He agreed to this and went off, leaving me. I stayed sitting there, weeping and saying: ‘How can I go back to my family now that I have lost my hand and they don’t know that I am innocent? It may be that God will bring something to pass after this,’ and I went on to shed bitter tears. After the owner of the house had left me, I spent two days in a state of great distress and agitation. Then, on the third day, before I knew what was happening, he came back with a number of guards as well as the market superintendent, the man who claimed that I had stolen the necklace. I went out to meet them and asked: ‘What is the matter?’ Giving me no time to answer, they tied my arms and threw a chain around my neck. Then they told me that the necklace that had been in my possession had been taken to the governor of Damascus, who ruled the city as its vizier, and it appeared to have vanished from his palace three years ago, together with his daughter.
When I heard this, my heart sank, and I said to myself: ‘There is no doubt that I am a dead man. I must tell the governor my story, and if he wants, he can kill me, or otherwise he may pardon me.’ When we came to him, I was made to stand before him. Looking at me out of the corner of his eye, he said to the people there: ‘Why did you cut his hand off? This is an unfortunate man who has committed no crime and you have wronged him by doing this.’ When I heard what he said, I took courage and my spirits rose. ‘By God, sir,’ I said, ‘I am no thief. They brought this grave accusation against me and beat me with whips in the middle of the market, forcing me to confess. So I told a lie against myself and admitted the theft, although I was innocent.’ ‘No harm shall come to you,’ he said, and then he ordered the market superintendent to pay me compensation for my hand: ‘Or else I shall hang you and confiscate all your property.’ He then shouted to the officers, who seized the man and dragged him off, leaving me with the governor.
With his permission, guards removed the chain from my neck and untied my bonds. The governor looked at me and said: ‘My son, tell me the truth and explain to me how you got this necklace,’ and he recited:
You must speak the truth, even if this truth
Burns you with the promised fire of hell.
Promising that I would do this, I then told him what had happened to me with the first girl and how she had brought me the second, whose throat she had then cut in a fit of jealousy. When he had listened to the whole story as I told it, he shook his head, struck his right hand against his left and covered his face with his kerchief. For a time he wept and then he recited the lines:
I see the ills of this world crowding in on me.
Their victim remains sick until he dies.
Meetings of friends must end in their parting,
And the time before parting is short indeed.
He then came up to me and said: ‘My son, you must know that the elder girl was my daughter. I brought her up in strict seclusion and when she reached maturity, I sent her to Cairo, where she married her cousin. After his death she came back to me, but she had learned evil ways from the Egyptians and so it was that she went to you four times, finally bringing you her younger sister. They were full sisters and they loved each other deeply. After the elder had met you, she told her secret to her sister, who asked to go with her. When the elder came back alone, I asked her about her sister, and I found her weeping for her. Then she told her mother and myself in private how she had murdered the girl, and she kept on shedding tears and saying: ‘By God, I shall go on weeping for her until I die.’ That is how the matter stood, and now that you have seen what happened, I want you to agree to what I propose, which is to marry you to my youngest daughter. She is not a full sister of the other two and is a virgin. I shall not take any dowry from you; instead I shall make you an allowance and you can stay with me as my son.’ I agreed to this, saying: ‘How can it be that I have found such good fortune?’ The governor sent at once for the qadi and the notaries and he drew up the marriage contract, after which I consummated the marriage. He got a large amount of money for me from the market superintendent, and I occupied an honoured place at his court. My father died this year and the governor of Mosul sent a courier to bring me the money that he had left, and so today I am living in the greatest prosperity. This, then, is how I came to lose my right hand.
I was astonished at this story and I stayed with him for three days, after which he gave me a large sum of money. When I left him, I travelled to this city of yours, where I have enjoyed a good life, until I had this adventure with the hunchback.
‘This is no more wonderful than the tale of the hunchback,’ said the king of China, ‘and I must hang you – except that there is still the tailor who was responsible for the whole thing.’ He then told the tailor that if he produced a tale more remarkable than that of the hunchback he would pardon their crimes. At that the tailor came forward, AND HE SAID:
Know, king of the age, that my most remarkable experience happened yesterday. At the beginning of the day, before I met the hunchback, I was at a banquet given by one of my friends, at which about twenty guests had been collected from among the citizens of this place – craftsmen such as tailors and carpenters, together with silk merchants and others. At sunrise, food was set out for us to eat, and in came our host with a handsome young man, a stranger from Baghdad. He was wearing the finest of clothes and was remarkably good-looking, but he was lame. We stood up for him as he came in and greeted us, and he was about to take his seat when he caught sight of a barber who was with us. On seeing the man, he refused to sit down and attempted to leave. We tried to restrain him and the host held on to him, swearing that he should not go and asking: ‘Why do you come in and then go out?’ ‘By God, sir,’ replied the young man, ‘don’t try to stop me. I am going because of this ill-omened barber who is sitting there.’ The host was astonished to hear this and said: ‘How is it that this young man comes from Baghdad and yet is so upset by this barber?’ We looked at him and said: ‘Tell us why it is that you are angry with him.’
