THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
Truth is stranger than fiction.
OLD SAYING.
HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Orientalinvestigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (likethe Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe;and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American--ifwe except, perhaps, the author of the "Curiosities of AmericanLiterature";--having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of thefirst-mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished todiscover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in errorrespecting the fate of the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, as thatfate is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and that the denouement theregiven, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least toblame in not having gone very much farther.
For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer theinquisitive reader to the "Isitsoornot" itself, but in the meantime, Ishall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.
It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, acertain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not onlyputs her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, toespouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and thenext morning to deliver her up to the executioner.
Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with areligious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon himas a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted oneafternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier, towhose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.
Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would eitherredeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.
Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year (whichmakes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her father, the grandvizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the kingeagerly accepts--(he had intended to take it at all events, and had putoff the matter from day to day, only through fear of the vizier),--but,in accepting it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand,that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest designof giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore,the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king, and did actuallymarry him despite her father's excellent advice not to do any thing ofthe kind--when she would and did marry him, I say, will I, nill I, itwas with her beautiful black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature ofthe case would allow.
It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been readingMachiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in hermind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I forget whatspecious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently nearthat of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed;and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the goodmonarch, her husband (who bore her none the worse will because heintended to wring her neck on the morrow),--she managed to awaken him, Isay, (although on account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion,he slept well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and ablack cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone, ofcourse) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that thishistory was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade, in thenature of things could not finish it just then, since it was high timefor her to get up and be bowstrung--a thing very little more pleasantthan hanging, only a trifle more genteel.
The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say, even overhis sound religious principles, induced him for this once to postponethe fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and withthe hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end with the blackcat (a black cat, I think it was) and the rat.
The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only putthe finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat was blue)but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in theintricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogethermistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violentmanner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key. With thishistory the king was even more profoundly interested than with theother--and, as the day broke before its conclusion (notwithstandingall the queen's endeavors to get through with it in time for thebowstringing), there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremonyas before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened asimilar accident with a similar result; and then the next--and thenagain the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch, having beenunavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his vow during aperiod of no less than one thousand and one nights, either forgets italtogether by the expiration of this time, or gets himself absolved ofit in the regular way, or (what is more probable) breaks it outright, aswell as the head of his father confessor. At all events, Scheherazade,who, being lineally descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the wholeseven baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked upfrom under the trees in the garden of Eden--Scheherazade, I say, finallytriumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.
Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it uponrecord) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant--but alas! likea great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true, and I amindebted altogether to the "Isitsoornot" for the means of correcting theerror. "Le mieux," says a French proverb, "est l'ennemi du bien," and,in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited the seven baskets of talk,I should have added that she put them out at compound interest untilthey amounted to seventy-seven.
"My dear sister," said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I quotethe language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my dearsister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about thebowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happilyrepealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion inwithholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores--athing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor.This person went through numerous other and more interesting adventuresthan those which I related; but the truth is, I felt sleepy on theparticular night of their narration, and so was seduced into cuttingthem short--a grievous piece of misconduct, for which I only trust thatAllah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to remedy mygreat neglect--and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two inorder to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible noise,I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases) with the sequelof this very remarkable story."
Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the"Isitsoornot," expressed no very particular intensity of gratification;but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at length ceasedsnoring, and finally said, "hum!" and then "hoo!" when the queen,understanding these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to signify thathe was all attention, and would do his best not to snore any more--thequeen, I say, having arranged these matters to her satisfaction,re-entered thus, at once, into the history of Sinbad the sailor:
"'At length, in my old age,' [these are the words of Sinbad himself, asretailed by Scheherazade]--'at length, in my old age, and after enjoyingmany years of tranquillity at home, I became once more possessed of adesire of visiting foreign countries; and one day, without acquaintingany of my family with my design, I packed up some bundles of suchmerchandise as was most precious and least bulky, and, engaged a porterto carry them, went with him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrivalof any chance vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into someregion which I had not as yet explored.
"'Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down beneath sometrees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving a ship,but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I fancied thatI could hear a singular buzzing or h
umming sound; and the porter, afterlistening awhile, declared that he also could distinguish it. Presentlyit grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could have no doubtthat the object which caused it was approaching us. At length, onthe edge of the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidlyincreased in size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimmingwith a great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It cametoward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foamaround its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea throughwhich it passed, with a long line of fire that extended far off into thedistance.
"'As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length was equalto that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as wide asthe great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime and munificentof the Caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of ordinary fishes, wasas solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout all that portionof it which floated above the water, with the exception of a narrowblood-red streak that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floatedbeneath the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now andthen as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely coveredwith metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in misty weather.The back was flat and nearly white, and from it there extended upwardsof six spines, about half the length of the whole body.
"'The horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive, but, as ifto make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least fourscore of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those of the greendragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in two rows, one abovethe other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which seemed to answerthe purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were muchlarger than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.
