There is many a slender one whose dark hair and bright forehead
Have made mankind to walk in dark and light.
Do not find fault with the mole upon his cheek:
I would sell my brother in exchange for such a speck.
The king was glad to see him and greeted him. He, for his part, was sitting there wearing a silk gown embroidered with Egyptian gold, and on his head was a crown studded with gems. He was showing signs of grief, but when the king greeted him, he replied with the utmost courtesy: ‘Your dignity deserves that I should rise for you, but I have an excuse for not doing so.’ ‘I excuse you, young man,’ said the king. ‘I am your guest and I am also here on an important errand. I want you to tell me about the pool, the fish, this palace, the reason why you are here alone and why you are weeping.’
When the young man heard this, tears coursed down his cheeks and he wept bitterly until his breast was drenched. He then recited:
Say to the one to whom Time grants sleep,
How often misfortunes subside only to rise up!
While you may sleep, God’s eye remains sleepless.
For whom is Time unclouded and for whom do worldly things endure?
He sighed deeply and continued to recite:
Entrust your affair to the Lord of all mankind;
Abandon care and leave aside anxious thoughts.
Do not ask how what happened has occurred,
For all things come about through the decree of fate.
The king, filled with wonder, asked the youth why he was weeping. ‘How can I not shed tears,’ he replied, ‘when I am in this state?’ and he reached down to the skirts of his robe and raised it. It could then be seen that the lower half of his body, down to his feet, was of stone, while from his navel to the hair of his head he was human. When he saw this condition of his, the king was filled with grief and regret. He exclaimed in sorrow: ‘Young man, you have added another care to my cares! I was looking for information about the fish, but now I see I must ask both about them and about you.’ He went on to recite the formula: ‘There is no power and no strength except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent,’ and added: ‘Tell me at once what your story is.’
‘Listen and look,’ said the young man. ‘My ears and eyes are ready,’ replied the king, and the young man continued: ‘There is a marvellous tale attached to the fish and to me, which, were it written with needles on the corners of the eyes, would be a lesson for all who can learn.’ ‘How is that?’ asked the king, AND THE YOUNG MAN REPLIED:
You must know that my father was the ruler of this city. His name was Mahmud and he was the king of the Black Islands and of these four mountains. He died after a reign of seventy years and I succeeded him on the throne. I married my cousin, who loved me so deeply that, if I left her, she would neither eat nor drink until my return. She stayed with me for five years but then one day she went in the evening to the baths. I told the cook to prepare a quick supper for me and then I came to these apartments and lay down to sleep in our usual place, telling the slave girls to sit, one at my head and one at my feet. I was disturbed because of my wife’s absence, and although my eyes were shut, I could not sleep and I was still alert.
It was then that I heard the slave girl who was sitting at my head saying to her companion: ‘Mas‘uda, how unfortunate our master is and how miserable are the days of his youth! What damage he suffers at the hands of that damned harlot, our mistress!’ ‘Yes,’ answered the other, ‘may God curse treacherous adulteresses. A man like our master is too young to satisfy this whore, who every night sleeps outside the palace.’ The girl at my head said: ‘Our master is dumb and deluded in that he never asks questions about her.’ ‘Do you think that he knows about her and that she does this with his consent?’ exclaimed the other, adding: ‘She prepares him a drink that he takes every night before he goes to sleep and in it she puts a sleeping drug. He knows nothing about what happens or where she goes. After she has given him the drink, she puts on her clothes, perfumes herself and goes out, leaving him till dawn. Then she comes back to him and burns something under his nose so that he wakes from his sleep.’
When I heard what the girls were saying, the light became darkness in my eyes, although I could not believe that night had come. Then my wife returned from the baths; our table was spread and we ate, after which we sat for a time talking, as usual. Then she called for my evening drink and when she had given me the cup which she had poured out, I tipped the contents into my pocket, while pretending to be drinking it as usual. I lay down immediately and, pretending to be asleep, I heard her saying: ‘Sleep through the night and never get up. By God, I loathe you and I loathe your appearance. I am tired of living with you and I don’t know when God is going to take your life.’ She then got up, put on her most splendid clothes, perfumed herself and, taking my sword, she strapped it on and went out through the palace gates, while for my part I got up and followed her out. She made her way through the markets until she reached the city gate. She spoke some words that I could not understand, at which the bolts fell and the gate opened.
My wife went out, without realizing that I was following her, and passed between the mounds until she came to a hut with a brick dome. As she went in through its door, I climbed on to the roof and looked down to see her enter and go up to a black slave. One of his lips looked like a pot lid and the other like the sole of a shoe – a lip that could pick up sand from the top of a pebble. The slave was lying on cane stalks; he was leprous and covered in rags and tatters. As my wife kissed the ground before him, he raised his head and said: ‘Damn you, why have you been so slow? My black cousins were here drinking, and each left with a girl, but because of you I didn’t want to drink.’ She said: ‘My master, my darling, delight of my eyes, don’t you know that I am married to my cousin, whose appearance I hate and whose company I loathe? Were it not that I am afraid for you, I would not let the sun rise before the city had been left desolate, echoing to the screeches of owls and the cawing of crows, the haunt of foxes and wolves, and I would move its stones to behind Mount Qaf.’ ‘You are lying, damn you,’ said the black man. ‘I swear by the chivalry of the blacks – and don’t think that our chivalry is like that of the whites – that if you are as late as this once more, I will never again keep company with you or join my body to yours. You are playing fast and loose with me. Am I here just to serve your lust, you stinking bitch, vilest of the whites?’
