One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  The prodigality of Arab princes to men of learning may be exemplified by the following anecdote. — Ḥammád, surnamed Er-Ráwiyeh, or the famous reciter, having attached himself to the Khaleefeh El-Weleed, the son of ´Abd-El-Melik, and shown a contrary feeling towards his brother Hishám, fled, on the accession of the latter, to El-Koofeh. While there, a letter arrived from Hishám, commanding his presence at Damascus: it was addressed to the governor, who, being ordered to treat him with honour, gave him a purse containing a thousand pieces of gold, and dispatched him with the Khaleefeh’s messenger.

  On his arrival at Damascus, he was conducted before Hishám, whom he found in a splendid saloon, seated under a pavilion of red silk surmounted by a dome of yellow brocade, attended by two female slaves of beauty unsurpassed, each holding a crystal ewer of wine. His admission during the presence of members of the king’s ḥareem was a very unusual and high honour: the mention of the wine will be explained in the next chapter. After Ḥammád had given the salutation[] and the Khaleefeh had returned it, the latter told him that he had sent for him to ask respecting a couplet of which he could only remember that it ended with the word “ibreeḳ,” which signifies “a ewer.” The reciter reflected awhile, and the lines occurred to his mind, and he repeated them. Hishám cried out in delight that the lines were those he meant; drank a cup of wine, and desired one of the female slaves to hand a cup to Ḥammád. She did so; and the draught, he says, deprived him of one-third of his reason. The Khaleefeh desired him to repeat the lines again, and drink a second cup; and Ḥammád was deprived of another third of his reason in the same manner; and said, “O Prince of the Faithful, two-thirds of my reason have departed from me.” Hishám laughed, and desired him to ask what he would before the remaining third should have gone; and the reciter said, “One of these two female slaves.” The Khaleefeh laughed again, and said, “Nay, but both of them are thine, and all that is upon them and all that they possess, and beside them fifty thousand pieces of gold.”— “I kissed the ground before him,” says Ḥammád, “and drank a third cup, and was unconscious of what happened after. I did not awake till the close of the night, when I found myself in a handsome house, surrounded by lighted candles, and the two female slaves were putting in order my clothes and other things. So I took possession of the property, and departed, the happiest of the creatures of God.”[]

  In the beginning of the year of the Flight 305 (A.D. 917), two ambassadors from the Greek Emperor (Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus) arrived in Baghdád on a mission to the Khaleefeh El-Muḳtedir, bringing an abundance of costly presents. They were first received by the Wezeer, who, at the audience which he granted to them in his garden palace, displayed a degree of magnificence that had never before been manifested by any of his rank. Pages, memlooks, and soldiers crowded the avenues and courts of his mansion, the apartments of which were hung with tapestry of the value of thirty thousand deenárs; and the Wezeer himself was surrounded by generals and other officers on his right and left and behind his seat, when the two ambassadors approached him, dazzled by the splendour that surrounded them, to beg for an interview with the Khaleefeh. El-Muḳtedir, having appointed a day on which he would receive them, ordered that the courts and passages and avenues of his palace should be filled with armed men, and that all the apartments should be furnished with the utmost magnificence. A hundred and sixty thousand armed soldiers were arranged in ranks in the approach to the palace; next to these were the pages of the closets and chief eunuchs, clad in silk and with belts set with jewels, in number seven thousand, — four thousand white and three thousand black, — besides seven hundred chamberlains; and beautifully ornamented boats of various kinds were seen floating upon the Tigris hard by.

  The two ambassadors passed first by the palace of the chief chamberlain, and, astonished at the splendid ornaments and pages and arms which they there beheld, imagined that this was the palace of the Khaleefeh. But what they had seen here was eclipsed by what they beheld in the latter, where they were amazed by the sight of thirty-eight thousand pieces of tapestry of gold-embroidered silk brocade, and twenty-two thousand magnificent carpets. Here also were two menageries of beasts, by nature wild but tamed by art and eating from the hands of men: among them were a hundred lions, each with its keeper. They then entered the Palace of the Tree, enclosing a pond from which rose the Tree: this had eighteen branches, with artificial leaves of various colours and with birds of gold and silver (or gilt and silvered) of every variety of kind and size perched upon its branches, so constructed that each of them sang. Thence they passed into the garden, in which were furniture and utensils not to be enumerated; in the passages leading to it were suspended ten thousand gilt coats of mail. Being at length conducted before El-Muḳtedir, they found him seated on a couch of ebony inlaid with gold and silver, to the right of which were hung nine necklaces of jewels, and the like to the left, the jewels of which outshone the light of day. The two ambassadors paused at the distance of about a hundred cubits from the Khaleefeh, with the interpreter. Having left the presence, they were conducted through the palace, and were shown splendidly caparisoned elephants, a giraffe, lynxes, and other beasts. They were then clad with robes of honour, and to each of them was brought fifty thousand dirhems, together with dresses and other presents. It is added that the ambassadors approached the palace through a street called “the Street of the Menárehs,” in which were a thousand menárehs or minarets. It was at the hour of noon; and as they passed, the muëddins from all these minarets chanted the call to prayer at the same time, so that the earth almost quaked at the sound, and the ambassadors were struck with fear.[]

  The Orientals well understand how to give the most striking effect to the jewels which they display on their dress and ornaments on occasions of state. Sir John Malcolm, describing his reception by the King of Persia, says, “His dress baffled all description. The ground of his robes was white; but he was so covered with jewels of an extraordinary size, and their splendour, from his being seated where the rays of the sun played upon them, was so dazzling, that it was impossible to distinguish the minute parts which combined to give such amazing brilliancy to his whole figure.”

  A whimsical story is told of a King who denied to poets those rewards to which usage had almost given them a claim. This King, whose name is not recorded, had the faculty of retaining in his memory an ode after having only once heard it; and he had a memlook who could repeat an ode that he had twice heard, and a female slave who could repeat one that she had heard thrice. Whenever a poet came to compliment him with a panegyrical ode, the King used to promise him that if he found his verses to be his original composition, he would give him a sum of money equal in weight to what they were written upon. The poet, consenting, would recite his ode; and the King would say, “It is not new, for I have known it some years;” and would repeat it as he had heard it. After which he would add, “And this memlook also retains it in his memory;” and would order the memlook to repeat it: which, having heard it twice, from the poet and the king, he would do. The King would then say to the poet, “I have also a female slave who can repeat it;” and on his ordering her to do so, stationed behind the curtains, she would repeat what she had thus thrice heard: so the poet would go away empty-handed. The famous poet, El Aṣma´ee, having heard of this proceeding, and guessing the trick, determined upon outwitting the King; and accordingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words. But this was not his only preparative measure, another will be presently explained, and a third was to assume the dress of a Bedawee, that he might not be known, covering his face, the eyes only excepted, with a lithám (a piece of drapery) in accordance with a custom of Arabs of the desert.

  Thus disguised, he went to the palace, and having asked permission, entered, and saluted the King, who said to him, “Whence art thou, O brother of the Arabs, and what dost thou desire?”

  The poet answered, “May God increase the power of the King! I am a poet of such a tribe, and have composed an ode in p
raise of our Lord the Sulṭán.”

  “O brother of the Arabs,” said the King, “hast thou heard of our condition?”

  “No,” answered the poet; “and what is it, O King of the age?”

  “It is,” replied the King, “that if the ode be not thine, we give thee no reward; and if it be thine, we give thee the weight in money of what it is written upon.”

  “How,” said El-Aṣma´ee, “should I assume to myself that which belongs to another, and knowing, too, that lying before kings is one of the basest of actions? But I agree to this condition, O our Lord the Sulṭán.”

  So he repeated his ode. The King, perplexed, and unable to remember any of it, made a sign to the memlook — but he had retained nothing; and called to the female slave, but she also was unable to repeat a word.