"'Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with thegreatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy--forit had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor wings likethe seashell which is blown along in the manner of a vessel; nor yetdid it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its tail wereshaped precisely alike, only, not far from the latter, were two smallholes that served for nostrils, and through which the monster puffedout its thick breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking,disagreeable noise.
"'Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but it waseven surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a nearer look, weperceived upon the creature's back a vast number of animals about thesize and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them, except thatthey wore no garments (as men do), being supplied (by nature, no doubt)with an ugly uncomfortable covering, a good deal like cloth, but fittingso tight to the skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward,and put them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their headswere certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I thoughtmight have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon discoveredthat they were excessively heavy and solid, and I therefore concludedthey were contrivances designed, by their great weight, to keep theheads of the animals steady and safe upon their shoulders. Aroundthe necks of the creatures were fastened black collars, (badges ofservitude, no doubt,) such as we keep on our dogs, only much widerand infinitely stiffer, so that it was quite impossible for these poorvictims to move their heads in any direction without moving the body atthe same time; and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation oftheir noses--a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positivelyin an awful degree.
"'When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, itsuddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted fromit a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke, anda noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the smoke clearedaway, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near the head of thelarge beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it tohis mouth) he presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeableaccents, that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had theynot come altogether through the nose.
"'Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as Icould in no manner understand what was said; and in this difficultyI turned to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, anddemanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was, whatit wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmedupon its back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could fortrepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast; that itwas a cruel demon, with bowels of sulphur and blood of fire, createdby evil genii as the means of inflicting misery upon mankind; that thethings upon its back were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats anddogs, only a little larger and more savage; and that these vermin hadtheir uses, however evil--for, through the torture they caused the beastby their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that degree of wrathwhich was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and so fulfil thevengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.
"This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without once evenlooking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while theporter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction, sothat, by these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles, ofwhich I have no doubt he took excellent care--although this is a point Icannot determine, as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.
"'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin (whohad come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken, boundhand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam outagain into the middle of the sea.
"'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home toperil my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, Imade the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the goodwillof the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exerciseauthority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavor that,in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of hisfavor, and in the end even went to the trouble of teaching me therudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate its language; sothat, at length, I was enabled to converse with it readily, and came tomake it comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.
"'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt untgrumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner--butI beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is notconversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals werecalled; I presume because their language formed the connectinglink between that of the horse and that of the rooster). With yourpermission, I will translate. 'Washish squashish,' and so forth:--thatis to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are really avery excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which is calledcircumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing theworld, I will strain a point and give you a free passage upon back ofthe beast.'"
When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the"Isitsoornot," the king turned over from his left side to his right, andsaid:
"It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted,hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think themexceedingly entertaining and strange?"
The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fairScheherazade resumed her history in the following words:
"Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative to the caliph--'Ithanked the man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very muchat home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the ocean;although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the world, byno means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we went--so tosay--either up hill or down hill all the time.'
"That I think, was very singular," interrupted the king.
"Nevertheless, it is quite true," replied Scheherazade.
"I have my doubts," rejoined the king; "but, pray, be so good as to goon with the story."
"I will," said the queen. "'Th
e beast,' continued Sinbad to the caliph,'swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at length, wearrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in circumference, butwhich, nevertheless, had been built in the middle of the sea by a colonyof little things like caterpillars'" (*1)
"Hum!" said the king.
"'Leaving this island,' said Sinbad--(for Scheherazade, it must beunderstood, took no notice of her husband's ill-mannered ejaculation)'leaving this island, we came to another where the forests were of solidstone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the finest-tempered axeswith which we endeavoured to cut them down."' (*2)
"Hum!" said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no attention,continued in the language of Sinbad.
"'Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where therewas a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles within thebowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far morespacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in allDamascus and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung myriadsof gems, liked diamonds, but larger than men; and in among the streetsof towers and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense rivers as blackas ebony, and swarming with fish that had no eyes.'" (*3)
"Hum!" said the king. "'We then swam into a region of the sea wherewe found a lofty mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents ofmelted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long(*4); while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a quantity ofashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens, and itbecame darker than the darkest midnight; so that when we were even atthe distance of a hundred and fifty miles from the mountain, it wasimpossible to see the whitest object, however close we held it to oureyes.'" (*5)
"Hum!" said the king.
"'After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we metwith a land in which the nature of things seemed reversed--for we heresaw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred feetbeneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf a forestof tall and luxuriant trees.'" (*6)
"Hoo!" said the king.
"Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where theatmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our owndoes feather.'" (*7)
"Fiddle de dee," said the king.
"Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at themost magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there meandereda glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river was ofunspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of amber.It was from three to six miles in width; and its banks which arose oneither side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height, were crownedwith ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented flowers, thatmade the whole territory one gorgeous garden; but the name of thisluxuriant land was the Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitabledeath'" (*8)
"Humph!" said the king.
"'We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came toanother, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrousanimals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These hideousbeasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a funnel shape,and line the sides of them with rocks, so disposed one upon the otherthat they fall instantly, when trodden upon by other animals, thusprecipitating them into the monster's dens, where their blood isimmediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuouslyout to an immense distance from "the caverns of death."'" (*9)
"Pooh!" said the king.
"'Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with vegetables thatgrew not upon any soil but in the air. (*10) There were others thatsprang from the substance of other vegetables; (*11) others that derivedtheir substance from the bodies of living animals; (*12) and then again,there were others that glowed all over with intense fire; (*13) othersthat moved from place to place at pleasure, (*14) and what was stillmore wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and movedtheir limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable passion of mankindfor enslaving other creatures, and confining them in horrid and solitaryprisons until the fulfillment of appointed tasks.'" (*15)
"Pshaw!" said the king.
"'Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees andthe birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that theygive daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise menof the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for thesolution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon thespot--the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the kingkeeping their solution a secret, it was only after the most profoundresearches and labor, and the writing of an infinity of big books,during a long series of years, that the men-mathematicians at lengtharrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon the spot bythe bees and by the birds.'" (*16)
"Oh my!" said the king.
"'We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found ourselvesclose upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a flockof fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty miles long; sothat, although they flew a mile during every minute, it required no lessthan four hours for the whole flock to pass over us--in which there wereseveral millions of millions of fowl.'" (*17)
"Oh fy!" said the king.
"'No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us greatannoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of anotherkind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met in myformer voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes on yourseraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible fowl had no headthat we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly, which wasof a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance,smooth, shining and striped with various colors. In its talons, themonster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house from whichit had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of which we distinctlysaw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a state of frightfuldespair at the horrible fate which awaited them. We shouted with all ourmight, in the hope of frightening the bird into letting go of its prey,but it merely gave a snort or puff, as if of rage and then let fall uponour heads a heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand!'"
"Stuff!" said the king.
"'It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent ofimmense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, wassupported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewerthan four hundred horns.'" (*18)
"That, now, I believe," said the king, "because I have read something ofthe kind before, in a book."
"'We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between thelegs of the cow), and, after some hours, found ourselves in a wonderfulcountry indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal, was his ownnative land, inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated theman-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now began to feelashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him;for I found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the mostpowerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain, (*19) which,no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful writhings andwrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of imagination!'"
"Nonsense!" said the king.
"'Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of verysingular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones wereiron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had blackstones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet, he wasso strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty than thegrandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight ofmost birds.'" (*20)
"Twattle!" said the king.
"'I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but biggerthan a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; herblood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearlyrelated,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood orblack stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hun
dred chickensin the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence for severalweeks within the stomach of their mother.'" (*21)
"Fa! lal!" said the king.
"'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass andwood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he wouldhave beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception of thegreat Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22) Another of these magi constructed(of like material) a creature that put to shame even the genius of himwho made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second,it performed calculations of so vast an extent that they would haverequired the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23)But a still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thingthat was neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixedwith a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with suchincredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble inwriting out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour, and thiswith so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should notbe found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair.This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrewthe mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised equallyfor evil and for good.'"
"Ridiculous!" said the king.
"'Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in hisveins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sittingdown to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner wasthoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had the faculty ofconverting the common metals into gold, without even looking at themduring the process. (*25) Another had such a delicacy of touch that hemade a wire so fine as to be invisible. (*26) Another had such quicknessof perception that he counted all the separate motions of an elasticbody, while it was springing backward and forward at the rate of ninehundred millions of times in a second.'" (*27)
"Absurd!" said the king.
"'Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody ever yetsaw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick outtheir legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will. (*28) Anotherhad cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could have madehimself heard from one end of the world to the other. (*29) Another hadso long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and indite a letterat Bagdad--or indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another commandedthe lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at hiscall; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another took twoloud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed adeep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31) Another made ice in ared-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed the sun to paint his portrait,and the sun did. (*33) Another took this luminary with the moon and theplanets, and having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probedinto their depths and found out the solidity of the substance of whichthey were made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising anecromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonestcats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist atall, or that for twenty millions of years before the birth of the nationitself had been blotted out from the face of creation."' (*34)
"Preposterous!" said the king.
"'The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise magi,'"continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed bythese frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of herhusband--"'the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are everything that is accomplished and refined; and would be every thing that isinteresting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them,and from which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands andfathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities come incertain shapes, and some in others--but this of which I speak has comein the shape of a crotchet.'"
"A what?" said the king.
"'A crotchet'" said Scheherazade. "'One of the evil genii, who areperpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads ofthese accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as personalbeauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the region which liesnot very far below the small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, theysay, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been longpossessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country, thedays have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a woman froma dromedary-'"
"Stop!" said the king--"I can't stand that, and I won't. You havealready given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, Iperceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been married?--myconscience is getting to be troublesome again. And then that dromedarytouch--do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you might as well getup and be throttled."
These words, as I learn from the "Isitsoornot," both grieved andastonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man ofscrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, shesubmitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, greatconsolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from thereflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that thepetulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most righteousreward, in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 Page 2