As I looked on and listened to what they were saying, the world turned black for me and I didn’t know where I was. My wife was standing weeping, humbling herself before the slave and saying: ‘My darling, fruit of my heart, if you are angry with me, who will save me, and if you throw me out, who will shelter me, my darling and light of my eyes?’ She went on weeping and imploring him until, to her delight, she managed to conciliate him. She then got up and took off all her clothes. ‘My master,’ she said, ‘is there anything for your servant to eat?’ ‘Lift the pan cover,’ he said. ‘There are some cooked rat bones beneath it that you can eat, and you can then go to this jar and drink the remains of the beer there.’
After my wife had eaten and drunk, she washed her hands and her mouth before lying down naked on the cane stalks with the slave, and getting in with him beneath the rags and tatters. When I saw what she had done, I lost control of myself and, climbing down from the top of the roof, I drew the sword that I had brought with me, intending to kill them both. First I struck the neck of the slave, and thought that he was dead…
Morning now dawned on Shahrazad and she broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the eighth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O auspicious king, that THE YOUNG MAN SAID:
I struck the slave with the intention of cutting off his head but I had failed to sever his jugular and only cut his gullet, skin and flesh. He let out a loud snort and as my wife stirred, I stepped back, returned the sword to its sheath and went back to the city, where I entered the palace an
d lay down on my bed until morning. There was my wife coming to wake me, with her hair shorn, wearing mourning. She said: ‘Cousin, don’t object to what I am doing, as I have had news that my mother has died and that my father has been killed fighting the infidels, while one of my brothers has died of a fatal sting and the other of a fall. It is right for me to weep and grieve.’
When I heard this, I did not tell her what I knew but said: ‘Do what you think proper and I shall not oppose you.’ From the beginning to the end of a whole year she remained miserable and in mourning, and then she said to me: ‘I want you to build me a tomb shaped like a dome beside your palace, which I shall set aside for grief and call the House of Sorrows.’ ‘Do as you please,’ I said, and she built her House of Sorrows, over which was a dome, covering what looked like a tomb. She brought the slave there and installed him in it, but he could no longer be of any service to her. He went on drinking wine, but since the day that I had wounded him he could no longer speak, and he was alive only because his allotted span had not yet come to an end. Every day, morning and evening, my wife would go to the tomb weeping and lamenting for him, and she would give him wine and broth.
Things went on like this until it came to the second year. I had been long-suffering and had paid no attention to her, until one day, when I came to her room unexpectedly, I found her exclaiming tearfully: ‘Why are you absent from my sight, my heart’s delight? Talk to me, O my soul; speak to me, my darling.’ She recited:
If you have found consolation, love has left me no endurance.
My heart loves none but you.
Take my bones and my soul with you wherever you may go,
And where you halt, bury me opposite you.
Call out my name over my grave and my bones will moan in answer,
Hearing the echo of your voice.
Then she went on:
My wishes are fulfilled on the day I am near you,
While the day of my doom is when you turn from me.
I may pass the night in fear, threatened with destruction,
But union with you is sweeter to me than safety.
Next she recited:
If every blessing and all this world were mine,
Together with the empire of the Persian kings,
To me this would not be worth a gnat’s wing,
If my eyes could not look on you.
When she had finished speaking and weeping, I said to her: ‘Cousin, that is enough of sorrow, and more weeping will do you no good.’ ‘Do not try to stop me doing what I must do,’ she said, ‘for in that case, I shall kill myself.’ I said no more and left her to do what she wanted, and she went on grieving, weeping and mourning for a second year and then a third. One day, I went to her when something had put me out of temper and I was tired of the violence of her distress. I found her going towards the tomb beneath the dome, saying: ‘Master, I hear no word from you. Master, why don’t you answer me?’ Then she recited:
Grave, grave, have the beloved’s beauties faded?
And has the brightness and the radiance gone?
Grave, you are neither earth nor heaven for me,
So how is it you hold both sun and moon?
When I heard what she said and the lines she recited, I became even angrier than before and I exclaimed: ‘How long will this sorrow last?’ Then I recited myself:
Grave, grave, has his blackness faded?
And has the brightness and the foulness failed?
Grave, you are neither basin nor a pot,
So how is it you hold charcoal and slime?
When she heard this, she jumped up and said: ‘Damn you, you dog. It was you who did this to me and wounded my heart’s darling. You have caused me pain and robbed him of his youth, so that for three years he has been neither dead nor alive.’ To which I replied: ‘Dirty whore, filthiest of the fornicators and the prostitutes of black slaves, yes, it was I who did that.’ Then I drew my sword and aimed a deadly blow at her, but when she heard what I said and saw that I was intending to kill her, she burst out laughing and said: ‘Off, you dog! What is past cannot return and the dead cannot rise again, but God has given the man who did this to me into my power. Because of him there has been an unquenchable fire in my heart and a flame that cannot be hidden.’
