‘Sir,’ she said, ‘God has permitted you to marry three more free women, in addition to me, together with any concubines you wish to have. You have my full agreement to marry those three, and to buy any of those slave women with the money in this bag, which I pass over to you to fulfill your desires. All I ask is that you will give me your protection.”
“I assure you, when she said this, she took immediate possession of my heart, in a way no great beauty could ever have done.
‘Here is your recompense,”’I answered, ‘for what you have just said. By God, I will have no other woman but you. I will take my fortune in life along with you, possessing what a man most wishes for in a woman.’
“She was as tender and proper as anyone could be, and as efficient in running my household. I realized just how lucky I was. Then, as I grew older, I came in any case to have a greater need of levelheaded behavior. God has shown His approval of the way I received her initial address to me, and has given me these two splendid boys. We dedicate ourselves to His bounty to us, and to the charity He has shown us.”
From Abu Jaʿfar Ahmad ibn Yusuf, Al-Mukafaʿa (Recompense), ed. Ahmad Amin and ʿAli al-Jarim (Cairo, 1941).
1. Ubulla was a town on the Tigris.
78
A Final Meeting
Bashir ibn al-Ashtar fell in love with a girl from his own tribe, called Jaidaʾ. Quite enraptured by her, he finally became sick with love. Her family thereupon stopped him from seeing her, and a great enmity and quarrel sprang up between the two families.
As his longing for her showed no sign of abating and his state grew worse, he went to a friend of his, called Numair.
“Would you,” he asked him, “do me a friendly service, so my soul may return to me?”
“Ask whatever you wish,” Numair replied.
“Go to Jaidaʾ’s neighborhood,” he said, “and, if you see her maidservant, tell her of my state. She may perhaps arrange for me to see Jaidaʾ.”
I went (Numair said), and I found the servant and told her; and she went to her mistress and received word he should go to see her after dinner, close to some trees there. When night fell, she went there, and Bashir came to meet her. I made to leave, but Bashir stopped me.
“By God,” he said, “there is nothing more between us than what you see. Remain where you are.”
We sat through a good part of the night. Finally I decided to leave. Bashir, though, almost fainted at this, asking Jaidaʾ to stay the rest of the night with him.
“There is no way I can do that,” she answered, “unless your friend here takes some compassion on us.”
“Whatever you wish,” I replied.
With that she flung some of her clothes toward me.
“Go to my chamber,” she said, “as though you were me. My husband will come and ask for the drinking vessel. Withhold it from him till he becomes impatient (this is what I always do). When he returns with the milk, do not take it from him till he has stood there for a long time, or till he puts it down for you. After that he will not return to you for the rest of the night.”
So I did (Numair continued). When he had stood there for a long time, with the milk, he decided to put it down. I went to take it, but we knocked against each other and the milk was spilled.
“This is unwifely forwardness!” he cried. With that he picked up a well-honed whip and began beating me till I felt close to death. I was about to stab him with my knife when people came to rescue me and covered me up. Then her mother came and rebuked me, warning me never to act against my husband’s wishes.
“What is it you want with al-Ashtar?” she asked.
She left me then, saying she would send her other daughter to console me. When the sister came, she started weeping and calling down curses on those who beat me. Then she lay down by my side.
I put my hand over her mouth, then said:
“Your sister is with Bashir in such and such a place. What happened to me was for her sake, and you should be still more concerned than I am to hide the truth.”
She trembled for a time, then became friendly, and we spent a wonderful night, gently and chastely, together. When morning came and Jaidaʾ arrived, she was shocked to see us together.
“She is your sister,” I said. “She will tell you all that has happened.”
I went to Bashir (Numair concluded) and told him what had happened. When he saw the marks of the whip on my body, and the bloody state I was in, he said:
“This is a wonderful service you have done me, and I owe you the deepest gratitude.”
Bashir lived only one month more. Someone came to him as he was eating some grapes.
“You are eating fruit,” this person said, “with Jaidaʾ newly dead?”
