I have heard, O auspicious king, that after the sorceress had taken water from the pool and spoken some unintelligible words over it, the fish danced, lifted their heads and immediately rose up, as the magic spell was removed from the city. It became inhabited again, the merchants buying and selling and each man practising his craft, while the islands were restored to their former state. The sorceress went straight away to the tomb and said to the king: ‘Give me your noble hand, my darling, and get up.’ In a low voice, the king replied: ‘Come to me.’ When she did this he, with the drawn sword in his hand, struck her in the breast as she clung on to him, so that it emerged gleaming from her back. With another blow he cut her in two, and threw the two halves on the ground.
When he came out he found the young man whom she had enchanted standing waiting for him, congratulating him on his escape, kissing his hand and thanking him. The king asked him whether he would prefer to stay in his own city, or to go with him to his. ‘King of the age,’ said the young man, ‘do you know how long a journey it is to your city?’ ‘Two and a half days,’ replied the king. ‘If you have been sleeping,’ said the young man, ‘wake up. Between you and your city is a full year’s worth of hard travelling. You only got here in two and a half days because this place was under a spell. But I shall not part from you for the blink of an eye.’ The king was glad and said: ‘Praise be to God, Who has given you to me. You shall be my son, for all my life I have been granted no other.’
They embraced with great joy and then walked to the palace. Here the young man told his courtiers to make ready for a journey and to collect supplies and whatever was needed. This took ten days, after which the young man and the king set off, the latter being in a fever of anxiety to get back his own city. They travelled with fifty mamluks and magnificent gifts, and their journey continued day and night for a whole year until, as God had decreed their safety, they eventually reached their goal. Word was sent to the vizier that the king had arrived safe and sound, and he, together with his soldiers, who had despaired of him, came to greet him, kissing the ground before him and congratulating him on his safe arrival.
The king then entered the city to take his seat on his throne, and the vizier, on presenting himself and hearing of all that had happened to the young man, added his own congratulations. Then, when things were settled, the king presented gifts to many people and he told the vizier to fetch the man who had brought him the fish and who had been responsible for saving the people of the enchanted city. A messenger was sent to him and when he was brought to the palace, the king presented him with robes of honour and asked him about his circumstances, and whether he had any children. The fisherman replied that he had two daughters and one son. The king sent for them and married one of the girls himself, giving the other to the young man. The fisherman’s son was made treasurer, while the vizier was invested and sent off as ruler of the capital of the Black Islands, the young man’s city. With him were sent the fifty mamluks who had come with the king, and he was given robes of honour to take to the emirs of the city. He kissed the king’s hands and started out immediately, while the king remained with the young man. The fisherman, meanwhile, had become the richest man of his age, while his daughters remained as wives of kings until they died.
This, however, is not more remarkable than what happened to the porter. There was an unmarried porter who lived in the city of Baghdad. One day, while he was standing in the market, leaning on his basket, a woman came up to him wrapped in a silken Mosuli shawl with a floating ribbon and wearing embroidered shoes fringed with gold thread. When she raised her veil, beneath it could be seen dark eyes which, with their eyelashes and eyelids, shot soft glances, perfect in their quality. She turned to the porter and said in a sweet, clear voice: ‘Take your basket and follow me.’ Almost before he was sure of what she had said, he rushed to pick up the basket. ‘What a lucky day, a day of good fortune!’ he exclaimed, following her until she stopped by the door of a house. She knocked at it and a Christian came down to whom she gave a dinar, taking in exchange an olive-coloured jar of strained wine. She put this in the basket and said to the porter: ‘Pick this up and follow me.’ ‘By God,’ repeated the porter, ‘this is a blessed and a fortunate day!’ and he did what she told him.
