The girl then said to me: ‘ ‘Aziz, which do you prefer – death or life?’ ‘Life,’ I said. ‘In that case,’ she replied, ‘marry me.’ ‘I don’t want to marry someone like you,’ I objected, but she went on: ‘If you marry me, you will be safe from the daughter of Delilah the wily.’ When I asked who this might be, she laughed and said: ‘The girl with whom you have now been keeping company for a year and four months – may God Almighty destroy her and afflict her with someone worse than herself! By God, there is no one more cunning than she. How many people has she killed already and what deeds she has done! How is it that you have escaped after such a long time in her company without her killing you or plunging you into confusion?’
Astonished by this, I asked her how she knew the girl. ‘I know her as Time knows its calamities,’ she replied, and she went on to ask me to tell her everything that had happened between us so that she could find out how I had managed to escape unharmed. I told her the full story of my dealings with the girl and with my cousin ‘Aziza. She invoked God’s pity on ‘Aziza, shedding tears and striking her hands together at the news of her death and exclaiming: ‘She sacrificed her youth in the path of God, and may He compensate you well for her loss! By God, ‘Aziz, she died and it was because of her that you were saved from the daughter of Delilah the wily, for had it not been for her you would have perished. I am afraid that you may still fall victim to her evil wiles, but my mouth is blocked and I am silenced.’ ‘Yes, by God,’ I told her, ‘all this happened.’ She shook her head, saying: ‘There is no one now to match ‘Aziza.’ I replied: ‘On her deathbed she told me to quote these two sayings, and nothing else, to the girl: “Loyalty is good; treachery is bad.” ’ On hearing this, the girl said: ‘ ‘Aziz, these are the two sayings that saved you from being killed by her, and now I am reassured about you, for she is not going to kill you, as your cousin has saved you both in life and in death. By God, day after day I have been wanting you, but it is only now, when I played a successful trick on you, that I have been able to get you. For you are still inexperienced, and you don’t know the wiles of young women and the disasters brought about by old ones.’
I agreed with this and she told me that I could be cheerful and happy, ‘For the dead have found God’s mercy and the living will meet with kindness. You are a handsome young man and I only want you in accordance with the law of God and His Apostle – may God bless him and give him peace. Whatever money or materials you may want will be quickly brought to you; I shall not impose any tasks on you; in my house there is always bread baking and water in the jug. All I want you to do with me is what the cock does.’ ‘What is it that the cock does?’ I asked. She clapped her hands and laughed so much that she fell over backwards. Then she sat up, smiled and said: ‘Light of my eyes, do you really not know what the cock does?’ ‘No, by God, I don’t,’ I replied. ‘His business is eating, drinking and copulating,’ she said. I was embarrassed by this and said: ‘Is that really so?’ ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and I want you to gird yourself, strengthen your resolve and copulate as hard as you can.’
She then clapped her hands and said: ‘Mother, bring out the people who are with you.’ The old woman then came forward with four notaries, bringing with her a piece of silk. She lit four candles and the notaries greeted me and took their seats. The girl got up and veiled herself, after which she empowered one of the notaries to act for her in drawing up the marriage contract. This was written down and she testified on her own behalf that she had received her whole dowry, both the first and the second payment, and that she was holding for me the sum of ten thousand dirhams.
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the one hundred and twenty-fourth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that THE YOUNG MAN TOLD TAJ AL-MULUK:
When the marriage contract was drawn up, she testified on her own behalf that she had received her whole dowry, both the first and the second payment, and that she was holding for me the sum of ten thousand dirhams. She then paid the notaries their fees and they went back to where they had come from. After that she got up, and after taking off her outer clothes, she came forward in a delicate chemise, embroidered with gold. She then pulled off her drawers and, taking me by the hand, she got up on top of the couch with me. ‘There is no shame in what is legal,’ she said, as she lay there, spreading herself out on her back. Dragging me down on to her breast, she moaned and followed the moan with a coquettish wriggle. She then pulled up her chemise above her breasts and when I saw her like that I could not restrain myself. I thrust into her, after sucking her lip. She cried ‘Oh!’ and pretended tearful submissiveness, but without shedding tears. ‘Do it, my darling,’ she said, reminding me as she did so of the poet’s lines:
When she lifted her dress to show her private parts,
I found what was as narrow as my patience and my livelihood.
I put it half in and she sighed.
‘Why this sigh?’ I asked, and she said: ‘For the rest.’
‘Finish off, darling,’ she said. ‘I am your slave. Please, give me all of it; give it to me so that I can take it in my hand and put it right into me.’ She kept on uttering love cries, with tears and moans, while kissing and embracing me, until, as the noise we were making approached its climax, we achieved our happiness and fulfilment. We slept until morning, when I wanted to go out, but she came up to me laughing and said: ‘Oh, oh, do you think that to enter the baths is the same as to leave them? You seem to think that I am like the daughter of Delilah the wily. Beware of any such thought. You are my lawfully wedded husband, and if you are drunk you had better sober up, for the house where you are is only open on one day in the year. Go and look at the great door.’
