She enchants with the foliage of her hair,
And goes far to avoid rebuke.
Her hair wonders at what she does,
And kisses her feet as she walks.
Praise be to God Who created her from the vile drop [Quran 77.20] and set her here in a fixed place to serve as a lesson for those who watch. Glory be to Him in His kingdom!
When she advanced she fascinated and when she turned back she destroyed.
Many kings had asked for her hand, but her father had refused to marry her to any of them as he hoped that thanks to her beauty and the excellence both of her characteristics and her actions she would marry his own master who, he knew, would undoubtedly ask for her hand when he heard of her.
One day the king turned to him as he was seated in front of him and asked him whether he would do something for him. The vizier bared his head and exclaimed: ‘God, God, king of the age, by God I would do this even if it meant plucking my soul from my body!’ The king told him: ‘I have come to you as a suitor for your daughter’s hand.’ The vizier beamed with joy and said: ‘Who could have a better claim on me? My daughter is your slave and the product of your grace.’ ‘But I don’t want her for myself,’ the king explained and the agitated vizier asked: ‘Who is it you want her for, then?’ ‘For my savage-looking mamluk champion,’ the king said. ‘He was created from a coal of anger; he has never been seen to smile; he is uncouth and rough and because of these qualities and other base characteristics no one in the court is willing to look at him.’
When the vizier heard this, his heart contracted; his thoughts were scattered and all he knew was that he could not openly reject the king because of his earlier favours. He agreed to the marriage, saying: ‘She is the maid-servant of the king,’ but secretly he was planning to play an evil trick on him. The king ordered the qadi and the witnesses to be brought and a marriage contract to be drawn up between the vizier’s daughter and the commander of his guard. When this had been done he produced a banquet of unparalleled splendour.
Although the vizier was overwhelmed by sorrow he made a show of gladness for the sake of the king. Word of the marriage spread through the city, leaving the people distressed thanks to the contrast between the beauty of the bride and the ugliness of the bridegroom.
The vizier went home to see to the preparations and the bride was decked out with the greatest splendour before being taken to her groom. What the spectators saw was indescribable beauty on her part and the greatest ugliness on his. On her father’s instructions, she was first shown to him in a green robe, as the poet says:
In her green dress she proudly swayed,
And she was like a branch in leaf.
Her glance was like a cutting sword,
And her face like the rising moon.
She stole men’s hearts and they were struck by renewed sorrow. She was then shown in a red robe, as the poet says:
She came in a red gown like the blood of a gazelle,
Causing the tears to flood down from my eyes.
When she was dressed in this I looked and saw
One pomegranate blossom set above another.
In my bewilderment I called to God:
Praise be to Him Who has joined snow to fire!
The attendants kept removing dresses and putting on others until this had been done seven times. Meanwhile the mamluk neither looked up nor turned towards her until they had left her with him. He then jumped on her and deflowered her roughly and crudely, leaving her with hatred in her heart, as virgins want flattering and gentle treatment, especially when they are in the bloom of youth.
When day broke the mamluk got up and rode off to serve the king, and the vizier, coming to visit his daughter, found her broken-hearted and in tears. When she saw him she jumped up and said: ‘God will judge between you and me on a day when one of the heavens is removed and truth emerges to determine fate. Did you find any part of the house too restricted thanks to me or were you afraid of my food so that you afflicted me with this violent tyrant, no single vein in whose body fears Almighty God?’ ‘I did not command this or agree with it, my daughter,’ the vizier said, ‘but my hand was forced and the king ordered me. By God, I shall let this mamluk lord it over the king’s women and take them as captives. I shall remove the kingdom from the king’s grasp and hand over the best of it to the mamluk, as the king gave him the best of what I have. I shall let his enemies gloat over him as mine have gloated over me.’
He determined on this but kept his thoughts concealed. He used his property to buy mamluks, horses and arms and armour, all of which he handed over to the mamluk, while teaching him nobility and generosity. The emirs, soldiers and mamluks began to favour him; his power grew and he began to organize things bit by bit until it was he who controlled most of the state.
When this had been going on for some time the king fell gravely ill. He summoned the officials of his state, his friends and his viziers and made them take an oath of allegiance to his son, a handsome and good-hearted young man who had no knowledge of how he stood in the world. He then handed the reins of power to the ill-omened vizier, the father of the girl, after which he died and was buried.
After three days of mourning the prince rode out in a procession and when he had dismounted he took his seat on his father’s throne. The vizier, with a firm grasp on power, started to play with him like a polo ball, tossing him from hand to hand, and, without his knowledge, his whole state inclined to the mamluk. When all the preparations they wanted had been made and nothing remained but to arrest the prince, they and their adherents armed themselves. They moved to the palace gate and sat down in the forecourt while the prince and his friends were seated drinking wine with no knowledge of what was about to happen to them. No single one of them came out without being seized by the vizier and his son-in-law, and after a time none of them were left with the prince.
A little servant boy passed through the forecourt, ignored by the vizier’s men who did not interfere with him. When he got to the prince he said: ‘Master, at the gate is the mamluk, your father’s guard commander with the vizier. There are drawn swords, and everyone who went out has been arrested. I don’t know what is behind this.’ The prince thought this over and said: ‘What harm did I or my father do to them? The poet has said:
You were brought up and nurtured in that house,
But were not told your father is a wolf.’
In spite of all this the vizier and his companions did not dare to attack him, not because of any weakness on their part, as they obviously had the upper hand, but because of the awe in which the kingship was held. The prince stayed there perplexed until he got up and opened his treasuries, in which he saw wealth and treasures, but when he came to one in the upper part of the palace he found it empty, with nothing in it except a carpet that was spread out. In his surprise he moved the carpet to discover a slab of veined marble with an iron ring. He pulled this and saw in front of him a flight of some twenty steps leading downwards. He went down and discovered a small room in which there were three men.
There is a remarkable story attached to this. The prince’s father had been fond of drinking wine by the sea shore and every day when the sunlight reached that room it came to rest on a hidden door. If the king arrived in the light, well and good, but otherwise it remained motionless. The king did this without any of his officials knowing about it except for his vizier.
The prince was delighted at the sight. There were large ships there on parallel courses guarding the entrance to the sea against enemy attack. These were under the command of a very old shaikh who had a great knowledge of the sea, having made many foreign voyages, and this man had a great fondness for the king and his son. The prince told the servants in the room to call out to this shaikh on his galley. They went up towards him and before long he had disembarked and had come to kiss the ground before the prince. ‘What is it that you want, O king?’ he asked. ‘Give me your orders.’ ‘Bring the great ship to the postern door,’ the
prince told him, and when this had been done the prince embarked and he ordered the young mamluks who still remained in his service to fetch all the wealth from the treasuries.
When this had been done, there was nothing left worth a single dinar, and the hundred-man crew saw to it that it was all taken on board. The prince then told one of the young mamluks to go to the forecourt and see if the servants were sitting there respectfully. In that case he was not to leave them, but otherwise he was to bring back word. He himself would be waiting for the boy’s return by the harbour side.
Before he had finished speaking, there was a shout from inside the palace. The vizier’s men had only been waiting for the king to be seized and allegiance sworn to a new man, with anyone who refused having his head cut off. This would ensure unity and leave no dangerous plots to be feared. Sword in hand, they made a rush to the king’s throne room, only to find the place empty and the king gone. They put all the servants who were left in the palace, male and female, to the sword and collected all the stores they could find.
When the prince saw what was happening in his father’s palace and realized that it was now in the hands of the vizier and his followers, he embarked and ordered the captain to tell his men to put out to sea. The sails were set and the ship sailed off like a storm wind or water spurting from a narrow pipe. Thinking about the prince’s escape, the vizier realized that he could only have gone off by sea and he rushed up to the palace roof and looked out. From there he caught sight of a ship at sea and he shouted to the ones that were still left to overhaul it, promising gifts beyond count and promotion as commander of the fleet to whoever brought it in. To the prince he called: ‘Where are you going? By God, if you leave I shall kill all the women and children in the palace, but if you come back you will be a ransom for them all.’
The prince paid no attention but sailed on, with the others in pursuit. It was sunset and for the ships there could be no overtaking at night. When dawn broke they could see each other and the captain, looking at his pursuers, called: ‘Don’t you realize that my crew are the pick of the sailors and that I know more than any of you about the sea? This prince has been wronged by his vizier, who has seized the throne from him.’ This made them fearful, as they had not known about what the vizier had done. They wondered whether to go off with the prince but then they thought of their wives and children and told each other: ‘You know that the captain’s hundred men are stronger and better equipped than we are and he knows more about the sea. So let us all go back.’
They did this and when they got to the palace and the citadel they told the vizier: ‘Master, we got no news of them and we don’t know whether they went up into the sky or down into the earth.’ The vizier bit his hand in regret at the escape of the prince. No one in the city knew what had happened but a rumour spread that he had been killed and that Qaraqush, the commander of the guard, had taken his place. This quietened the people and Qaraqush took over the throne, handing the keys of power to the vizier, who held authority while Qaraqush was the nominal sultan. Things were settled like that.
So much for them, but as for the prince, he and his companions sailed on, night and day, until they arrived at an island where they landed and rested for two or three days. They then embarked again with a supply of fresh water and sailed away. Things went on like that until, after three months of continuous sailing, the young prince was getting tired of it. He went to the captain and said: ‘Uncle, are you going to take us to Mt Qaf? [at the world’s end]’ When the captain said ‘no,’ he went on: ‘Do you want to confine us to the sea?’ ‘No,’ said the captain, so the prince asked: ‘Where do you want to take us then?’ The captain ordered the look-out to climb the mast and to scan every quarter. It was then that in the distance the man saw a great black shape and told the captain.
The ship altered course towards it and after six days and nights of sailing they came in sight of a lofty mountain towering into the sky, filling the upper part of the horizon and blocking the lower. In the middle of it was a huge cave in whose entrance was an enormous brass statue with eyes of sapphires and a hand raised against the sea. What was in the cave could not be made out, but from it shone a radiant light.