She then stopped at a fruiterer’s shop, where she bought Syrian apples, Uthmani quinces, Omani peaches, jasmine and water lilies from Syria, autumn cucumbers, lemons, sultani oranges, scented myrtle, privet flowers, camomile blossoms, red anemones, violets, pomegranate blooms and eglantine. All these she put into the porter’s basket, telling him to pick it up. This he did and he followed her until she stopped at the butcher’s, where she got the man to cut her ten ratls’ weight of meat. He did this, and after paying him, she wrapped the meat in banana leaves and put it in the basket, giving the porter his instructions. He picked up the basket and followed her to the grocer, from whom she bought pistachio kernels for making a dessert, Tihama raisins and shelled almonds. The porter was told to pick them up and to follow her. Next she stopped at the sweetmeat seller’s shop. This time she bought a bowl and filled it with all that he had – sugar cakes, doughnuts stuffed with musk, ‘soap’ cakes, lemon tarts, Maimuni tarts, ‘Zainab’s combs’, sugar fingers and ‘qadis’ snacks’.
Every type of pastry was piled on to a plate and put into the basket, at which the porter exclaimed: ‘If you had told me, I’d have brought a donkey with me to carry all this stuff.’ The girl smiled and gave him a cuff on the back of the neck. ‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Don’t talk so much and you will get your reward, if God Almighty wills it.’ Then she stopped at the perfume seller’s where she bought ten types of scented water – including rosewater, orange-flower water, waters scented with water lilies and with willow flowers – two sugar loaves, a bottle of musk-scented rosewater, a quantity of frankincense, aloes, ambergris, musk and Alexandrian candles. All of these she put in the basket, telling the porter to pick it up and follow her.
He carried his basket and followed her to a handsome house, overlooking a spacious courtyard. It was a tall, pillared building, whose door had two ebony leaves, plated with red gold. The girl halted by the door, raised the veil from her face and knocked lightly, while the porter remained standing behind her, his thoughts occupied with her beauty. The door opened and, as its leaves parted, the porter looked at the person who had opened it. He saw a lady of medium height, with jutting breasts, beautiful, comely, resplendent, with a perfect and well-proportioned figure, a radiant brow, red cheeks and eyes rivalling those of a wild cow or a gazelle. Her eyebrows were like the crescent moon of the month of Sha‘ban; she had cheeks like red anemones, a mouth like the seal of Solomon, coral red lips, teeth like camomile blossoms or pearls on a string, and a gazelle-like neck. Her bosom was like an ornate fountain, with breasts like twin pomegranates; she had an elegant belly and a navel that could contain an ounce of unguent. She was as the poet described:
Look at the sun and the moon of the palaces,
At the jewel in her nose and at her flowery splendour.
Your eye has not seen white on black
United in beauty as in her face and in her hair.
She is rosy-cheeked; beauty proclaims her name,
Even if you are not fortunate enough to know of her.
She swayed and I laughed in wonder at her haunches,
But her waist prompted my tears.
As the porter stared at her, he lost his wits and the basket almost fell from his head. ‘Never in my life,’ he repeated, ‘have I known a more blessed day than this!’ The girl who had answered the door said to the other, who had brought the provisions: ‘Come in and take the basket from this poor porter.’ So the two girls went in, followed by the porter, and they went on until they reached a spacious, well-designed and beautiful courtyard, with additional carvings, vaulted chambers and alcoves, and furnished with sofas, wardrobes, cupboards and curtains. In the middle of it was a large pool filled with water on which floated a skiff, and at its
upper end was a couch of juniper wood studded with gems over which was suspended a mosquito net of red satin, the buttons of whose fastenings were pearls as big as or bigger than hazelnuts.
From within this emerged a resplendent girl of pleasing beauty, glorious as the moon, with the character of a philosopher. Her eyes were bewitching, with eyebrows like bent bows; her figure was slender and straight as the letter alif; her breath had the scent of ambergris; her lips were carnelian red, sweet as sugar; and her face would shame the light of the radiant sun. She was like one of the stars of heaven, a golden dome, an unveiled bride or a noble Bedouin lady, as described by the poet:
It is as though she smiles to show stringed pearls,
Hailstones or flowers of camomile.
The locks of her hair hang black as night,
While her beauty shames the light of dawn.
