For there is no good in a love that is opposed.’
Then he told the slave: ‘Strike, Sa‘d.’ When the slave was sure that his master meant what he said, he sat over me and said: ‘Lady, recite the confession of faith, and if there is anything that you want done, tell me, for this is the end of your life.’ ‘Wait a little, good slave,’ I said, ‘so that I can give you my last instructions.’ Then I raised my head and saw the state that I was in and how I had fallen from greatness to degradation. My tears flowed and I wept bitterly, but my husband recited angrily:
Say to one who has tired of union and turned from me,
Being pleased to take another partner in love:
‘I had enough of you before you had enough of me,
And what has passed between us is enough for me.’
When I heard that, Commander of the Faithful, I wept and, looking at him, I recited:
You have abandoned me in my love and have sat back;
You have left my swollen eyelids sleepless and have slept.
You made a pact between my eyes and sleeplessness.
My heart does not forget you, nor are my tears concealed.
You promised to be faithful in your love,
But played the traitor when you won my heart.
I loved you as a child who did not know of love,
So do not kill me now that I am learning it.
I ask you in God’s Name that, if I die,
You write upon my tomb: ‘Here lies a slave of love.’
It may be that a sad one who knows love’s pangs
Will pass this lover’s heart of mine and feel compassion.
On finishing these lines, I shed more tears, but when my husband heard them and saw my tears, he became even angrier and recited:
I left the darling of my heart not having tired of her,
But for a sin that she was guilty of.
She wanted a partner to share in our love,
But my heart’s faith rejects a plural god.
When he had finished his lines, I pleaded with him tearfully, telling myself that if I could get round him with words, he might spare my life, even if he were to take everything that I had. So I complained to him of my sufferings and recited:
Treat me with justice and do not kill me;
The sentence of separation is unjust.
You loaded me with passion’s heavy weight,
Although even one shirt is too much for my strength.
I am not surprised that my life should be lost;
My wonder is how, after your loss, my body can be recognized.
I finished the lines weeping, but he looked at me and rebuffed and reviled me, reciting:
You left me for another and made clear
You were forsaking me; this is not how we were.
I shall abandon you as you abandoned me,
Enduring without you as you endure my loss.
I cease to occupy myself with you,
For you have occupied yourself with someone else.
The severance of our love is set at your door, not at mine.
On finishing these lines, he shouted at the slave: ‘Cut her in half and let us be rid of her, for there is no good to be got from her.’ While we were sparring with each other in this exchange of verses and I had become certain I would die, despairing of life and commending my affair to Almighty God, suddenly in came the old woman, who threw herself at my husband’s feet, kissed them and said tearfully: ‘My son, I have brought you up and served you. I conjure you by this to spare this girl, for she has not committed a crime that deserves death. You are very young and I am afraid lest she involve you in sin – as the saying goes, “Every killer is killed.” What is this slut? Cast her off from you, from your mind and from your heart.’ Then she wept and she kept on pressing him until he agreed and said: ‘I shall spare her life, but I must mark her in a way that will stay with her for the rest of her life.’ On his orders, the slaves then dragged me off, stripped me of my clothes and stretched me out. They sat on me while he fetched a rod from a quince tree and set about beating me. He went on striking my back and sides so severely that I lost consciousness, giving up hope of life. He then told the slaves that when night fell they should take the old woman with them as a guide, carry me off and throw me into my old house. They did as they were told and after throwing me into the house, they went off.
It was not until daybreak that I recovered from my faint and I then tried to soothe my wounds, treating my body with salves and medicines. As you can see, my ribs continued to look as though they had been struck with clubs, and for four months I remained weak and bedridden, tending to my own wounds until I recovered and was cured. I then went to the house that had been the scene of my downfall, only to find it ruined and reduced to a pile of rubble, with the lane in which it stood totally demolished. I could find no news of what had happened and so I came to my half-sister, with whom I found these two black bitches. After greeting her, I told her everything that had happened to me. ‘My sister,’ she said, ‘who is unscathed by the misfortunes of Time? Praise be to God who brought a safe ending to this affair,’ and she started to recite:
This is how Time acts, so show endurance
Whether you be stripped of wealth or parted from your love.