The ship sailed on until, when it was opposite the hand of the statue in the mountain, it came to a standstill thanks to God’s power, and could not move in any direction. The prince thought that they had stopped deliberately, but although the captain and the crew began to row, the ship still stayed fixed where it was. The captain then climbed to the masthead to look at the statue and the hand opposite him, and when he came down he searched through his belongings until he brought out a book that listed the perils and disasters of the sea. He had turned over twenty-one pages when he stood staring for a time. He then struck his head so that blood came from his nostrils and when the prince came up and asked him what was wrong, he said: ‘Know my son, that this is a very deadly place. The statue that you see in the cave has a talisman in its raised hand. Any ship coming here from any direction goes on until it is opposite this and then it becomes motionless until all those on board die of hunger and thirst. Huge numbers have died here and however hard sailors have tried to row, their ships did not move and they starved to death. All we can do is to entrust our affairs to Almighty God and wait to see what happens.’
When the prince heard this, his countenance changed and he said to himself: ‘We have escaped one form of death only to meet another and there is nothing we can do to help ourselves.’ He got up, and telling himself that death was inevitable, he tucked the bottom of his robe securely into his belt and looked over the side, intending to jump into the sea, swim to the idol and remove it from its place. The captain took hold of him, saying: ‘It was for your sake that we left our wives and our sons and do you now want to kill yourself? By God, that is not going to happen even if we ourselves all die! We shall sacrifice our lives for you.’
He went to the crew and asked: ‘Which of you is going to go to that mountain, climb up to the cave and smash that idol? He can have as much wealth from me as he wants.’ After he had encouraged them all with offers of money, one of them got up, jumped into the sea and swam off until he was near the side of the mountain. At first he could find nowhere to approach the cave but after going round very slowly he discovered a suitable place and climbed until he was close to it. Then suddenly, as he was on the final section, he fell head first into the sea and was killed. One man after another climbed after him until, when ten had been, no one else would go.
At this point the prince got up, tightened his belt, fastened his sword over his shoulder and then, without saying anything to the captain, he jumped into the sea and swam off. The captain shouted at him to come back but he paid no attention and climbed up until when he was close to the cave he saw unscalable rock which gleamed like a steel mirror and dazzled the eye with its brightness. He went back down to the shore and called to the captain to give him an axe or a hammer with which he could cut himself a stance, as no one could climb there thanks to the intensity of the light.
The captain gave him an axe and, taking this with him, he climbed to the smooth section in which he began to cut steps big enough for his feet, going on until he had reached the cave. What met his eyes was a remarkable sight, a wide cave buttressed with smooth stone, at whose upper end was a brass statue on a chair of Chinese steel, with sapphire eyes and a hand held up to face the sea. The prince made towards this and when he reached it he sat beneath its feet and dug away with his axe until, as had been destined, it collapsed on its face. In so doing it crushed the hand that held the talisman, which broke off and fell down into the sea.
As soon as it reached the water, the ship moved off like a lightning flash. The captain turned and said: ‘Wait for your master’s son,’ but, try as they would, the crew could not control it and it sailed off like a cloud. The prince looked after them and exclaimed: ‘They have left me and gone off, but, by God, this was not of their own choice, for it was only the statue that w
as holding back the ship.’ He then fell on his knees, saying: ‘There is no might and no power except with the Great God!’
He began to walk on the mountain and after a while he saw something dark in the distance and went on towards it. When he got near what he saw was a region full of trees and streams, with bulbuls and other birds. The trees were in leaf and the streams were fast flowing; the plants were scented with saffron and the soil with amber. He came down from the mountain and walked all that day until sunset, when he stayed where he was until dawn.
At daybreak he got up and walked on until he came to the first of these meadows, where he ate the fruit and drank from the water, looking around him with joy at what he could see. When evening came he slept in a tree, getting up and starting off again next morning. For three days he went on, walking through the thickets from dawn till dusk and then sleeping wherever he was. On the fourth day he said to himself: ‘How long am I going to be here? I must press on until I get to the end of this wood.’ After another full day’s worth of walking, he had again slept where he was until dawn. This time when he set off and it was nearly noon, he emerged from the trees and looked out over open ground, at the top end of which was something dark in the distance, obscured by smoke.
He hurried on towards it, telling himself that there might be something there that he could buy to eat as he was tired of eating plants, and he arrived at sunset. What he found was a city with high towers and solid walls, teeming with inhabitants. He entered and had set off in search of a hostel when he came on an old man sitting on a bench. He went up to him and said: ‘Sir, I should like you to direct me to a lodging.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ the man replied and he got to his feet, took the prince by the hand and led him to a house which he opened for him. When the prince went in he could see nothing there on which to sit and he asked the old man whether he had any mat. ‘No, master,’ said the man, at which the prince removed the ring from his finger and passed it to him, saying: ‘Keep this till tomorrow in pledge for a mat.’ At that the man spread out a mat for him and left him to pass the night there.
Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) Page 48