 11).

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