Then, as she stood there, she spoke some unintelligible words and added: ‘Through my magic become half stone and half man.’ It was then that I became as you see me now, unable to stand or to sit, neither dead nor alive. After this, she cast a spell over the whole city, together with its markets and its gardens. It had contained four different groups, Muslims, Christians, Jews and Magians, and these she transformed into fish – the white fish being the Muslims, the red the Magians, the blue the Christians and the yellow the Jews – and she transformed the four islands into four mountains that surround the pool. Every day she tortures me by giving me a hundred lashes with her whip until the blood flows down over my shoulders. Then she dresses me in a hair shirt of the kind that I am wearing on my upper half, over which she places this splendid gown.
The young man then wept and recited:
O my God, I must endure Your judgement and decree,
And if that pleases You, I shall do this.
Tyrants have wronged me and oppressed me here,
But Paradise may be my recompense.
My sufferings have left me in sad straits,
But God’s choice as His favoured Prophet intercedes for me.
The king then turned to the youth and said: ‘Although you have freed me from one worry, you have added another to my cares. Where is the woman and where is the tomb with the wounded slave?’ ‘He is lying in his tomb beneath the dome,’ said the young man, ‘and she is in that chamber opposite the door. She comes out once each day at sunrise, and the first thing she does is to strip me and give me a hundred lashes. I weep and call out but I cannot move to defend myself, and after she has tortured me, she takes wine and broth to the slave. She will come early tomorrow.’ ‘By God, young man,’ said the king, ‘I shall do you a service for which I shall be remembered and which will be recorded until the end of time.’ He then sat talking to him until nightfall, when they both slept.
Close to dawn the king rose, stripped off his clothes, drew his sword and went to where the slave lay, surrounded by candles, lamps, perfumes and unguents. He came up to the slave and killed him with one blow, before lifting him on to his back and throwing him down a well in the palace. After that, he wrapped himself in the slave’s clothes and lay down in the tomb with the naked sword by his side. After an hour, the damned sorceress arrived, but before she entered the tomb, she first stripped her cousin of his clothes, took a whip and beat him. He cried out in pain: ‘The state that I am in is punishment enough for me, cousin; have pity on me.’ ‘Did you have pity on me,’ she asked, ‘and did you leave me, my beloved?’ She beat him until she was tired and the blood flowed down his sides; then she dressed him in a hair shirt under his robe, and went off to carry the slave a cup of wine and a bowl of broth.
At the tomb she wept and wailed, saying: ‘Master, speak to me; master, talk to me.’ She then recited:
How long will you turn away, treating me roughly?
Have I not shed tears enough for you?
How do you intend abandoning me?
If your object is the envious, their envy has been cured.
Shedding tears, she repeated: ‘Master, talk to me.’ The king lowered his voice, twisted his tongue, and speaking in the accent of the blacks, he said: ‘Oh, oh, there is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent!’ When she heard this, she cried out with joy and then fainted. When she had recovered, she said: ‘Master, is this true?’ The king, in a weak voice, said: ‘You damned woman, do you deserve that anyone should talk to you or speak with you?’ ‘Why is that?’ she asked. ‘Because all day long you torture your husband, although he cries for help, and from dusk to dawn he stops me from sleeping as he calls out his entreaties, cursin
g both me and you. He disturbs me and harms me, and but for this I would have been cured. It is this that keeps me from answering you.’ ‘With your permission,’ she replied, ‘I shall release him.’ ‘Do that,’ said the king, ‘and allow me to rest.’ ‘I hear and obey,’ she replied and, after going from the tomb to the palace, she took a bowl, filled it with water and spoke some words over it. As the water boiled and bubbled, like a pot boiling on the fire, she sprinkled her husband with it and said: ‘I conjure you by the words that I have recited, if you are in this state because of my magic, revert from this shape to what you were before.’
A sudden shudder ran through the young man and he rose to his feet, overjoyed at his release, calling out: ‘I bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Apostle of God – may God bless him and give him peace.’ His wife shouted at him, saying: ‘Go, and don’t come back, or else I shall kill you!’ He left her and she went back to the tomb, where she said: ‘Master, come out to me, so that I may see your beautiful form.’ In a weak voice the king replied: ‘What have you done? You have brought me relief from the branch but not from the root.’ ‘My beloved, my black darling,’ she said, ‘what is the root?’ ‘Curse you, you damned woman!’ he replied. ‘It is the people of the city and of the four islands. Every night at midnight the fish raise their heads asking for help and cursing me and you. It is this that stops my recovery. Go and free them quickly and then come back, take my hand and help me to get up, for I am on the road to recovery.’
On hearing these words and thinking that he was the slave, the sorceress was delighted and promised in God’s Name willingly to obey his command. She got up and ran joyfully to the pool, from which she took a little water…
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then when it was the ninth night, SHE CONTINUED:
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1 Page 8