Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics)

by Malcolm C (Tr Lyons

  ‘Usfur cursed her, but he got up and put on his robe of honour and a grand turban before going down and saddling his mule. Then he went out and asked the servants what they wanted. They told him to come and speak to the king, and when he asked what the king wanted from him they told him of the robbery and that the princess had said that he would be able to find the money. He called on God’s name and went with them. When he came into the king’s presence, he greeted him and strode through the crowd to take his seat beside him. ‘By God,’ the king exclaimed, ‘were this not the greatest sage of all time he would not have sat down beside me.’ He then turned to ‘Usfur and asked: ‘Is it true what my daughter said about you?’ ‘Yes,’ replied ‘Usfur.

  The king then said: ‘I have lost ten thousand dinars from my treasury, and none of my astrologers have been able to find it. If you do, you can have a thousand dinars from it.’ ‘Usfur said: ‘Your Majesty, I should like you to collect all these astrologers in front of you and get them to confess that they can’t do it, and then, thanks to your own good fortune, I shall work things out.’

  The king duly collected all the astrologers and when they were there he said: ‘This is my daughter’s astrologer, and he has told me that he will produce the ten thousand dinars. Acknowledge to him that you cannot, so that he may do it.’ When they looked at ‘Usfur the astrologer with his long beard they laughed and said: ‘Since when has this lunatic been an astrologer? He is a weaver and what is he doing here, unlucky fellow? He is not going to be contented until we admit that this is beyond our powers?’ But one of them said: ‘What harm will there be in acknowledging this to him so that we can laugh at him, and the king can slap him until he sees stars?’ So they made this admission to the king and added: ‘If this sage can find the money, he will be our chief.’ ‘Usfur asked the king to give him ten days, to which the king agreed. He said to himself: ‘I’ll go and get my wife, and we can then leave this place. In ten days’ time I’ll be far away and free from this trouble, for where am I going to get ten thousand dinars from?’ They then left the king’s presence with the astrologers laughing at ‘Usfur and saying: ‘What is this unlucky fellow going to do?’

  As for ‘Usfur, he went to his wife and said: ‘Get up, you bitch! Something has happened.’ She asked him what was the matter, and he said: ‘I have guaranteed to produce the ten thousand dinars that the king has lost within ten days. So get up and let’s go. In ten days’ time we’ll be in a far-distant city, away from this trouble, with enough to live on for the rest of our lives.’ ‘By God,’ she said, ‘we’re not going to leave here until our dying day.’ ‘You feeble woman,’ he said, ‘where am I going to get ten thousand dinars to give the king? You’re trying to get me hanged, but I shan’t let them do thus until they’ve hanged you first.’ She told him: ‘Over the next ten days there are a thousand chances of getting out of this.’ ‘Not even if the ten days were a whole year,’ he said, to which she replied that something would turn up.

  ‘Usfur felt relieved and told her that during this time he would not leave her but would stay sitting on the bench by the door, waiting to see what would happen. ‘I want you to get me a jug,’ he told her, ‘and cover its mouth. Give me some date stones and with every day that passes I’ll put one of them into the jug.’ She agreed to this, and next day ‘Usfur came down, spread out his carpet and sat by the door, with everything he had placed behind him.

  So much for him, but as for the money, it had been taken from the royal treasury by ten thieves. Since then they had not been able to spend any of it or to find out what the king was doing, but then they heard that ‘Usfur the astrologer had guaranteed to return it within ten days. This alarmed them, and they told themselves that he would not have done this unless he knew about them. They discussed what to do and decided that one of them should go to his house to find out what he was doing, and if ‘Usfur recognized this one, he would know the others.

  They were sheltering in a cave outside the city when they agreed on this plan, saying that, if ‘Usfur recognized them, they should give him the money, asking him not to give them away. One of them volunteered to go and get news and when he came to ‘Usfur’s house he found him sitting reading from a book in front of him. He would glance at the book, then at the thief’s face and then back at the book. ‘By ‘Ali,’ the thief exclaimed to himself, ‘he has recognized me!’

  As it happened, near ‘Usfur there were two men quarrelling. ‘Usfur said to the thief: ‘Do you know me?’ and, looking at him, the thief thought that it was he who was abusing the other man. ‘By the Lord of the Ka‘ba, he knows me,’ said the thief to himself, ‘and his household know me too.’ He then went to sit where he could hear ‘Usfur without being seen. ‘Usfur called to his wife by name and when she answered he said: ‘This is one of the ten, and there are nine left to come’ [referring to the date stones]. On hearing this, the thief ran off in fright without turning right or left until he reached his companions. When he told them what had happened they all said that it might be a coincidence, for how could he have known. ‘By God, he knew me,’ the thief insisted, ‘and he said: “This is one of the ten”.’ They said: ‘In that case someone else should go tomorrow, and if he is recognized we shall have to settle things with the astrologer.’

  Next day another of the ten volunteered to go. He waited until the afternoon and when he went he found ‘Usfur sitting by his door with the book in front of him, looking first at his face and then back at the book. The thief stood out of sight, where he could hear what he was saying. ‘Usfur again called to his wife and when she answered he said: ‘These are two out of the ten that have come.’ When he heard this the thief exclaimed: ‘By the Lord of the Ka‘ba, that cuckold knows us!’ and he fled back to his companions, his heart trembling with fear. His report was the same as that of the first thief, and he told them: ‘If we wait any longer, we shall be killed.’

  The leader of the gang said: ‘Tomorrow no one is to go except me, and if it turns out that he knows us, I shall go in and arrange things with him.’ Next day he waited until afternoon and then sneaked out to ‘Usfur’s house. ‘Usfur was sitting at his door with the book in front of him, as a poet described:

  He was looking at a book and then shaking his head,

  And I can swear he did not know what it contained.

  He kept on looking first at the book and then at the thief, to make him think that he was reading, something that he did when anyone went by. When the thief passed and ‘Usfur kept staring at him, he became afraid and said: ‘By God, this cuckold knows us!’ He stood out of sight, listening, as ‘Usfur called to his wife, and when she answered he said: ‘By ‘Ali, this is the pick of the ten and the finest of them.’

  When he heard this, the leader told himself that there was no more doubt and he went back to the others and said: ‘What are we going to do?’ ