Arabian Nights

When the Governor heard this he said to the hangman, ‘Set free the Reeve, and hang the Jew.’ Thereupon the torch-bearer took him and slung the cord round his neck when behold, the Tailor pushed through the people, and shouted to the executioner, ‘Hold! Hold! It was I and none else killed the Hunchback; and this was the fashion thereof. I had been out a-pleasuring yesterday and, coming back to supper, fell in with this Gobbo, who was drunk and drumming away and singing lustily to his tambourine. So I accosted him and carried him to my house and bought a fish, and we sat down to eat. Presently my wife took a fid of fish, and, making a gobbet of it crammed it into his mouth; but some of it went down the wrong way or stuck in his gullet and he died on the instant. So we lifted him up, I and my wife, and carried him to the Jew’s house where the slave-girl came down and opened the door to us and I said to her: “Tell thy master that there are a man and a woman and a sick person for thee to see!” I gave her a quarter-dinar and she went up to tell her master; and, whilst she was gone, I carried the Hunchback to the head of the staircase and propped him up against the wall, and went off with my wife. When the Jew came down he stumbled over him and thought that he had killed him.’

Then he asked the Jew, ‘Is this the truth?’ and the Jew answered, ‘Yes.’ Thereupon the Tailor turned to the Governor and said, ‘Leave go the Jew and hang me.’ When the Governor heard the Tailor’s tale he marvelled at the matter of this Hunchback and exclaimed, ‘Verily this is an adventure which should be recorded in books!’ Then he said to the hangman, ‘Let the Jew go and hang the Tailor on his own confession.’ The executioner took the Tailor and put the rope around his neck and said, ‘I am tired of such slow work; we bring out this one and change him for that other, and no one is hanged after all!’

Now the Hunchback in question was, they relate, jester to the Sultan of China who could not bear him out of his sight; so when the fellow got drunk and did not make his appearance that night or the next day till noon, the Sultan asked some of his courtiers about him and they answered, ‘O our lord, the Governor hath come upon him dead and hath ordered his murderer to be hanged; but, as the hangman was about to hoist him up there came a second and a third and a fourth and each one said: “It is I and none else killed the Hunchback!” And each gave a full and circumstantial account of the manner of the jester being killed.’

When the King heard this he cried aloud to the Chamberlain-in-waiting, ‘Go down to the Governor and bring me all four of them.’ So the Chamberlain went down at once to the place of execution, where he found the torch-bearer on the point of hanging the Tailor and shouted to him, ‘Hold! Hold!’ Then he gave the King’s command to the Governor who took the Tailor, the Jew, the Nazarene and the Reeve (the Hunchback’s body being borne on men’s shoulders) and went up with one and all of them to the King. When he came into the presence, he kissed the ground and acquainted the ruler with the whole story which it is needless to relate for, as they say: There is no avail in a thrice-told tale. The Sultan hearing it marvelled and was moved to mirth and commanded the story to be written in letters of liquid gold, saying to those present, ‘Did ye ever hear a more wondrous tale than that of my Hunchback?’

CHAPTER 5 The Tale of Nur Al-Din Ali and His Son Badr Al-Din Hasan

Know, O Commander of the Faithful, that in times of yore the land of Egypt was ruled by a Sultan endowed with justice and generosity; one who loved the pious poor and companied with the Olema and learned men; and he had a Wazir, a wise and an experienced, well versed in affairs and in the art of government. This Minister, who was a very old man, had two sons, as they were two moons; never man saw the like of them for beauty and grace, the elder called Shams al-Din Mohammed and the younger Nur al-Din Ali; but the younger excelled the elder in seemliness and pleasing semblance, so that folk heard his fame in far countries and men flocked to Egypt for the purpose of seeing him. In course of time their father, the Wazir died and was deeply regretted and mourned by the Sultan, who sent for his two sons and, investing them with dresses of honour, said to them, ‘Let not your hearts be troubled, for ye shall stand in your father’s stead and be joint Ministers of Egypt.’

At this they rejoiced and kissed the ground before him and performed the ceremonial mourning for their father during a full month; after which time they entered upon the Wazirate, and the power passed into their hands as it had been in the hands of their father, each doing duty for a week at a time. They lived under the same roof and their word was one; and whenever the Sultan desired to travel they took it by turns to be in attendance on him.

