When the king heard that, in his rage he summoned the viziers and ordered them to kill the prince. They told each other that, although the king had made up his mind to have the prince killed, he would be sorry for it afterwards. ‘The boy is dear to him,’ they said, ‘as he was born after his father had been in despair. He will then blame us and ask why we did nothing to stop him from killing his son.’ At that, the first vizier came forward and promised that, for twenty-four hours, he would keep the king from doing what would be harmful for them. He got up, went into the king’s presence and stood before him, asking permission to speak. When this had been granted, he said: ‘Your majesty, had fate provided you with a thousand sons, you would not have brought yourself to have one of them killed on the word of a slave girl, who may be telling the truth but may be lying. This may be a trick on her part directed against your son.’ ‘Do you know anything about the wiles of women, vizier?’ asked the king. ‘Yes,’ said the vizier, and HE TOLD THE FOLLOWING TALE:
I have heard that once there was a king who was enamoured of women. One day, when he was alone in his palace, his eye fell on a lovely and graceful girl on the flat roof of a house. When he saw her, he could not stop himself from falling in love and so he asked about the house. He was told that it belonged to a certain vizier, and so he got up immediately and summoned the vizier, who, on his arrival, was sent off with orders not to return before he had inspected a number of districts in the kingdom. When the man had gone the king contrived to enter his house, and the girl, recognizing him, jumped up and welcomed him, kissing his hands and feet. She then stood at a distance, being anxious to serve him, and she said: ‘Master, what is the reason for this fortunate arrival of yours? For people like me are not worthy of such an honour.’ ‘It is love and desire for you that has brought me here,’ the king replied, at which she again kissed the ground before him and said: ‘Master, I am not fit to be the slave of one of your servants, so how should I enjoy such great favour with you and occupy such a position?’ The king reached out for her but she said: ‘There will be time enough for this. Wait, your majesty, and stay all day with me so that I may get you something to eat.’
The king sat down in the vizier’s place, and the girl brought him a book containing admonitions and moral stories to read while the meal was being prepared. The king took it and started to go through it, and the warnings and maxims he found in it were enough to deter him from committing adultery, making him unwilling to act in disobedience to God. Then, when the food was ready, the girl brought it to him on ninety dishes. The king took a spoonful from each, but although the types of food varied, their taste was the same. In his surprise he pointed this out to the girl, and she told him that she had produced this as a parable for his instruction. ‘What is the idea behind it?’ he asked, and she told him: ‘May God preserve the king. In your palace you have ninety concubines of various colours, but they all taste the same.’ When the king heard that, he was ashamed and got up immediately and went out of the house, without harming her in any way. In his embarrassment, as he left for his palace, he forgot his signet ring, which was under the cushion on which he had been sitting. When he was seated in the palace the vizier arrived and, after having presented himself and kissed the ground before the king, he reported on what he had been sent to inspect. He then went back home and, taking his usual seat, he put his hand under the cushion, where he discovered and picked up the king’s ring. He took the matter to heart and kept away from his wife for a whole year, not even speaking to her. She did not know why he was angry…
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and seventy-ninth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that the vizier kept away from his wife for a whole year, not even speaking to her. She did not know why he was angry, and after a long delay, during which she had still not found out the reason, she sent a message to her father telling him that her husband had left her on her own for a whole year. Her father promised to lodge a complaint against him while he was in the presence of the king.
One day, when the father went to court, he discovered the vizier with the king, and with him was the qadi of the army. He made his complaint, saying: ‘May Almighty God preserve the king. I had a beautiful garden that I planted with my own hands and on which I spent my money until its harvest of fruit was ripe. Then I gave it to this vizier of yours and he ate what he wanted from it but then abandoned it. He gave it no water and so the flowers withered; its beauty vanished and its condition changed.’ ‘What he has said is true,’ acknowledged the vizier. ‘I used to look after this garden and eat its fruit, but when I went to it one day I saw traces left there by a lion, and I abandoned it, fearing for my own life.’ The king realized that the ‘trace’ which the vizier had found was his signet ring which he had forgotten and left behind. He said to the vizier: ‘Let me assure you that you can go back to your garden safely. Although the lion went there, it did not go too close, and I swear by the honour of my ancestors that it did no harm.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ said the vizier, and he went back to his house, where he sent word to his wife and made his peace with her, being assured of her chastity.
‘I have also heard, O king, that there was a merchant who was often on his travels,’ the first vizier said, AND HE WENT ON:
He had a beautiful wife whom he guarded jealously because of his love for her and for whom he bought a parrot which used to tell him what had happened in his absence. While he was away on one of his journeys his wife fell in love with a young man, who used to visit her and to whom she granted her favours during the course of her husband’s absence. On his return, the parrot told him what had happened and said: ‘While you were away, master, a young Turk used to come to visit your wife and she received him with the greatest favour.’ He thought of killing the woman, but when she learned of this she said: ‘Husband, fear God and come back to your senses. Does a bird have intelligence or understanding? If you want me to show you how to tell when it is lying and when it is telling the truth, go off tonight and sleep in a friend’s house. Then come back tomorrow morning and question it, in order to see if it is telling the truth or not.’
The husband went off to one of his friends and spent the night there, and at nightfall his wife took a piece of leather matting with which she covered the parrot’s cage; she then sprinkled water over the mat and fanned it with a fan, while bringing the lamp close to it so that it shone like a lightning flash. She went on fanning the cage until morning. Then, when her husband came, she told him to go and question the parrot. He went to the bird and asked it what had happened on the previous night. ‘Master,’ it said, ‘who could see or hear anything last night?’ ‘Why was that?’ he asked. ‘Because of the rain and wind, as well as the thunder and lightning,’ the parrot replied. The man said: ‘That is not true. Nothing like that happened last night,’ but the parrot insisted: ‘I have only told you what I saw with my own eyes and what I heard.’ The man then assumed that everything the parrot had told him about his wife was false, and he wanted to make his peace with her. ‘By God,’ she said, ‘I am not going to be reconciled until you kill this parrot who told lies about me,’ and so he went and killed it. After he had stayed for a few days with his wife, he caught sight of the young Turk coming out of his house. This made him realize that the parrot had told the truth while his wife had lied, and he regretted having killed it. He immediately went to his wife and cut her throat, swearing to himself that as long as he lived he would never marry again.
‘I have only told you this, your majesty,’ the vizier concluded, ‘to show you the extent of women’s wiles and to point out that haste leads to regret.’ The king then changed his mind about having his son executed, but the next day the girl came to him, kissed the ground in front of him and said: ‘O king, how is it that you have neglected what is due to me? The other kings will hear that you gave an order and that it was countermanded by your vizier, altho
ugh to obey a king is to carry out his commands. Everyone knows of your justice and fairness, so give me justice in respect of your son.’
She went on: ‘I have heard that there was a fuller who used to go out every day to the bank of the Tigris to bleach cloth. His son would go with him and pass the time by swimming in the river. His father did not stop him, but one day while the boy was swimming his arms grew tired and he sank. Seeing this, his father jumped in and swam towards him, but when he had managed to get hold of him, the boy clung to him, with the result that both of them were drowned. In the same way, your majesty, if you do not stop your son and revenge me on him, I am afraid that both of you will drown.’
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and eightieth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that when the girl had told the king the story of the fuller and his son, she said: ‘I am afraid that both you and your son will drown.’ THE GIRL WENT ON:
I have heard a story of the wiles of men that a man loved a beautiful woman who had a husband who loved her as much as she loved him. She was virtuous and chaste and the man could find no way in which to approach her until, after a time, he thought of a trick. Her husband had a young page whom he had brought up in his house and whom he trusted. The would-be lover went to this page and continued to flatter him with gifts and favours until he was willing to agree to anything that was asked of him. One day, the man suggested that he invite him to the house while his mistress was out. The page agreed and when his mistress had gone to the baths and his master was in his shop, the page went to his friend and, taking him by the hand, brought him into the house, where he showed him everything that was there. The man, who was intent on ensnaring the woman, had brought with him the white of an egg in a container, and this he managed to pour over the husband’s bed without the page noticing. He then left the house and went on his way.
After a while the husband came back, and when he went to his bed to rest he found it damp and, after picking up what he found there, he inspected it and thought to himself that it was human sperm. He looked angrily at the page and asked him where his mistress was. ‘She has gone to the baths,’ the page said, ‘but she will be back straight away.’ The husband’s suspicions were confirmed and, as he was sure that this was sperm, he told the page to go at once and fetch her. When she came he jumped up and, after giving her a painful beating, he tied her hands and was about to cut her throat. She shrieked to the neighbours, and when they came she told them: ‘This man wants to kill me, and I don’t know what I have done wrong.’ They went up to the husband and told him: ‘You cannot touch her. Either you have to divorce her or, if not, you have to treat her well. We know she is chaste; she has been a neighbour of ours for a long time and we have never known her to do anything wrong.’ He told them: ‘I have found semen like that of a man’s in my bed, and I don’t know the reason behind it.’ One of the men there asked to be shown this ‘semen’, and after seeing it he said: ‘Fetch me fire and a pan.’ When he got these, he took the egg white, heated it over the fire, tasted it and then gave it to the others to try. They confirmed that this was egg white, and the husband realized that he had wronged his wife and that she was innocent. He had been ready to divorce her, but thanks to the intervention of the neighbours the pair were reconciled and the plot that the would-be lover had laid against the unsuspecting woman failed.
‘Know, your majesty,’ the girl went on, ‘that this is one of the wiles of men.’ The king then renewed his order that his son be executed, but at that point the second vizier came forward, kissed the ground before him and said: ‘Do not be in a hurry to kill your son, your majesty, for it was only after you had been reduced to despair that his mother gave birth to him. It is our hope that he will prove a treasure for your kingdom and a guardian of your wealth. Wait in patience, for he may have something to say in his own defence and if you have him killed prematurely you will regret it, just as the merchant did.’ ‘How was that,’ asked the king, ‘and what is the story?’ THE SECOND VIZIER SAID:
There was a merchant who was frugal in what he ate and drank. One day, he went off to a certain town and while he was walking in the markets he came across an old woman who was carrying two loaves of bread. ‘Are these for sale?’ he asked, and when she said yes, he haggled until he bought them from her at a very cheap price, after which he took them back home and ate them that same day. The next day he went back to the same place, where he found the old woman with another two loaves, which he also bought. Things went on like this for twenty days, but after that the old woman disappeared, and although he asked about her, he could find no news. Then, one day, he came across her in a street, and after stopping to greet her he asked her why she had gone away and was no longer selling loaves. She was reluctant to answer his question, but when he pressed her to tell him, she said: ‘Sir, the answer is that I used to look after a man who had a gangrenous sore on his spine. His doctor used to take flour, mix it with fat and apply it all night long to the sore. Then, in the morning, I would take the mixture, make two loaves out of it and sell them either to you or to someone else, but the man died and I could not make the loaves any more.’ When the man heard that, he recited the formula: ‘We belong to God and to Him do we return. There is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent!’
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and eighty-first night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that when the old woman told the merchant about the two loaves, he exclaimed: ‘There is no might and no power except with God, the Exalted, the Omnipotent!’
After that he could not stop vomiting until he fell ill, regretting what he had done when regret was of no use.
THE SECOND VIZIER WENT ON:
I heard another story about women’s wiles: there was once a man who used to stand with a drawn sword as a king’s guard. He was in love with a girl to whom he was in the habit of sending his page with messages. One day, while the page was with her, he began to fondle her and she leaned over and embraced him. He asked her to lie with him and she agreed, but while they were making love, the page’s master knocked on the door. The girl put her lover in a cellar and then opened the door, at which the man came in with his sword. He sat down on her bed and she began to joke with him and fondle him, clasping him to her breast and kissing him. He had started to make love to her when suddenly her husband knocked at the door. ‘Who is that?’ the man asked, and when she told him that it was her husband he said: ‘What are we to do now?’ ‘Get up,’ she told him, ‘draw your sword and stand in the hall. Then shout insults and abuse at me, and when my husband comes in, go on your way.’ The man did as he was told, and when the husband came in, he saw the man standing with a drawn sword in his hand, shouting abuse and threatening his wife. At the sight of her husband her lover felt ashamed and, sheathing his sword, he left the house.
The husband then asked his wife: ‘What was the reason for all that?’ ‘It was lucky that you came when you did,’ she told him, ‘for you have rescued a Muslim from death. I was up on the roof spinning, when in came a page who was being pursued. He was out of his mind and panting in fear of death as that man came running up as fast as he could behind him, holding a drawn sword. The page fell in front of me, kissed my hands and my feet and said: “Lady, save me from someone who wants to kill me unjustly.” So I hid him in our cellar, and when the man came in with his naked sword and asked me where he was, I refused to tell him anything and then, as you saw, he began to abuse me and threaten me. Praise be to God, Who brought you to me, for I didn’t know what to do and there was nobody here to rescue me.’ ‘You did well, woman,’ her husband told her, ‘and God will reward you well for what you did.’ He then went to the cellar and called to the page: ‘Come out! No harm will come to you.’ The page came out timidly and the man kept saying sy
mpathetically: ‘Calm down; no harm will come to you,’ while the page, for his part, called down blessings on him. Both of them then left without knowing what it was that the woman had contrived.
‘Know, O king,’ the vizier continued, ‘that this is one example of the wiles of women, so beware of relying on what they say.’ At that the king changed his mind about having his son killed, but on the third day the girl came back and, after having kissed the ground before him, she again insisted that he right the wrong that his son had done her and not listen to his viziers. ‘There is no good to be had from evil viziers,’ she said, adding: ‘Do not be like the king who relied on the word of one of them.’ ‘How was that?’ asked the king, and SHE TOLD HIM:
I have heard, O fortunate and judicious king, that a certain ruler had a son whom he loved and treated with the greatest honour, preferring him to all his other sons. One day, this prince told his father that he wanted to go out hunting and accordingly his father ordered everything to be got ready for him, telling one of his viziers to attend on him and to see that all his wants were satisfied while he was away. The vizier collected everything the prince might need and the two of them were accompanied by eunuchs, officers and pages. They set out on their hunt and came to a green region with grass, pasture and water, where there were great quantities of game. The prince told the vizier that he found the place attractive and so the hunting party halted there for a number of days. Then, after the prince had enjoyed himself thoroughly, he gave the order to move on, but at that point his path was crossed by a gazelle which had become separated from its herd. The prince felt an urge to hunt it down and he told the vizier that he was going to give chase. ‘Do as you like,’ the vizier told him, and so he rode off after it alone, pursuing it for the whole day until nightfall.
The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights Page 70