I went to it and found that it had been nailed shut, and when I returned and told her that, she said: ‘ ‘Aziz, we have enough flour, grain, fruit, pomegranates, sugar, meat, sheep, poultry and so on to last for many years. The door will not be opened until a year from now, and up till then you will not find yourself outside this house.’ I recited the formula: ‘There is no might and no power except with God,’ and she replied: ‘What harm will this do you when you remember what I told you about of the work of the cock?’ She laughed and I joined in her laughter. In obedience to her instructions, I stayed with her, acting the part of the cock – eating, drinking and copulating – until twelve months had passed. By the end of the year, she had conceived and given birth to my son.
At the start of the new year, I heard the sound of the door being opened and found men bringing in sweet cakes, flour and sugar. I was on the point of going out when my wife said to me: ‘Wait until evening and go out in the same way that you came in.’ So I waited and was again about to go out, despite being nervous and frightened, when she said to me: ‘By God, I am not going to let you out until I have made you swear that you will come back tonight before the door is closed.’ I agreed to this and swore a solemn oath by the sword, the Quran and the promise of divorce that I would come back to her. I then left her and went to the garden, which I found open as usual. I was angry and said to myself: ‘I have been absent from here for a whole year and yet when I come unexpectedly I find it open as usual. I wonder if the girl is still as she was before or not. It is now evening and I must go in to see before I go to my mother.’ So I entered the garden…
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the one hundred and twenty-fifth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that THE YOUNG MAN TOLD TAJ AL-MULUK:
I entered the garden and went to the garden room, where I found the daughter of Delilah the wily seated with her head on her knees and her hand on her cheek. Her colour had changed and her eyes were sunken, but when she saw me she exclaimed: ‘Praise be to God that you are safe!’ She wanted to get up but in her joy she collapsed. I was ashamed and hung my head, but then I went up to her, kissed her and
asked: ‘How did you know that I was going to come to you tonight?’ ‘I didn’t know,’ she replied, adding: ‘By God, it is a year since I enjoyed the taste of sleep, for every night I have stayed awake waiting for you. I have been like this since the day you left me. I had given you new clothes and you had promised me that you would go to the baths and then come back. I sat waiting for you on the first night, and then the second and then the third, but it is only after this time that you have come, although I have always been expecting you, in the way that lovers do. I want you to tell me why you left me all this year.’
I told her the story and when she heard that I was married, she turned pale. Then I said to her: ‘I have come to you tonight but I have to go before daybreak.’ ‘Wasn’t it enough for her,’ she said, ‘to have tricked you and married you, and imprisoned you with her for a year, that she made you swear by the promise of divorce to go back to her this same night before daybreak and she could not find the generosity to allow you to spend time with your mother or with me? She couldn’t bear the thought of your passing the night with either of us, away from her. How about the one whom you abandoned for a whole year, although I knew you before her? May God have mercy on your cousin ‘Aziza. No one else experienced what she did and she suffered what no one else could endure. She died because of the treatment to which you subjected her, and it is she who protected you from me. I thought you loved me and I let you go on your way, although I could have seen to it that you didn’t leave unscathed, or I could have kept you as a prisoner or killed you.’
Then she wept bitterly, shuddering with rage, looking at me with angry eyes. When I saw the state she was in, I trembled in fear; she was like a terrifying ghul and I was like a bean placed on a fire. ‘You are no use any more,’ she told me, ‘now that you are married and have a child. You are no longer suitable company for me; only bachelors are of use, while married men serve no purpose for me at all. You sold me for a bundle of filth and I am going to make that whore sorry, as you won’t be here, either for me or for her.’
She gave a loud cry, and before I knew what was happening, ten slave girls had come and thrown me on the ground. While they held me down, she got up, took a knife and said: ‘I am going to cut your throat as one would kill a goat, and this is the least repayment you can expect for what you did to me and to your cousin before me.’ When I saw the position I was in, held down by the slave girls, with my cheeks rubbed in the dust, and the knife being sharpened, I was sure that I was going to die.
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the one hundred and twenty-sixth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that the vizier Dandan told Dau’ al-Makan that the young man said to taj al-muluk:
I found myself held down by the slave girls, with my cheeks rubbed in the dust and the knife being sharpened. Certain that I was going to die, I implored her to help me, but this only added to her mercilessness. She told the slave girls to pinion me, which they did, and they threw me on my back, sitting on my stomach and holding my head. Two of them sat on my shins while another two held my hands, and their mistress then came up with two more, whom she ordered to beat me. They did this until I lost consciousness and could not speak, and when I recovered I said to myself: ‘It would be better for me to have my throat cut as this would be easier to bear than this beating.’ I remembered that my cousin had been in the habit of saying: ‘May God protect you from her evil,’ and I shrieked and wept until my voice failed me and I was left without feeling or breath.
She sharpened the knife and told her girls to bare my throat. Then God inspired me to quote the two sayings that my cousin had told me and recommended to me, and so I said: ‘My lady, don’t you know that loyalty is good and treachery is evil?’ On hearing this, she cried out and said: ‘May God have mercy on you, ‘Aziza, and reward you with Paradise in exchange for your youth.’ Then she said to me: ‘ ‘Aziza helped you both in her lifetime and after her death, and by these two sayings she has saved you from me. But I cannot let you go like this; I must leave a mark on you in order to hurt that shameless whore who has kept you away from me.’
She called out to her girls, telling them to tie my legs with rope and after that to sit on top of me, which they did. She left me and fetched a copper pan, which she put on top of a brazier. She poured in sesame oil and fried some cheese in it. I knew nothing of what was happening until she came up to me, undid my trousers and tied a rope round my testicles. She held the rope, but then gave it to two of her slave girls, telling them to pull. They both pulled and I fainted with the pain, losing all touch with this world. She then came with a steel razor and cut off my penis, so that I was left like a woman, and, while I was still unconscious, she cauterized the wound and rubbed it with powder.
When I came to my senses, the flow of blood had stopped and she told the slave girls to untie me. Then, after giving me a cup of wine to drink, she said: ‘You can go now to the one whom you married and who grudged me one single night. May God have mercy on your cousin, who is the reason why you have escaped with your life. She never revealed her secret, and if you had not quoted her two sayings, I would have cut your throat. Go off now to anyone you want. There is nothing that I needed from you except what I have cut off. You have nothing more for me, and I neither want you or need you. Get up, touch your head and invoke God’s mercy on your cousin.’ She then kicked me and I got up, but I could not walk properly and so I moved very slowly to the door of my house, which I found open. I threw myself down there in a faint and my wife came out and carried me into the hall, where she found that I had been emasculated. I fell into a deep sleep and when had I recovered my senses, I found that I had been thrown down by the garden gate.
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the one hundred and twenty-seventh night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that the vizier Dandan told Dau’ al-Makan that the young man said to taj al-muluk:
When I had recovered my senses, I found that I had been thrown down by the garden gate. I got up and walked home, moaning with grief, and when I went in I found my mother weeping for me and saying: ‘My son, I wonder in what land you are.’ I threw myself on her and when she looked at me and felt me, she discovered that I was unwell, with a mixture of pallor and blackness on my face. I thought of my cousin and the good that she had done me and I was certain that she had loved me. So I wept for her, as did my mother. My mother then told me that my father had died, and as my grief and anger increased, I wept until I fainted. When I had recovered, I looked at where my cousin had used to sit, and I wept again, again almost fainting because of the violence of my grief, and I continued to weep and sob until half the night had passed.
My mother told me that it was ten days since my father had died, but I said to her: ‘I cannot think of anyone except my cousin. I deserve everything that has happened to me for having neglected her in spite of the fact that she loved me.’ My mother then asked: ‘And what did happen to you?’ so I told her the story. She wept for a time and then got up and fetched me some food. I ate a little and drank and then repeated my story, telling her everything that had happened to me. ‘Praise be to God,’ she said, ‘that it was this rather than a cut throat that you suffered.’ She then tended me and treated me until I was cured and restored to full health.
‘My son,’ she then said, ‘I shall now fetch out what your cousin left with me as a deposit, for it is yours, and she made me swear that I would not produce it for you until I saw that you remembered her, mourned her and had cut your ties with other women. Now I know that you have fulfilled the condition.’ She got up, opened a chest and produced this piece of material that has on it the picture of this gazelle, and it was the daughter of Delilah who had given it to me in the first place. When I took it, I found embroidered on it the following verses:
Mistress of beauty, who prompted you to turn away,
So that you killed a pining lover through excessive love?
If after parting you have not remembered me,
God knows that I have not forgotten you.
You torture me, falsely accusing me, but your torture is sweet.
Will you be generous to me one day and allow me to see you?
Before I fell in love with you, I did not think
That love held sickliness and torment for the soul.
This was before my heart was stirred by passion
And I became a prisoner of love, ensnared by your glance.
The censurer pitied me, lamenting the state love brought me to,
But you, Hind, never have lamented one who pined for you.
By God, were I to die, I would not be consoled for you, who are my hope;
Were passion to destroy me, I would not forget.
On reading these lines, I wept bitterly, slapping my face. As I opened up the cloth, a piece of paper fell out of it, and when I opened it, I found written on it: ‘Cousin, know that I do not hold you to blame for my death, and I hope that God will grant you good fortune in your dealings with your beloved. But if something happens to you at the hands of the daughter of Delilah the wily, do not go back to her or to any other woman, but endure your misfortune. Had it not been that your allotted span is an extended one, you would have died long ago. Praise be to God who has allowed me to die before you. I give you my greetings. Keep this piece of material with the picture of the gazelle and never part from it, for the picture used to console me when you were absent…’
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1 Page 69