It fortuned one night that the Sultan purposed setting out on a journey next morning, and the elder, whose turn it was to accompany him, was sitting conversing with his brother and said to him, ‘O my brother, it is my wish that we both marry, I and thou, two sisters; and go in to our wives on one and the same night.’ ‘Do, O my brother, as thou desirest,’ the younger replied, ‘for right is thy recking and surely I will comply with thee in whatso thou sayest.’ So they agreed upon this and quoth Shams al-Din, ‘If Allah decree that we marry two damsels and go in to them on the same night, and they shall conceive on their bride-nights and bear children to us on the same day, and by Allah’s will thy wife bear thee a son and my wife bear me a daughter, let us wed them either to other, for they will be cousins.’ Quoth Nur al-Din, ‘O my brother, Shams al-Din, what dower wilt thou require from my son for thy daughter?’

Quoth Shams al-Din, ‘I will take three thousand dinars and three pleasure gardens and three farms; and it would not be seemly that the youth make contract for less than this.’ When Nur al-Din heard such demand he said. ‘What manner of dower is this thou wouldest impose on my son? Wottest thou not that we are brothers and both by Allah’s grace Wazirs and equal in office? It behoveth thee to offer thy daughter to my son without marriage settlement; or, if one need be, it should represent a mere nominal value by way of show to the world: for thou knowest that the masculine is worthier than the feminine, and my son is a male and our memory will be preserved by him not by thy daughter.’ ‘But what,’ said Shams al-Din, ‘is she to have?’ And Nur al-Din continued. ‘Through her we shall not be remembered among the Emirs of the earth; but I see thou wouldest do with me according to the saying: An thou wouldest bluff off a buyer, ask him high price and higher; or as did a man who, they say, went to a friend and asked something of him in necessity and was answered: ‘Bismillah, in the name of Allah, I will do all what thou requirest but come tomorrow!’ Whereupon the other replied in this verse:

‘“When he who is asked a favour saith ‘Tomorrow’,

The wise man wots ’tis vain to beg or borrow.”’

Quoth Shams al-Din, ‘Basta! I see thee fail in respect to me by making thy son of more account than my daughter; and ’tis plain that thine understanding is of the meanest and that thou lackest manners. Thou remindest me of thy partnership in the Wazirate, when I admitted thee to share with me only in pity for thee, and not wishing to mortify thee; and that thou mightest help me as a manner of assistant. But since thou talkest on this wise, by Allah, I will never marry my daughter to thy son; no, not for her weight in gold!’ When Nur al-Din heard his brother’s words he waxed wroth and said, ‘And I too, I will never, never marry my son to thy daughter; no, not to keep from my lips the cup of death.’ Shams al-Din replied, ‘I would not accept him as a husband for her, and he is not worth a paring of her nail. Were I not about to travel I would make an example of thee; however when I return thou shalt see, and I will show thee, how I can assert my dignity and vindicate my honour. But Allah doeth whatso He willeth.’

When Nur al-Din heard this speech from his brother, he was filled with fury and lost his wits for rage; but he hid what he felt and held his peace; and each of the brothers passed the night in a place far apart, wild with wrath against the other. As soon as morning dawned the Sultan fared forth in state and crossed over from Cairo to Jizah and made for the Pyramids, accompanied by the Wazir Shams al-Din, whose turn of duty it was, whilst his brother Nur al-Din, who passed the night in sore rage, rose with the light and prayed the dawn-prayer. Then he betook himself to his treasury and, taking a small pair of saddle-bags, filled them with gold; and he called to mind his brother’s threats and the contempt wherewith he had treated him, and he repeated these couplets:

‘Travel! and thou shalt find new friends for old ones left behind;

Toil! for the sweets of human life by toil and moil are found:

The stay-at-home no honour wins nor aught attains buant;

So leave thy place of birth and wander all the world around!

I’ve seen, and very oft I’ve seen, how standing water stinks,

And only flowing sweetens it and trotting makes it sound:

And were the moon for ever full and ne’er to wax or wane,

Man would not strain his watchful eyes to see its gladsome round:

Except the lion leave his lair he ne’er would fell his game;

Except the arrow leave the bow ne’er had it reached its bound:

Gold-dust is dust the while it lies untravelled in the mine,

And aloes-wood mere fuel is upon its native ground:

And gold shall win his highest worth when from his goal ungoal’d;

And aloes sent to foreign parts grows costlier than gold.’

