He sat there for three days, but then suddenly the gate opened and out came a eunuch. This man saw Uns al-Wujud sitting there and asked him where he had come from and what had brought him. Uns al-Wujud told him that he had been bringing merchandise from Isfahan when his ship had been wrecked and he had been cast up on the island by the waves. The eunuch embraced him, burst into tears and greeted him as a friend, calling down blessings on him and telling him: ‘Isfahan is my own home. I had a cousin there with whom I was deeply in love when I was a young boy, but we were raided by people stronger than ourselves who took me off among their other spoils and, after castrating me, they sold me as a eunuch. This is my present state.’
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the three hundred and seventy-sixth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that the eunuch who had come out of the castle told Uns al-Wujud everything that had happened to him and said that his captors had castrated him and sold him as a eunuch, adding: ‘This is my present state.’ He then took Uns al-Wujud into the castle court, and when he entered he saw a large pool fringed with trees. On the branches were hung silver cages with golden doors in which birds were twittering and praising God, the King and Judge. He looked at the first of these that he came to and found that in it was a turtledove. When it saw him, the bird called out: ‘O noble one,’ causing him to faint. When he recovered consciousness he sighed deeply and recited these lines:
Turtledove, is your love as desperate as mine?
Pray to the Lord and coo ‘O noble one’;
Is this complaint of yours a song of joy,
Or is there passion living in your heart?
It may be that you sing for dear ones who have gone,
While you are left behind, wasted and ill.
It may be that, like me, your love is lost to you;
Rough treatment brings to light long-standing passion.
May God guard lovers who remain sincere;
For even as dry bones, I shall not forget my love.
After his recitation he burst into tears and fell down in a faint. Then, after he had recovered, he walked on until he came to the second cage, where he found a ringdove, which, on seeing him, chanted: ‘Eternal Lord, I thank you.’ With another deep sigh, Uns al-Wujud recited the lines:
A ringdove sang: ‘Eternal Lord, I thank you in my distress.’
It may be that God in His grace will let me voyage to my love.
Many a one with honey-sweet dark lips visited me,
Adding fresh love to the passion that I feel.
Fires have been kindled in my heart, burning my inmost parts;
And tears poured out like blood, flooding my cheeks.
I said: ‘No creature lives without distress, but my distress I can endure.
If, through God’s power, I meet my love one joyful day,
I shall give all I own as guest provision for those lost in love,
As it is they who follow on my path,
Freeing these birds who are imprisoned here,
And changing all my sorrows into joy.’
Having finished these lines he walked to the third cage, from which a nightingale called out when it saw him, and, on hearing this, he recited:
The lovely voice of this bird brings delight,
As though it came from a lover whom love has destroyed.
Pity the lovers in their restlessness,
Nightly disturbed by love, longing and distress.
This longing is so great that they seem born
Into a world without dawn, where grief allows no sleep.
When love for my beloved maddened me,
Passion fettered me and I was held in chains;
Tears flowed down from my eyes and I exclaimed:
‘My chains of tears are long and she chains me!’
Longing increased but my love was long gone;
The treasures of patience vanished; excess of passion destroyed me.
Should justice in this world unite me
With my beloved, cloaked by God’s protection,
I would strip off my clothes so she might see
How rejection, absence and abandonment have emaciated me.
After finishing these lines, Uns al-Wujud walked to the fourth cage where he found a bulbul, which, on seeing him, sang mournfully. He shed tears and recited:
The bulbul with magic in its voice
Distracts the lover from the sounds of strings.
Uns al-Wujud, the lover, here complains
Of a passion that has left no trace of him.
How many times I listen to melodies
That melt away hard iron and stones through joy.
The morning breezes speak to me
Of meadows where flowers bloom,
And I delight to smell the breeze and listen
To the dawn chorus of the birds.
Then I remember my lost love,
And tears pour down as flooding rain.
A flame of fire burns in my inward parts,
Like sparks from burning coal.
May God permit the lover in his passion
To see his love and taste the joy of union.
Lovers possess a clear excuse,
But only those who see can recognize excuse.
After having finished these lines, he walked on for a little until he caught sight of another cage unsurpassed for beauty by the others there. In this was a wood-pigeon, famous among birds for its love laments, and round its neck was a wonderfully arranged necklace of jewels. When he looked at it he saw that it appeared pale and distracted in its cage, and, seeing it in this condition, he shed tears and recited:
My greetings to you, wood-pigeon,
Brother of lovers, one of passion’s fellowship.
I myself love a slim gazelle,
Whose gaze cuts deeper than a sword edge can.
My heart and entrails are consumed by love;
My body wastes away with love’s sickness.
Pleasures of food are not allowed to me;
I cannot taste sweet sleep.
Patience has left me, as has consolation,
While love and passion stay.
How can my life be sweet now they have gone,
Who were my life, my object and my goal?
When he finished these lines…
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the three hundred and seventy-seventh night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that when he finished these lines the wood-pigeon appeared to be roused from its distraction, and, after listening to his recital, it replied with cooing notes as though it was using the universal language to recite:
Lover, you have brought back to me
A time when my youth perished,
And one I loved, the beauty of whose form
Surpassed all others, captivating me.
This love of mine sang on the hillock’s trees,
Distracting me with passion from sounds of the lute.
A hunter laid a snare and then trapped him;
He pleaded for freedom and to be released.
I hoped the hunter would show clemency,
Or, noticing my love, might pity me.
May God destroy him, for, instead,
He parted me with harshness from my love.
My passion for him has increased in strength,
Consuming me with fires of separation.
May God guard any ardent lover,
Constant in love, who endures grief like mine,
And, seeing me in my cage,
Will free me in pity for my beloved’s sake.
Uns al-Wujud turned to the Isfahani and asked him about the castle, its contents and its builder. The man told him: ‘It was built for his daughter by the vizier of King So-and-So, who feared lest she fall victim to the blows of fate and its calamities. He installed her here with
her attendants and we only open its gate once a year when provisions are brought in.’ Uns al-Wujud then told himself that he had achieved his goal, although there might be a long time to wait.
So much for him, but as for al-Ward, she had found no pleasure in eating, drinking, sitting or sleeping. She got up and, as the passion and intensity of her love increased, she wandered around the castle but could find no way out. She shed tears and recited:
They have kept me by force from my beloved,
Causing me to taste anguish in my prison.
They have burned my heart with fires of love,
Preventing me from seeing him.
They have imprisoned me in a mountain castle
Set in the middle of a sea.
They wanted to ensure that I forget,
But suffering only adds to the love I feel.
And how can I forget when this love of mine
Began as I looked on the beloved’s face?
All of my days are passed in grief;
My nights are spent in thoughts of him.
In my loneliness his memory is my friend,
When I despair of meeting him again.
Do you suppose that after all of this
Time will allow me to achieve my heart’s desire?
When she finished these lines she went up to the castle roof, where she took some robes of Baalbaki material, tied herself to them and then lowered herself to the ground. She was wearing the most splendid of her robes, with a jewelled necklace around her throat, and she walked through the empty countryside until she came to the shore. There she saw a fisherman who had been out fishing in his boat when the wind had driven him to the island. He turned and was so alarmed by the sight of her that he put out again in order to escape. She called to him, waving her hands again and again, and reciting these lines:
Fear no harm, fisherman; like others, I am human.
Please answer when I call and listen to my tale.
If you have ever looked at a loved one,
Take pity, may God guard you, on my burning love.
I love a handsome one whose face outshines both sun and moon.
When the gazelle saw his glance, it said:
‘I am his slave,’ confirming its inferiority.
On his cheek, beauty wrote its elegant epitome.
Whoever sees the light of guidance follows it,
And he who strays sins as an infidel.
Whoever uses him to torment me is welcome here;
Each meeting would bring rewards and then rewards,
Rubies and the like, fresh pearls and pearls of every kind.
Perhaps my beloved will fulfil my wish;
My heart melted with longing and then broke.
On hearing this the fisherman shed tears, sorrowfully remembering the days of his lost youth when he too had been a victim of love, experiencing the force of passion and ecstasy when the fires of longing consumed him. So he recited:
How clear is my excuse for love;
For I am sick, with flooding tears,
Eyes sleepless in the dark of night,
My heart a stick that kindles fire.
From my earliest days I tested love,
And learned to distinguish in it false from true.
In love I sold my soul
For union with a distant one.
I risked my life, hoping to profit from my sale.
It is the lovers’ creed that those who buy
Union with the beloved win more than mere profit.
When he finished his poem, he anchored his boat by the shore and told al-Ward to come on board, promising to take her wherever she wanted to go. She embarked and the fisherman set out with her, but when they were a little way from land an offshore breeze got up and quickly blew the boat out of sight of land, so that the fisherman could not tell where he was heading. For three days it blew violently until by God’s permission it dropped and the boat, with al-Ward and the fisherman, continued on its way until it reached a city on the coast…
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the three hundred and seventy-eighth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that the boat, with al-Ward and the fisherman, continued on its way until it reached a city on the coast where the fisherman proposed to anchor.
In this city was a powerful king named Dirbas, who happened just then to be sitting with his son in the royal palace, looking out of a window. When the two of them turned towards the sea, they caught sight of the fishing boat and, looking more closely, they saw that on board was a girl like a full moon on the horizon, wearing valuable ruby earrings and a necklace of precious gems. Dirbas, realizing that she must be the daughter of some great man or of a king, went down from his palace and out of the sea gate. He saw the boat anchored by the shore, with al-Ward sleeping and the fisherman busying himself with making it fast. He roused al-Ward from her sleep, and when she woke up in tears he asked her where she was from, whose daughter she was and why she had come to his city. ‘I am the daughter of Ibrahim, the vizier of King Shamikh,’ she told him, ‘and the reason why I have come is a strange one.’
She then told him her story in full from beginning to end, keeping nothing back, after which she sighed deeply and recited:
Tears wound my eyes and call for wonder
At the distress shown by their pouring floods,
For a beloved whose place is always in my heart,
But for whose loving union my quest has now failed.
His face is beautiful, resplendent, radiant;
In gracefulness he outdoes all Arabs and Turks,
While sun and moon bend down to him,
Like lovers following the etiquette of love.
The kohl of his eyes is a strange, magic spell
That shows a bow drawn to release its shaft.
You, to whom I have shown my plight and my excuse,
Pity a lover with whom the unmixed wine of love has played.
It is love that has thrown me into your midst,
Infirm of purpose, hoping in your honour.
If clients come to the court of a generous man,
To protect them adds to his esteem.
You, who are my hope, shelter lovers from shame,
And, sir, I beg you, bring about their union.
After finishing these lines and repeating her story, she recited tearfully:
Life has led us to see love bring a wonder;
For you may every month be Rajab, the month of peace.
Is it not strange that on the day they left
My watery tears lit fires in my entrails?
My eyelids rained down silver,
But gold was in the meadow of my cheek,
As though the bursting cloud of its saffron
Was Joseph’s shirt stained with false blood.
Dirbas, on hearing this, was convinced of the depth of her love and, feeling sympathy for her, told her: ‘Do not be afraid or alarmed, for you have reached your goal and I shall see to it that you get what you want and arrive at what you are seeking. Listen to my words.’ He then recited:
Nobly born girl, you have achieved your end.
I bring good news that you need fear no distress.
Today I shall collect wealth to send
To Shamikh, with riders and noble horses.
I shall send sweet-smelling musk and brocades,
Together with gold and white silver.
Yes, and a letter will tell him
That I want to be linked to him by a marriage tie.
Today I shall do my best to help,
So that the man you love may be brought near.
In my time I have tasted love and know it,
So now I can excuse one who has drained its cup.*
When he had finished these lines he went to his troops, and after calling for his vizier, he packed up a vast quantity of treasures for him and told him to take them to King Shamikh. ‘Y
ou must fetch me one of his courtiers, the one called Uns al-Wujud,’ he ordered the vizier, ‘telling the king that your master wants a marriage alliance with him by marrying al-Ward fi’l-Akmam to his follower. Say: “You must send off Uns al-Wujud with me so that the marriage ceremony may be performed in the kingdom of the bride’s father.” ’ Dirbas set this out in a letter which he gave to the vizier, impressing on him that he had to fetch Uns al-Wujud on pain of being dismissed from his post. ‘To hear is to obey,’ replied the vizier, and he set off to take the gifts to Shamikh.
On his arrival, he presented the king with greetings from his master and handed over the letter and the gift. When Shamikh saw this and read the letter, he burst into bitter tears on seeing the name of Uns al-Wujud. ‘Where can I find him?’ he exclaimed to Dirbas’s vizier. ‘He has gone and I don’t know where he is, but if you can bring him to me, I shall give you twice the value of this gift that you have brought.’ He then burst into tears, groaned, lamented and recited these lines:
Return to me my dear one; I have no need of wealth;
I want no gifts of gems and pearls.
To me he shone on beauty’s horizon as a moon.
Neither thought nor sense had power to capture him,
Nor could he be compared to a gazelle.
In shape he was a ban tree’s branch, whose fruits were coquetry,
But it is not in the nature of a branch to captivate men’s minds.
I reared him as a child in the bed of coquetry,
And now I grieve for him with a troubled heart.
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights Page 22