  “O brother of the Arabs,” said he, “thou hast spoken truth, and the ode is thine without doubt; I have never heard it before: produce, therefore, what it is written upon, and we will give thee its weight in money, as we have promised.”

  “Wilt thou,” said the poet, “send one of the attendants to carry it?”

  “To carry what?” asked the King; “is it not upon a paper here in thy possession?”

  “No, our lord the Sulṭán,” replied the poet; “at the time I composed it I could not procure a piece of paper upon which to write it, and could find nothing but a fragment of a marble column left me by my father; so I engraved it upon this, and it lies in the court of the palace.”

  He had brought it, wrapped up, on the back of a camel. The King, to fulfil his promise, was obliged to exhaust his treasury; and to prevent a repetition of this trick, (of which he afterwards discovered El-Aṣma´ee to have been the author), in future rewarded the poets according to the usual custom of kings.[]

  In the present declining age of Arabian learning (which may be said to have commenced about the period of the conquest of Egypt by the ´Othmánlees), literary recreations still exert a magical influence upon the Arabs. Compositions of a similar nature to the tales of the “Thousand and One Nights” (though regarded by the learned as idle stories unworthy of being classed with their literature) enable numbers of professional story-tellers to attract crowds of delighted listeners to the coffee-shops of the East; and now that the original of this work is printed and to be purchased at a moderate price, it will probably soon in a great measure supersede the romances of Aboo-Zeyd, Eẓ-Ẓáhir, and ´Antarah. As a proof of the powerful fascinations with which the tales of the “Thousand and One Nights” affect the mind of a highly enlightened Muslim, it may be mentioned that the latest native historian of Modern Egypt, the sheykh ´Abd-Er-Raḥmán El-Jabartee, so delighted in their perusal that he took the trouble of refining the language of a copy of them which he possessed, expunging or altering whatever was grossly offensive to morality without the somewhat redeeming quality of wit, and adding many facetiæ of his own and of other literati. What has become of this copy I have been unable, though acquainted with several of his friends, to discover.

  The letters of Muslims are distinguished by several peculiarities dictated by the rules of politeness. The paper is thick, white, and highly polished: sometimes it is ornamented with flowers of gold; and the edges are always cut straight with scissors. The upper half is generally left blank, and the writing never occupies any portion of the second side. A notion of the usual style of letters may be obtained from several examples in the “Thousand and One Nights.” The name of the person to whom the letter is addressed, when the writer is an inferior or an equal, and even in some other cases, commonly occurs in the first sentence, preceded by several titles of honour; and is often written a little above the line to which it appertains; the space beneath it in that line being left blank: sometimes it is written in letters of gold, or red ink. A king writing to a subject, or a great man to a dependant, usually places his name and seal at the head of his letter. The seal is the impression of a signet (generally a ring, worn on the little finger of the right hand), upon which is engraved the name of the person, commonly accompanied by the words “His [i.e. God’s] servant,” or some other words expressive of trust in God and the like. Its impression is considered more valid than the sign-manual, and is indispensable to give authenticity to the letter. It is made by dabbing some ink upon the surface of the signet and pressing this upon the paper: the place which is to be stamped being first moistened by touching the tongue with a finger of the right hand and then gently rubbing the part with that finger. A person writing to a superior or an equal, or even to an inferior to whom he wishes to show respect, signs his name at the bottom of his letter, next the left side or corner, and places the seal immediately to the right of this: but if he particularly desire to testify his humility, he places it beneath his name, or even partly over the lower edge of the paper, which consequently does not receive the whole of the impression. The letter is generally folded twice in the direction of the writing, and enclosed in a cover of paper, upon which is written the address in some such form as this:— “It shall arrive, if it be the will of God, whose name be exalted, at such a place, and be delivered into the hand of our honoured friend, etc., such a one, whom God preserve.” Sometimes it is placed in a small bag, or purse, of silk embroidered with gold.

  Many persons of the instructed classes, and some others among the Arabs, often take delight and show much ingenuity and quickness of apprehension in conversing and corresponding by means of signs and emblems, or in a conventional, metaphorical language, not understood by the vulgar in general and sometimes not by any excepting the parties engaged in the intercourse. In some cases, when the main metaphor employed is understood, the rest of the conversation becomes easily intelligible, without any previous explanation; and I have occasionally succeeded in carrying on a conversation of this kind, but I have more frequently been unsuccessful in attempting to divine the nature of a topic in which other persons were engaged. One simple mode of secret conversation or correspondence is by substituting certain letters for other letters.

  Many of the women are said to be adepts in this art, or science, and to convey messages, declarations of love, and the like, by means of fruits, flowers, and other emblems. The inability of numbers of women in families of the middle classes to write or read, as well as the difficulty or impossibility frequently existing of conveying written letters, may have given rise to such modes of communication. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in one of her charming letters from the East, has gratified our curiosity by a Turkish love-letter of this kind.[] A specimen of one from an Arab with its answer, may be here added: — An Arab lover sent to his mistress a fan, a bunch of flowers, a silk tassel, some sugar-candy, and a piece of a chord of a musical instrument; and she returned for answer a piece of an aloe-plant, three black cumin-seeds, and a piece of a plant used in washing.[] His communication is thus interpreted. The fan, being called “mirwaḥah,” a word derived from a root which has among its meanings that of “going to any place in the evening,” signified his wish to pay her an evening visit: the flowers, that the interview should be in her garden: the tassel, being called “shurrábeh,” that they should have sharáb[] (or wine): the sugar-candy, being termed “sukkar nebát,” and “nebát” also signifying “we will pass the night,” denoted his desire to remain in her company until the morning: and the piece of a chord, that they should be entertained by music. The interpretation of her answer is as follows. The piece of an aloe-plant, which is called “ṣabbárah” (from “ṣabr,” which signifies “patience” — because it will live for many months together without water), implied that he must wait: the three black cumin-seeds explained to him that the period of delay should be three nights: and the plant used in washing informed him that she should then have gone to the bath, and would meet him.[]

  A remarkable faculty is displayed by some Arabs for catching the meaning of secret signs employed in written communications to them, such signs being often used in political and other intrigues. The following is a curious instance.
— The celebrated poet El-Mutanebbee, having written some verses in dispraise of Káfoor El-Ikhsheedee, the independent Governor of Egypt, was obliged to flee and hide himself in a distant town. Káfoor was informed of his retreat, and desired his secretary to write to him a letter promising him pardon and commanding him to return; but told the writer at the same time that when the poet came he would punish him. The secretary was a friend of the poet, and, being obliged to read the letter to the Prince when he had written it, was perplexed how to convey to El-Mutanebbee some indication of the danger that awaited him. He could only venture to do so in the exterior address; and having written this in the usual form, commencing “In sháa-lláh” (If it be the will of God) “this shall arrive,” etc., he put a small mark of reduplication over the “n” in the first word, which he thus converted into “Inna,” the final vowel being understood. The poet read the letter and was rejoiced to see a promise of pardon; but on looking a second time at the address was surprised to observe the mark of reduplication over the “n.” Knowing the writer to be his friend, he immediately suspected a secret meaning, and rightly conceived that the sign conveyed an allusion to a passage in the Ḳur-án commencing with the word “Inna,” and this he divined to be the following:— “Verily the magistrates are deliberating concerning thee, to put thee to death.”[] Accordingly, he fled to another town. Some authors add that he wrote a reply conveying by a similar sign to his friend an allusion to another passage in the Ḳur-án:— “We will never enter the country while they remain therein.”[] It is probable that signs thus employed were used by many persons to convey allusions to certain words; and such may have been the case in the above-mentioned instance: if not, the poet was indeed a wonderful guesser.