When he ended his verse he bade one of his pages saddle him his Nubian mare-mule with her padded selle. Now she was a dapple-grey with ears like reed-pens and legs like columns and a back high and strong as a dome builded on pillars; her saddle was of gold-cloth and her stirrups of Indian steel, and her housing of Ispahan velvet; she had trappings which would serve the Chosroës, and she was like a bride adorned for her wedding night. Moreover he bade lay on her back a piece of silk for a seat, and a prayer-carpet under which were his saddle-bags. When this was done he said to his pages and slaves, ‘I purpose going forth apleasuring outside the city on the road to Kalyub-town, and I shall lie three nights abroad; so let none of you follow me, for there is something straiteneth my breast.’

Then he mounted the mule in haste; and, taking with him some provaunt for the way, set out from Cairo and faced the open and uncultivated country laying around it. About noontide he entered Bilbays-city, where he dismounted and stayed a while to rest himself and his mule and ate some of his victual. He bought at Bilbays all he wanted for himself and forage for his mule and then fared on the way of the waste. Towards nightfall he entered a town called Sa’adiyah where he alighted and took out somewhat of his viaticum and ate; then he spread his strip of silk on the sand and set the saddle-bags under his head and slept in the open air; for he was still overcome with anger. When morning dawned he mounted and rode onward till he reached the Holy City, Jerusalem, and thence he made Aleppo, where he dismounted at one of the caravanserais and abode three days to rest himself and the mule and to smell the air. Then, being determined to travel afar and Allah having written safety in his fate, he set out again, wending without wotting whither he was going; and, having fallen in with certain couriers, he stinted not travelling till he had reached Bassorah-city albeit he knew not what the place was.

It was dark night when he alighted at the Khan, so he spread out his prayer-carpet and took down the saddle-bags from the back of the mule and gave her with her furniture in charge of the door-keeper that he might walk her about. The man took her and did as he was bid. Now it so happened that the Wazir of Bassorah, a man shot in years, was sitting at the lattice-window of his palace opposite the Khan and he saw the porter walking the mule up and down. He was struck by her trappings of price and thought her a nice beast fit for the riding of Wazirs or even of royalties; and the more he looked the more he was perplexed till at last he said to one of his pages, ‘Bring hither yon door-keeper.’

The page went and returned to the Wazir with the porter who kissed the ground between his hands, and the Minister asked him, ‘Who is the owner of yonder mule and what manner of man is he?’ and he answered, ‘O my lord, the owner of this mule is a comely young man of pleasant manners, withal grave and dignified, and doutbless one of the sons of the merchants.’ When the Wazir heard the door-keeper’s words he arose forthright; and, mounting his horse, rode to the Khan and went in to Nur al-Din who, seeing the Minister making towards him, rose to his feet and advanced to meet him and saluted him. The Wazir welcomed him to Bassorah and dismounting, embraced him and made him sit down by his side and said, ‘O my son, whence comest thou and what dost thou seek?’ ‘O my lord,’ Nur al-Din replied, ‘I have come from Cairo-city of which my father was whilome Wazir; but he hath been removed to the grace of Allah;’ and he informed him of all that had befallen him from beginning to end, adding, ‘I am resolved never to return home before I have seen all the cities and countries of the world.’ When the Wazir heard this, he said to him, ‘O my son, hearken not to the voice of passion lest it cast thee into the pit; for indeed many regions be waste places and I fear for thee the turns of Time.’ Then he let load the saddle-bags and the silk and prayer-carpets on the mule and carried Nur al-Din to his own house, where he lodged him in a pleasant place and entreated him honourably and made much of him, for he inclined to love him with exceeding love.

After a while he said to him, ‘O my son, here am I left a man in years and have no male children, but Allah hath blessed me with a daughter who eveneth thee in beauty; and I have rejected all her many suitors, men of rank and substance. But affection for thee hath entered into my heart; say me, then, wilt thou be to her a husband? If thou accept this, I will go up with thee to the Sultan of Bassorah and will tell him that thou art my nephew, the son of my brother, and bring thee to be appointed Wazir in my place that I may keep the house for, by Allah, O my son, I am stricken in years and aweary.’ When Nur al-Din heard the Wazir’s words, he bowed his head in modesty and said, ‘To hear is to obey!’