She then told me her own story, of what had happened to her with her sisters and how they had ended up. I stayed there with her and the word ‘marriage’ never crossed our lips. We were then joined by this girl who acts as our housekeeper, going out each day to buy what we need for the next twenty-four hours. Things went on like this until last night. Our sister had gone out as usual to buy our food when she returned with the porter, and the three dervishes arrived shortly afterwards. We talked with them, brought them in and treated them well. After only a little of the night had passed, we were joined by three respectable merchants from Mosul. They told us their story and we talked with them, but we had imposed a condition on all our visitors, which they broke. We paid them back for this breach and asked them all for their stories, which they recited. We then forgave them and they left. Today, before we knew what was happening, we were brought before you. This is our story.
The caliph was filled with amazement at this and had the account written down and placed in his archives.
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the nineteenth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O auspicious king, that the caliph ordered their story to be written down in the records and placed in the royal archives. He then asked the first girl: ‘Have you any news of the jinn lady who bewitched your sisters?’ ‘Commander of the Faithful,’ she replied, ‘she gave me a lock of her hair and told me that when I wanted her I should burn a single hair and she would come quickly, even if she were on the far side of Mount Qaf.’ The caliph asked her to produce the lock of hair, which she did, and he then took a single strand and burned it. When the smell of the burning spread, the palace was rocked by a tremor; there was a sound like a peal of thunder and there stood the lady. As she was a Muslim, she greeted the caliph, who replied: ‘Peace be on you and the mercy and blessings of God.’ ‘Know,’ she went on, ‘that this girl sowed the seed of gratitude for a good deed that she did me, for which I could not repay her, when she saved me from death and killed my enemy. I then saw what her sisters had done to her. At first I wanted to kill them but I was afraid that this might distress her, so then I thought that I should take revenge by turning them by magic into dogs. If you now want them to be set free, Commander of the Faithful, I shall release them as a favour to you and to her, for I am a Muslim.’ ‘Do so,’ he said, ‘and after that I shall begin to investigate the affair of the girl who was beaten. If it turns out that she was telling the truth, we shall avenge her on whoever wronged her.’
‘Commander of the Faithful,’ said the lady, ‘I shall release the two and then tell you who it was who wronged this girl and seized her wealth – someone who is your
closest relation.’ She then took a bowl of water, cast a spell over it and recited some unintelligible words. She sprinkled water on the faces of the two bitches and said: ‘Return to your former shapes as humans,’ which they did. ‘Commander of the Faithful,’ she then said, ‘the young man who beat the girl is your own son, al-Amin, the brother of al-Ma’mun. He had heard of her great beauty and set a trap for her. But he married her legally and was within his rights to beat her, as he had imposed a condition on her and got her to swear a solemn oath that she would do nothing to break it. Break it she did, however, and he was going to kill her, but for fear of God he beat her instead and sent her back to her own house. This is the story of the second girl, but God knows better.’
When the caliph heard what she had to say and learned how the girl had come to be beaten, he was filled with astonishment and said: ‘Glory be to God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent, Who has granted me the favour of learning this girl’s history and rescued these two others from sorcery and torture. By God, I shall do something that will be recorded after me.’ Then he had his son al-Amin brought before him and he questioned him about the second girl, questions to which al-Amin returned a truthful answer. He then brought in qadis and notaries, as well as the three dervishes, together with the first girl and her two sisters who had been bewitched. He married the three of them to the three dervishes, who had told him that they were kings, and whom he now appointed as chamberlains at his court, giving them all they needed and assigning them allowances, as well as lodgings in the palace of Baghdad. He returned the girl who had been beaten to his son al-Amin, renewing their marriage contract, giving her a great store of wealth and ordering that their house should be rebuilt with the greatest splendour. He himself married the housekeeper and slept with her that night and in the morning he gave her a chamber of her own among his concubines, together with slave girls to serve her and regular allowances. The people were astonished at his magnanimity, generosity and wisdom. His orders were that all these stories should be written down.
Dunyazad said to her sister: ‘Shahrazad, by God, no one has heard so fine and pleasant a story, but tell me another to pass what remains of this wakeful night.’ ‘Willingly,’ Shahrazad replied, ‘if the king gives me leave.’ ‘Tell your story at once,’ he said, AND SHE BEGAN:
It is said, king of the age and lord of our times, that one night the caliph Harun al-Rashid summoned his vizier Ja‘far and said: ‘I want to go down into the city to ask the common people about the governors who have charge of them, so as to depose any of whom they complain and promote those to whom they are grateful.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ replied Ja‘far.
So the caliph, Ja‘far and Masrur left the palace and made their way through the city, walking in the markets and streets until they passed a lane. There they saw a very old man carrying on his head a fishing net and a basket, and holding a stick in his hand. He was walking slowly and reciting:
They said to me: ‘Among mankind
You with your wisdom are a moonlit night.’
I said: ‘Do not say this to me;
There is no wisdom without power.
Were they to try to pawn me and my wisdom,
Together with my books and my inkstand,
For one day’s worth of food, it would not work
And such a bargain would be thought contemptible.
The poor, their state, their life,
How dark they are with troubles!
In summer they cannot find food, and in the cold
They have to warm themselves over a brazier.
Street dogs attack them and they are the butt
Of every despicable man.
When one of them complains about his lot,
There is none to excuse him among all mankind
Such is the life of the poor man;
It will be best for him when he is in his grave.’
When the caliph heard what the man was reciting, he said to Ja‘far: ‘Look at this man and note his verses, which show that he is in need.’ The caliph then went up to the man and said: ‘Shaikh, what is your craft?’ ‘I am a fisherman,’ he replied. ‘I left home at midday, but up till now God has not provided me with anything with which I can feed my family. I am tired of life and I wish that I were dead.’ ‘Would you go back with us to the Tigris, stand on the bank and trust in my luck as you cast your net. Whatever comes up I will buy for a hundred dinars.’ When he heard this, the old man agreed with delight. He went with the three of them back to the river, cast his net and waited before pulling in the cord and dragging it in. Up it came with a heavy, locked chest. The caliph looked at the chest, handled it and noted its weight, after which he gave the fisherman his hundred dinars, and the man went off.
The caliph himself then left, accompanied by Masrur, who was carrying the chest, and they brought it up to the palace. Candles were lit and after the chest had been placed in front of the caliph, Ja‘far and Masrur came forward and broke it open. In it they found a basket of palm leaves sewn up with threads of red wool, and after they had cut this open, they found a carpet. When they had lifted this out, they discovered a shawl and wrapped in this was a girl like a silver ingot, who had been killed and cut in pieces – a sight that so distressed the caliph that his tears flowed over his cheeks. He turned to Ja‘far and said: ‘Dog of a vizier, are people to be murdered and thrown into the river during my reign, so that I am to be held responsible for them on the Day of Judgement? By God, I must make the murderer pay for this girl’s death and I shall put him to the most cruel of deaths.’ He then told Ja‘far in his furious rage: ‘It is as true as is my descent from the ‘Abbasid caliphs that if you do not produce the murderer for my justice, I will hang you at the palace gate together with forty of your cousins.’
Before leaving his presence, Ja‘far asked for a three-day delay, which the caliph granted. He then went down sadly into the city, saying to himself: ‘How can I find out who killed this girl and bring him to the caliph? If I bring the wrong person, I shall be held responsible for him. I don’t know what to do.’ For three days, he sat at home and on the fourth the caliph sent a chamberlain to fetch him. When he came to the caliph and was asked where the murderer was, he said: ‘Commander of the Faithful, am I the monitor of murder victims that I should know who killed the girl?’ The caliph was enraged and gave orders that he should be hanged below the palace. A town crier was ordered to call out in the streets of Baghdad: ‘Whoever wants to see the hanging of Ja‘far the Barmecide, the caliph’s vizier, and the hanging of his Barmecide cousins at the palace gate, let him come to watch.’ People came out from all quarters of the city to see the execution, although they did not know why the Barmecides were being hanged. The gallows were set up and the victims were made to stand beneath.
The executioners were waiting for the agreed signal from the caliph and the crowd was weeping for Ja‘far and his cousins. At this point, however, out came a young man – handsome, well dressed, with a face bright as the moon, dark eyes, radiant forehead, red cheeks and a mole like a disc of ambergris. He cleared a way for himself through the people and kept on until he stood before Ja‘far. ‘Lord of the emirs and shelterer of the poor,’ he said, ‘you are saved from this plight. The killer of the murdered girl whom you found in the chest is I, so hang me in retaliation for her death and take revenge for her on me.’
When Ja‘far heard this, he was glad that he himself had escaped death, but he felt sorry for the young man. While they were talking, an old man, stricken in years, made his way through the crowd until he reached the two of them. He greeted them and said: ‘My lord, great vizier, don’t believe what this young man says. No one but I killed the girl, so avenge her death on me; if you do not, I will demand justice from you in the presence of Almighty God.’ ‘Vizier,’ said the youth, ‘this is the maundering of an old man who doesn’t know what he is saying. It was I and I alone who killed her, so make me pay for her death.’ ‘My son,’ said the old man, ‘you are young and this world is st
ill attractive to you, while I am old and have had my fill of it. I shall give my life to ransom you and I shall ransom the vizier and his cousins, for I killed the girl and I conjure you by God to hang me quickly, as there is no life for me now that she is dead.’
The vizier was astonished to see what was happening and he took the young man and the old one to the caliph. He kissed the ground and said: ‘Commander of the Faithful, I have brought you the murderer of the girl.’ ‘Which is he?’ asked the caliph. ‘This young man says that he killed her, while the old man here says that that is a lie and that he himself is the killer. Here are the two of them before you.’ The caliph looked at them and asked: ‘Which of you did kill her?’ ‘I did,’ said the young man. ‘I am the killer,’ protested the old man. ‘Take the two of them,’ said the caliph to Ja‘far, ‘and hang them both.’ ‘If only one of them killed her,’ said Ja‘far, ‘then to hang the other would be unjust.’ The young man insisted: ‘By the truth of the One God Who raised up the heavens and spread out the earth, it was I who killed her and this was how she was killed.’ He described what the caliph had found, which made him sure that the young man was indeed the murderer.
Filled with wonder at what the two had said, the caliph asked the young man: ‘Why was it that you unjustly killed this girl and what led you to confess to the murder without being beaten? Why did you come yourself just now to tell me to avenge her on you?’ THE YOUNG MAN REPLIED:
You must know, Commander of the Faithful, that this girl was my cousin and my wife, while this old man is her father and my uncle. I married her when she was a virgin and God gave me three sons by her. She used to love me and wait on me and I saw no fault in her, while I for my part loved her dearly. At the beginning of this month, she fell seriously ill, but I brought her doctors and gradually she got better. I wanted to take her to the baths but she said that before going, there was something that she wanted for which she had been longing. I said that I would willingly get it and asked what it was. ‘I have a longing for an apple,’ she said, ‘that I can smell and from which I can take a bite.’ I went straight away to the city and searched for apples, but I couldn’t find a single one to buy, even for a dinar. I went back home in distress and told my wife of my failure. This upset her; she had been weak before, and that night she became much weaker.
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1 Page 18