This third girl rose from the couch and walked slowly to join her sisters in the centre of the hall. ‘Why are you standing here?’ she said. ‘Take the basket from the head of this poor porter.’ The provision buyer or housekeeper came first, followed by the doorkeeper, and the third girl helped them to lower the basket, after which they emptied out its contents and put everything in its place. Then they gave the porter two dinars and told him to be off. For his part, he looked at the lovely girls, the most beautiful he had ever seen, with their equally delightful natures. There were no men with them and, as he stared in astonishment at the wine, the fruits, the scented blossoms and all the rest, he was reluctant to leave. ‘Why don’t you go?’ asked the girl. ‘Do you think that we didn’t pay you enough?’ and with that, she turned to her sister and said: ‘Give him another dinar.’ ‘By God, lady,’ said the porter, ‘it was not that I thought that the payment was too little, for my fee would not come to two dirhams, but you have taken over my heart and soul. How is it that you are alone with no men here and no pleasant companion? You know that there must be four to share a proper feast and women cannot enjoy themselves except with men. As the poet says:
Do you not see that four things join for entertainment –
Harp, lute, zither and pipe,
Matched by four scented flowers –
Rose, myrtle, gillyflower, anemone.
These only become pleasant with another four –
Wine, gardens, a beloved and some gold.
There are three of you and so you need a fourth, who must be a man of intelligence, sensible, clever and one who can keep a secret.’
The three girls were surprised by what the porter said, and they laughed at him and asked: ‘Who can produce us a man like that? We are girls and are afraid of entrusting our secrets to someone who would not keep them. We have read in an account what the poet Ibn al-Thumam once said:
Guard your secret as you can, entrusting it to none,
For if you do, you will have let it go.
If your own breast cannot contain your secret,
How is it to be held by someone else?
And Abu Nuwas has said:
Whoever lets the people know his secret
Deserves a brand imprinted on his forehead.’
When the porter heard what they said, he exclaimed: ‘By God, I am an intelligent and a trustworthy man; I have read books and studied histories; I make public what is good and conceal what is bad. As the poet says:
Only the trustworthy can keep a secret,
And it is with the good that secrets are concealed.
With me they are kept locked inside a room
Whose keys are lost and whose door has been sealed.’
When the girls heard this quotation, they said: ‘You know that we have spent a great deal of money on this place. Do you have anything with you which you can use to pay us back? We shall not let you sit with us as our companion and to look on our comely and beautiful faces until you pay down some money. Have you not heard what the author of the proverb said: “Love without cash is worthless”?’ The doorkeeper said: ‘My dear, if you have something, you are someone, but if you have nothing, then go without anything.’ At that point, however, the housekeeper said: ‘Sisters, let him be. For, by God, he has not failed us today, whereas someone else might not have put up with us, and whatever debt he may run up, I will settle for him.’ The porter was delighted and thanked her, kissing the ground, but the girl who had been on the couch said: ‘By God, we shall only let you sit with us on one condition, which is that you ask no questions about what does not concern you, and if you are inquisitive you will be beaten.’ ‘I agree, lady,’ said the porter. ‘I swear by my head and my eye, and here I am, a man with no tongue.’
The housekeeper then got up, tucked up her skirts, set out the wine bottles and strained the wine. She set green herbs beside the wine-jar and brought everything that might be needed. She then brought out the wine-jar and sat down with her two sisters, while the porter, sitting between the three of them, thought he must be dreaming. From the wine-jar that she had fetched she filled a cup, drank it, and followed it with a second and a third. Then she filled the cup and passed it to her sister and finally to the porter. She recited:
Drink with pleasure and the enjoyment of good health,
For this wine is a cure for all disease.
The porter took the cup in his hand, bowed, thanked her and recited:
Wine should be drunk beside a trusted friend,
One of pure birth from the line of old heroes.
For wine is like the wind, sweet if it passes scented flowers,
But stinking if it blows over a corpse.
Then he added:
Take wine only from a fawn,
Subtle in meaning when she speaks to you,
Resembling the wine itself.