The young man then addressed us and said: ‘I had an encounter with this man in Baghdad, my native city, and it is he who is responsible for my lameness and for the breaking of my leg. I swore that I would never associate with him in any place or in any town in which he was living. I then left Baghdad and travelled away from it until I settled here, but this very night I shall set out again on my travels.’ We pressed him to tell us his story and the barber turned pale as the young man started to speak. ‘You should know,’ the young man explained to us, ‘that my father was one of the leading merchants of Baghdad and I was his only son.’ HE WENT ON:
When I had grown up and reached man’s estate, my father died, moving from this world to the mercy of Almighty God. He bequeathed me money, eunuchs and servants, and I began to dress and to eat well. God had endowed me with a hatred of women and so one day, when I was in one of the lanes of Baghdad and a group of women approached from the opposite direction, I ran off and went into a cul-de-sac, at the end of which I sat down on a stone bench.
Before I had been there for long, a window opened in the house opposite me and from it a girl like the full moon looked out, whose equal I had never seen in all my life. She was watering plants on her windowsill, and, after looking right and left, she shut the window and disappeared from view. Fire was kindled in my heart and my mind was consumed by her, my hatred for women turning to love. I went on sitting there in a trance until sunset, when the qadi of Baghdad rode up, with his black slaves before him and his eunuchs behind. On dismounting, he went into the house from which the girl had gazed, and I realized that this must be her father.
I went back sorrowfully to my own house and fell on my bed, full of care. My servant girls came in and sat around me, but they could not understand what was wrong with me and, as I said nothing to them, they wept over me and grieved. Then in came an old woman who, when she saw me, realized at once what the matter must be. She sat down by my head and spoke gently to me, saying: ‘My son, tell me about it and I shall see to it that you are united with her.
’ I told her my story and she said: ‘My son, this is the daughter of the qadi of Baghdad and she is kept in seclusion. The window where you saw her is on her floor of the building, while her father lives in a great hall beneath it. She sits by herself, but I often go to visit the house, and it is only through me that you can achieve union with her, so pluck up your courage.’
I took heart from her words – that was a day of joy for my household – and in the morning I felt better. The old woman went off, but when she came back, her colour had changed. ‘My son,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask what happened between me and the girl. When I had spoken to her about you, she said: “You ill-omened old woman. If you don’t stop talking like this, I shall treat you as you deserve.” But I must go back to her a second time.’
When I heard that, my sickness worsened, until after some days the old woman came back. ‘My son,’ she said. ‘You must reward me for bringing good news.’ This restored me to life and I said: ‘You may have everything that is good.’ At that, she went on: ‘I went to visit the girl yesterday and she could see that I was sad and tearful. “Aunt,” she asked, “why do you look so unhappy?” I wept and replied: “My lady, I have come to you from a young man who loves you and who is near to death because of you.” Her heart softened at this and she asked: “Where does he come from, this young man whom you have mentioned?” “He is like a son to me and the fruit of my heart. Some days ago, he saw you in the window when you were watering your plants, and after looking at your face, he fell deeply in love with you. The first time that I told him what you had said to me, his love sickness grew worse; he kept to his bed, and there can be no doubt that he is going to die.” She turned pale. “Is all this because of me?” she asked. “Yes, by God,” I said, “so what should I do?” She said: “Go to him; greet him from me and let him know that my love is twice as great as his. Then tell him to come to the house on Friday before prayers. When he gets here, I shall go down and open the door and bring him up to my room. He and I can be together for a time and he can leave before my father gets back from prayers.” ’
When I heard what the old woman had to say, the pain that I was feeling left me and my spirits recovered. I gave her the clothes that I was wearing and she went off, telling me to be of good heart. ‘I have no pain left at all,’ I replied, and my household and my friends were delighted by my recovery. I stayed like that until Friday, when the old woman came in and asked me how I was. I told her that I was in good health, and then I put on my clothes, perfumed myself and stayed waiting for the people to go to the mosque for prayers, so that I could then visit the girl. The old woman said: ‘You have plenty of time, so why not go to the baths and have your hair cut, especially after your serious illness? That would restore you.’ ‘A good idea,’ I said, ‘but I shall have my head shaved first and after that I will go to the baths.’
I then sent for a barber to shave my head, and I told my servant to fetch me an intelligent man, who would not be inquisitive and would not give me a headache with his constant chatter. My servant went off and the barber whom he fetched was this calamitous old man. He greeted me when he came in and I returned the greeting. ‘I see that you are very thin,’ he said. ‘I have been ill,’ I replied. ‘May God remove all your cares, your sorrows, your distress and your griefs,’ he said. ‘May He accept your prayer,’ I said. ‘Be of good cheer,’ he went on, ‘for good health has come to you. Do you want your hair to be trimmed or do you want to be bled? It is reported on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas – may God be pleased with him – that the Prophet said: “Whoever has his hair cut on a Friday is kept free of seventy diseases.” It is also recorded of him that he said: “Whoever is cupped on a Friday is preserved from loss of sight and from many diseases.” ’ ‘Stop talking,’ I told him, ‘and start shaving my head immediately, for I have been sick.’
He got up, stretched out his hand and, bringing out a kerchief, he unfolded it, revealing an astrolabe with seven plates set with silver. Taking this, he went to the middle of the house and raised his head towards the sun’s rays. After a long look, he said to me: ‘You must know that this day is Friday, that is the tenth of the month of Safar in the year 653 of the Prophet* – on whom be peace and the best of blessings – and the year 7320 dating from Alexander the Great, the ascendant planet, according to arithmetical calculation, being Mars. Of the day, eight degrees and six minutes have passed and, as it happens, Mars is in conjunction with Mercury. That shows that this is a good time for hair cutting and it also shows me that you are looking for union with someone and that this will be fortunate, but afterwards there will be words and something that I won’t mention to you.’ ‘By God,’ I told him, ‘you have driven me to distraction, lowered my spirits and produced an omen for me that is not good. I only asked you to cut my hair, so get on and do it and stop talking so much.’ ‘By God,’ he said, ‘if you know what is coming to you, you would not do anything today, and my advice is that you should act as I tell you, on the basis of my reading of the stars.’ ‘You are the only astrological barber whom I have ever met,’ I told him. ‘I can see that you have a fund of jokes, but I only asked you here to look after my hair, and instead you have produced all this rubbish.’
‘Do you need any more advice?’ he asked. ‘God in His bounty has provided you with a barber who is also an astrologer, a chemist, an expert in natural magic, grammar, morphology, philology, rhetoric, eloquence, logic, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, religious law, the traditions of the Prophet and the interpretation of the Quran. I have read the relevant books and studied them; I have a practical knowledge of affairs; I have committed to heart a perfect knowledge of the sciences; I am a theoretical and practical master of technical skill. There is nothing that I have not organized and undertaken. I was a favourite with your father because I am lacking in curiosity and it is because of this that I feel it an obligation to serve you. Whatever you think, I am not inquisitive and this is why I am known as “the silent and serious one”. What you should do is to praise God and not to oppose me, for the advice that I have to offer is good. I feel sympathy for you and I would like to be in your service for a whole year so that you might value me as I deserve, and I would not want any wages from you for that.’ When I heard that, I said: ‘Without a doubt you will be the death of me today.’
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the thirtieth night, she continued:
I have heard, O auspicious king, that the young man said: ‘You will be the death of me today.’ he went on:
‘Sir,’ the barber replied, ‘I am the man the people call the Silent because, unlike my six brothers, I speak so little. My eldest brother is known as the Babbler; the second is the Bellower; the third is the Jabberer; the fourth is the Aswan Jug; the fifth is the Talker; the sixth is the Prattler; while I, the seventh, am the Silent.’ While he kept on talking at me, I felt as though my gall bladder had split. I told my servant to give him quarter of a dinar, adding: ‘And for God’s sake, see that he leaves me, as I don’t need to have my head shaved after all.’ ‘What is this, master?’ the barber said when he overheard what I had been saying. ‘By God, I will take no fee from you until I have done something for you. I must do this, as it is my duty to serve you and do what you want, and I don’t care whether I get anything from you at all. Even if you don’t know how to value me, I know how to value you, and your father – may God Almighty have mercy on him – was generous to me, for he was a munificent man. He once sent for me on a fortunate day such as this, and when I came in, I found that he had a number of friends with him. He wanted me to bleed him, but I took my astrolabe and measured the angle of the ascendant star, which I found to be unlucky, making blood-letting under its influence to be inappropriate. I told him that, and he followed my advice and waited, and so I recited in his praise:
I went to my master to draw his blood,
But I found that the time did not conduce to health.
I sat and talked
to him of wonders of all kinds,
Unfolding before him my store of knowledge.
He admired what he heard from me and said:
“You have passed the bounds of understanding, you mine of learning.”
I said to him: “Lord of mankind, had you not poured
Understanding over me, mine would not have increased.
You are, it seems, a master of merit, generous and bountiful,
A treasure house of knowledge, understanding and clemency for all.”
Your father was pleased and told his servant to give me a hundred and three dinars as well as a robe of honour, which was handed to me, and when a propitious time came, I bled him. He did not ignore my recommendations but thanked me, as did all the company. After I had bled him, I could not stay silent, and I asked him to tell me why he had told the servant to give me a hundred and three dinars. ‘One dinar,’ he explained, ‘was for your astronomical observation and another for your conversation, the third was the fee for the blood-letting, and the hundred dinars and the robe of honour were the reward for your eulogy of me.’
‘May God have no mercy on my father,’ I exclaimed, ‘for knowing a man like you!’ The barber laughed and said: ‘There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Apostle of God, Who causes change but is not changed. I had thought that you were an intelligent man, but your illness has made you feeble-minded. God has referred in His Holy Book to “those who suppress their anger and those who forgive others”.* At any rate, you are forgiven, but I don’t know why you are in such a hurry. You know that neither your father nor your grandfather would do anything except on my advice. There is a common saying that “the advisor is to be trusted” and “whoever asks for advice is not disappointed”. There is also a proverb: “Whoever has no elder to help him will not himself be an elder.” As the poet has said:
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1 Page 29