At this the Wazir rejoiced and bade his servants prepare a feast and decorate the great assembly-hall, wherein they were wont to celebrate the marriages of Emirs and Grandees. Then he assembled his friends and the notables of the reign and the merchants of Bassorah and when all stood before him he said to them, ‘I had a brother who was Wazir in the land of Egypt, and Allah Almighty blessed him with two sons, whilst to me, as well ye wot, He hath given a daughter. My brother charged me to marry my daughter to one of his sons, whereto I assented; and, when my daughter was of age to marry, he sent me one of his sons, the young man now present, to whom I purpose marrying her, drawing up the contract and celebrating the night of unveiling with due ceremony: for he is nearer and dearer to me than a stranger and, after the wedding, if he please he shall abide with me, or if he desire to travel I will forward him and his wife to his father’s home.’ Hereat one and all replied, ‘Right is thy recking;’ and they looked at the bridegroom and were pleased with him.

So the Wazir sent for the Kazi and legal witnesses and they wrote out the marriage-contract, after which the slaves perfumed the guests with incense, and served them with sherbet of sugar and sprinkled rose-water on them and all went their ways. Then the Wazir bade his servants take Nur al-Din to the Hammam-baths and sent him a suit of the best of his own especial raiment, and napkins and towelry and bowls and perfume-burners and all else that was required. And after the bath, when he came out and donned the dress, he was even as the full moon on the fourteenth night; and he mounted his mule and stayed not till he reached the Wazir’s palace. There he dismounted and went in to the Minister and kissed his hands, and the Wazir bade him welcome, and said, ‘Arise and go in to thy wife this night, and on the morrow I will carry thee to the Sultan, and pray Allah bless thee with all manner of weal.’

So Nur al-Din left him and went in to his wife the Wazir’s daughter. Thus far concerning him, but as regards his elder brother, Shams al-Din, he was absent with the Sultan a long time and when he returned from his journey he found not his brother; and he asked of his servants and slaves who answered, ‘On the day of thy departure with the Sultan, thy brother mounted his mule fully caparisoned as for state procession saying: “I am going towards Kalyub-town and I shall be absent one day or at most two days; for my breast is straitened, and let none of you follow me.” Then he fared forth and from that time to this we have heard no tidings of him.’ Shams al-Din was greatly troubled at the sudden disappearance of his brother and grieved with exceeding grief at the loss and said to himself, ‘This is only because I chided and upbraided him the night before my departure with the Sultan; haply his feelings were hurt and he fared forth a-travelling; but I must send after him.’ Then he went in to the Sultan and acquainted him with what had happened and wrote letters and dispatches, which he sent by running footmen to his deputies in every province. But during the twenty days of his brother’s absence Nur al-Din had travelled far and had reached Bassorah; so after diligent search the messengers failed to come at any news of him and returned.

Thereupon Shams al-Din despaired of finding his brother and said, ‘Indeed I went beyond all bounds in what I said to him with reference to the marriage of our children. Would that I had not done so! This all cometh of my lack of wit and want of caution.’ Soon after this he sought in marriage the daughter of a Cairene merchant and drew up the marriage contract and went in to her. And it so chanced that, on the very same night when Shams al-Din went in to his wife, Nur al-Din also went in to his wife the daughter of the Wazir of Bassorah; this being in accordance with the will of Almighty Allah, that He might deal the decrees of Destiny to His creatures. Furthermore, it was as the two brothers had said; for their two wives became pregnant by them on the same night and both were brought to bed on the same day; the wife of Shams al-Din, Wazir of Egypt, of a daughter, never in Cairo was seen a fairer; and the wife of Nur al-Din of a son, none more beautiful was ever seen in his time, as one of the poets said concerning the like of him:

That jetty hair, that glossy brow,

My slender waisted youth, of thine,

Can darkness round creation throw,

Or make it brightly shine,

The dusky mole that faintly shows

Upon his cheek, ah! blame it not;

The tulip-flower never blows

Undarkened by its spot.

And as another also said:

His scent was musk and his cheek was rose;

His teeth are pearls and his lips drop wine;

His form is a brand and his hips a hill;

His hair is night and his face moonshine.