After he had recited these lines, he kissed the hand of each of the girls. Then he drank until he became tipsy, after which he swayed and recited:
The only blood we are allowed to drink
Is blood that comes from grapes.
So pour this out for me, and may my life
And all I have, both new and old,
Serve to ransom your gazelle-like eyes.
Then the housekeeper took the cup, filled it and gave it to the doorkeeper, who took it from him with thanks and drank it. She then filled it for the lady of the house, before pouring another cup and passing it to the porter, who kissed the ground in front of her, thanked her and recited:
Fetch wine, by God; bring me the brimming glass.
Pour it for me; this is the water of life.
He then went up to the mistress of the house and said: ‘Lady, I am your slave, your mamluk and your servant.’ He recited:
By the door there stands a slave of yours,
Acknowledging your kindly charity.
May he come in, fair one, to see your loveliness?
I swear by love itself I cannot leave.
She replied: ‘Enjoy yourself, drink with pleasure and the well-being that follows the path of health.’ He took the cup, kissed her hand and chanted:
I gave her old wine, coloured like her cheeks,
Unmixed and gleaming like a fiery brand.
She kissed it and said, laughingly:
‘How can you pour us people’s cheeks?’
I said: ‘Drink: this comes from my tears;
Its redness is my blood;
My breath has heated it within the glass.’
She replied with the line:
Companion, if you have wept blood for me,
Pour it obediently for me to drink.
She then took the cup, drank it and sat down with her sister. They continued to drink, with the porter seated between them, and as they drank, they danced, laughed and sang, reciting poems and lyrics. The porter began to play with them, kissing, biting, rubbing, feeling, touching and taking liberties. One of them would give him morsels to eat, another would cuff him and slap him, and the third would bring him scented flowers. With them he was enjoying the pleasantest of times, as though he was seated among the houris of Pa
radise.
They went on in this way until the wine had taken its effect on their heads and their brains. When it had got the upper hand of them, the doorkeeper stood up, stripped off her clothes until she was naked, and letting down her hair as a veil, she jumped into the pool. She sported in the water, ducking her head and then spitting out the water, after which she took some in her mouth and spat it over the porter. She washed her limbs and between her thighs, after which she came out from the water and threw herself down on his lap. ‘My master, my darling, what is the name of this?’ she said, pointing to her vagina. ‘Your womb,’ he replied. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Have you no shame?’ and she seized him by the neck and started to cuff him. ‘Your vagina,’ he said, and she cuffed him again on the back of his neck, saying: ‘Oh! Oh! How disgusting! Aren’t you ashamed?’ ‘Your vulva,’ he replied. ‘Do you feel no shame for your honour?’ and she struck him a blow with her hand. ‘Your hornet,’ he said, at which the lady of the house pounced on him and beat him, saying: ‘Don’t speak like that.’
With every new name that he produced, the girls beat him more and more, until the back of his neck had almost dissolved under their slaps. They were laughing among themselves, until he asked: ‘What do you call it, then?’ ‘The mint of the dykes,’ replied the doorkeeper. ‘Thank God, I am safe now,’ said the porter. ‘Good for you, mint of the dykes.’ Then the wine was passed round again, and the housekeeper got up, took off her clothes and threw herself on to the porter’s lap. ‘What is this called, light of my eyes?’ she asked, pointing at her private parts. ‘Your vagina,’ he said. ‘Oh, how dirty of you!’ she exclaimed, and she struck him a blow that resounded around the hall, adding: ‘Oh! Oh! Have you no shame?’ ‘The mint of the dykes,’ he said, but blows and slaps still rained on the back of his neck. He tried another four names, but the girls kept on saying: ‘No, no!’ ‘The mint of the dykes,’ he repeated, and they laughed so much that they fell over backwards. Then they fell to beating his neck, saying: ‘No, that’s not its name.’ He said: ‘O my sisters, what is it called?’ ‘Husked sesame,’ they said. Then the housekeeper put her clothes back on and they sat, drinking together, with the porter groaning at the pain in his neck and shoulders.
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1 Page 9