Bashir made a choking sound, and, when they came to move him, they found he was dead. When the news reached Jaidaʾ, she tore her clothes and cut off her hair. Then she flung herself into a well, and she, too, died.
From Dawud al-Antaki, Tazyin al-Aswaq bi Tafsil Ashwaq al-ʿUshshaq (Adorning the Markets with Tales of Lovers’ Longing), vol. 1, ed. Muhammad al-Tunji (Beirut: ʿAlam al-Kutub, 1993).
79
A Party Crasher’s Reward
Ten men accused of heresy were sent off to al-Maʾmun. When they’d assembled to board their ship, a party crasher, thinking they were gathered ready for a banquet, added himself to their number. When he found they were all being put in chains, he regretted what he’d done, but he knew there was no turning back.
The others, all known to al-Maʾmun, were beheaded in his presence. Then al-Maʾmun asked who the further man was. No one knew, he was told.
“May my wife be divorced,” the man said then, “if I knew these other people, or anything about them! When I saw them coming together, I thought it must be for a banquet.”
“Has sponging,” al-Maʾmun said, “come to this? Give him a good beating so he thinks twice about doing it again!”
“If, Prince of the Faithful,” said Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, who was there in attendance, “you will hand him over to me, I will tell you an amazing story about party crashing.”
“He is yours,” al-Maʾmun said. “Let us hear your story.”
“Prince of the Faithful (Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi began), I was once riding through the city and passed by a house from which came the most appetizing smell of food and spices—I’d never smelled anything to compare with it. Then I saw, in a window, a wrist [of the woman preparing the food] that struck at my heart. I wanted to eat some of that food, but, since I didn’t know anyone in the quarter, I realized I’d have to resort to trickery.
“I went to a tailor nearby and asked who owned the house. He gave me the name of the man—a merchant, he said, who loved the company of other merchants.
‘Does he,’ I asked, ‘drink wine?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘And I think he’s invited a group of his friends today.’
“I waited for a while, then saw them arrive.
“ ‘Here they come,’ the tailor said.
“I spurred on my horse till I caught up with them. They were late, I told them, and the owner of the house (naming him) was waiting for them. In we went, they thinking I was one of the host’s household and the host thinking I was with his guests. Each side honored me and offered me hospitality.
“ ‘I’ve satisfied my desire for the food’ I said to myself when we’d all eaten, ‘but there’s still that wrist!’
“When the food had been taken away and drinks were brought in, a slave woman singer came with a lute in her hand. She sang a few short poems, which transported me along with everyone else. I envied her skill and perfect touch. ‘But’ I said to myself, ‘we’re not finished yet.’
“She flung aside the lute.
‘Since when,’ she asked, ‘have you brought secret enemies into your midst?’
They all showed their hostility to me. I’ll never, I thought, get what I was hoping for unless I win back their hearts.
‘Do you,’ I asked aloud, ‘h
ave a lute?’
“They said they did and brought one. I examined it, tuned it, then sang a short song. The singer came and kissed my hand, apologizing to me, and the people around me began to honor me more and more. I sang two further short songs.
‘That’s singing, by God,’ the singer said. ‘Not what we had before.’
“Apart from the host (who clearly had a strong head), the guests all drank till they were completely drunk, and the host gave instructions for them to be taken home. Me, though, he kept behind, asking who I was. I started hedging, but he insisted I should tell him the truth.
‘My life’s been pretty much wasted,’ he said, ‘not having met up with someone like you before.’
When I told him who I was, he gave a start.
‘I’m going to spend the rest of the night,’ he said, ‘standing and serving you.’
“I insisted he should sit down, which he did. Then he started asking me why I’d come to his house, and I gave him an account. Nothing now remained, I concluded, but the “wrist.”
‘You shall have it,” he replied, ‘God willing.’
“He let me see all his slave women, but I couldn’t find what I’d been looking for.
‘There’s no one left, sir,’ he said at last, ‘except for my mother and sister.’
‘Let’s begin with your sister,’ I said.
“He brought her in, and she was indeed the one I’d been looking for.
‘She’s the one,’ I said.
‘You’ve made me very happy,’ he replied.
“He called in witnesses and we signed the marriage contract. Then he took me to her chambers. The next morning he sent with her such possessions as are found only among us, Prince of the Faithful. And this boy here is my son by her.”
From Dawud al-Antaki, Tazyin al-Aswaq bi Tafsil Ashwaq al-ʿUshshaq (Adorning the Markets with Tales of Lovers’ Longing), vol. 1
80
Parting and Reunion
A wealthy man from Baghdad, so it is told, fell in love with a slave girl singer of great beauty and accomplishment, highly skilled in singing and playing the lute. He lavished all his money on her, till at last he began to feel the pinch. Why, his friends asked him, didn’t he have her sing at other people’s gatherings (she was much sought after)? This would bring him in a good deal of money. The prospect, though, left him utterly downcast—death, he told them, would be easier for him.
She, for her part, told him to sell her. In this way he could recoup his money, or at least she herself would live amid affluence—for only a rich man would buy someone of her quality. He took her to the slave market, where a Hashemite from Basra bought her for fifteen hundred dinars. When the man had taken his money, and the two had parted, they both became cruelly wretched, plunged in weeping and misery. He tried to return the money and have her back, but to no avail.
I went off (he said) with no idea of where I was going. I couldn’t go back to my house, which was empty of her now, quite desolate. I went into a mosque, put the bag of money under my head, and slept. After a while I woke to find a young man had stolen it. I tried to get up and run after him, but found my legs had been tied. By the time I’d freed myself, the young man was gone. In utter despair now, I covered my face and flung myself into the Tigris, wanting only to drown, but I was rescued by some people who supposed I’d simply fallen in.
When I told them what had happened, some of them criticized me while others expressed sympathy. An old man drew me close to him.
“You’re not the first,” he said, “to have fallen from wealth to poverty. Isn’t it enough that you’ve lost your money? Do you really want to make away with yourself, too, and end up in Hell?”
I calmed down a little. Then I was seized with panic once more. I went to speak to a friend of mine, who gave me fifty dirhams and advised me to leave Baghdad. I might, he said, find someone to hire me to write for him, on account of my fine handwriting. I decided to go to Wasit, where a friend of mine worked as a scribe. I found a ship ready to leave and asked them to take me with them.
“We’ll let you on for two dirhams,” they said. “But the Hashemite captain doesn’t like strangers on board. You’ll have to dress like one of the crew.”
Could this captain, I wondered, be the very same man who’d bought my girl? If so, I’d be able to enjoy her voice as far as Wasit. I bought a cloak, which I wore like any other member of the crew, and before too long I saw my girl approaching with her new master.
A screen was set up for her. After they’d set sail, and dinner had been brought, [the captain and some companions] began to eat and drink.
“How much longer,” the captain asked my girl, “are you going to stay so sunk in grief and refuse to sing? Do you think you’re the first who ever parted from her master?”
They went on pressing her, and finally she took the lute and sang two verses; then, though, she was overcome with weeping and fell into a faint. They sprinkled water on her and whispered the call to prayer in her ear, till finally she came to. They went on coaxing her, and eventually she sang two more verses—at which I began choking and almost fell into a faint myself.
“What’s the matter with you,” the others said, “bringing along a madman like this? Get him out of here.”
I suffered grievously at their hands. Eventually the ship reached a port on the way, and they anchored and went on shore for a stroll, leaving the ship empty. I crept up to the lute and tuned its strings in a way only she and I knew. When the men returned, in the moonlight, they spoke kindly to her.
“You can see,” they told her, “what a good time we’re having. Won’t you, by God, share it with us?”
She took the lute, then gave a loud gasp.
“This lute,” she said, “is strung in a way my master loved. He used to play
it with me. He’s here with us!”
“If only he were!” they answered. “We’d get him to join us and cheer you up a bit.”
“He is here with us,” she insisted.
“Have you,” they asked the sailors, “let anyone on board?”
Fearing the matter might be allowed to drop, I stepped forward.
“It’s me, sir,” I said.
He had me come nearer.
“By God,” he told me, “I haven’t made love to her. God’s granted me plenty of wealth, and I bought her only to hear her singing. Come with us to our home, and I’ll free her and marry you to her—but on one condition: that you’ll bring her every night so we can hear her singing from behind the screen. After that you can go.”
“How,” I answered, “could I possibly refuse a man who’s brought me back to life?”
“Are you in agreement?” he asked the girl.
She replied that she was, and thanked him, twice as happy as before. She started singing, and I helped her by suggesting tunes and songs. The man’s joy grew, and so we went on, till, quite intoxicated, we reached the Maʿqil river. There I left the ship to relieve myself and fell asleep, and, not noticing my absence, they sailed on without me. When I woke, it was to find the sun fully risen and the others gone, and my ordeal began all over again. A ship of some kind passed, and I went on with them to Basra.
I entered the city, knowing not a soul or a place in it; and I hadn’t thought to ask the man for his name and address. Then I saw a Baghdadi passing and decided at once to approach him and tell him of the wretched state I was in. I followed him to find out where he lived, then I went to a grocer’s for a piece of paper so I could write to the Baghdadi about how things stood.
The grocer, liking my handwriting, started asking about me, but I didn’t tell him much: only that I had no money left. At that he asked me if I’d work for him. He’d pay me half a dirham a day, he told me, and meet all my needs if I could provide a reliable record of his expenses. After a month he saw his accounts had been properly made and that all the thieving had stopped, and he accordingly raised my pay and gave me his daughter in marriage, then made me his partner. I, though,
stayed constantly sad and brokenhearted.
One day I saw people hurrying about the streets with decorations and rejoicing, and, when I asked what it was all about, I was told it was Easter Sunday for the Christians and that people were going out to watch the spectacle. It struck me that, if I went out with them, I might come across my friends. I asked the grocer’s permission, and, when he’d given me what I might need, out I went.
When I reached the place where the people were gathered, I saw the Hashemite captain there in the midst of the crowd and raced over to his group. They were overjoyed to see me.
“What happened to you?” they asked. “We thought you must have drowned! The girl tore her clothes, broke her lute, and cut off her hair.
When we got to Basra, we told her she could do as she wanted. She decided to dress in black, make a pretended grave, and sit down by it and weep.”
They took me with them, and I found her in the state they’d described. When she saw me, she made a loud choking sound, and we were afraid she was dead. Finally she came to.
“I give her to you,” her master said.
“No,” I replied. “Do as you promised before. Free her and let us be married.”
He did so, just as we’d arranged before. Then he gave me clothes and five hundred dinars.
“This,” he said, “is what I was giving you daily before. We’ll carry on in the same way.”
I went to the grocer and told him the whole story, then divorced his daughter and lived in the greatest happiness with my girl.
From Dawud al-Antaki, Tazyin al-Aswaq bi Tafsil Ashwaq al-ʿUshshaq (Adorning the Markets with Tales of Lovers’ Longing), vol. 1.
VIII
Excerpts from Seven Major Classical Works
81
From Ibn Tufail, Hayy ibn Yaqzan
1. The Death of the Doe
Wasting and weakness were taking their toll on the Doe, until at last she was overtaken by death, her movements at an end along with all her actions. When the boy saw her in this state, he was overwhelmed by grief, his soul almost spent with sorrow. He took to calling, using the voice she always answered when she heard it. He called at the top of his voice; but he could spy no movement or change. He gazed at her ears and eyes, but could see no evident defect. He gazed at all her limbs, but could see nothing amiss. His hope was to find the site of the ailment and to remedy matters, so she could be restored to her former state. But all his efforts were in vain. What had led him to the attempt was his own experience. He had found that, when he closed his eyes or covered them, he could no longer see till the obstacle was removed. When he placed his fingers in his ears, he could hear nothing until the blockage was taken away. When he pinched his nose between his fingers, he could smell nothing till his nose was free again. Perhaps, he concluded, all the various perceptions and actions of the doe might have been hampered by impediments of some kind and, when these were removed, the perceptions and actions would return to normal once more.
Classical Arabic Stories Page 29