They named the boy Badr al-Din Hasan and his grandfather, the Wazir of Bassorah, rejoiced in him and, on the seventh day after his birth, made entertainments and spread banquets which would befit the birth of King’s sons and heirs. Then he took Nur al-Din and went up with him to the Sultan, and his son-in-law, when he came before the presence of the King, kissed the ground between his hands and repeated these verses, for he was ready of speech, firm of sprite and good in heart as he was goodly in form:

‘The world’s best joys long be thy lot, my lord!

And last while darkness and the dawn o’erlap:

O thou who makest, when we greet thy gifts,

The world to dance and Time his palms to clap.’

Then the Sultan rose up to honour them and, thanking Nur al-Din for his fine compliment, asked the Wazir, ‘Who may be this young man?’ and the Minister answered, ‘This is my brother’s son,’ and related his tale from first to last. Quoth the Sultan, ‘And how comes he to be thy nephew and we have never heard speak of him?’ Quoth the Minister, ‘O our lord the Sultan, I had a brother who was Wazir in the land of Egypt and he died, leaving two sons, whereof the elder hath taken his father’s place and the younger, whom thou seest, came to me. I had sworn I would not marry my daughter to any but to him; so when he came I married him to her. Now he is young and I am old; my hearing is dulled and my judgment is easily fooled; wherefore I would solicit our lord the Sultan to set him in my stead, for he is my brother’s son and my daughter’s husband; and he is fit for the Wazirate, being a man of good counsel and ready contrivance.’

The Sultan looked at Nur al-Din and liked him, so he stablished him in office as the Wazir had requested and formally appointed him, presenting him with a splendid dress of honour and a she-mule from his private stud: and assigning to him solde, stipends and supplies. Nur al-Din kissed the Sultan’s hand and went home, he and his father-in-law, joying with exceeding joy and saying, ‘All this followeth on the heels of the boy Hasan’s birth!’ Next day he presented himself before the King and, kissing the ground, began repeating:

‘Grow thy weal and thy welfare day by day:

And thy luck prevail o’er the envier’s spite;

And ne’er cease thy days to be white as day.

And thy foeman’s day to be black as night!’

The Sultan bade him be seated on the Wazir’s seat, so he sat down and applied himself to the business of his office and went into the cases of the lieges and their suits, as is the wont of Ministers; while the Sultan watched him and wondered at his wit and good sense, judgment and insight. Wherefore he loved him and took him into intimacy. When the Divan was dismissed Nur al-Din returned to his house and related what had passed to his father-in-law who rejoiced. And thence-forward Nur al-Din ceased not so to administer the Wazirate that the Sultan would not be parted from him night or day; and increased his stipends and supplies till his means were ample and he became the owner of ships that made trading voyages at his command, as well as of Mamelukes and blackamoor slaves; and he laid out many estates and set up Persian wheels and planted gardens.

When his son Hasan was four years of age, the old Wazir deceased, and he made for his father-in-law a sumptuous funeral ceremony ere he was laid in the dust. Then he occupied himself with the education of this son and, when the boy waxed strong and came to the age of seven, he brought him a Fakih, a doctor of law and religion, to teach him in his own house and charged him to give him a good education and instruct him in politeness and good manners. So the tutor made the boy read and retain all varieties of useful knowledge, after he had spent some years in learning the Koran by heart, and he ceased not to grow in beauty and stature and symmetry, even as saith the poet:

In his face-sky shines the fullest moon;

In his cheeks’ anemone glows the sun:

He so conquered Beauty that he hath won

All charms of humanity one by one.

The professor brought him up in his father’s palace teaching him reading, writing and cyphering, theology and belles lettres. His grandfather the old Wazir had bequeathed to him the whole of his property when he was but four years of age. Now during all the time of his earliest youth he had never left the house, till on a certain day his father, the Wazir Nur al-Din, clad him in his best clothes and, mounting him on a she-mule of the finest, went up with him to the Sultan. The King gazed at Badr al-Din Hasan and marvelled at his comeliness and loved him. As for the city-folk, when he first passed before them with his father, they marvelled at his exceeding beauty and sat down on the road expecting his return, that they might look their fill on his beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace even as the poet said is these verses: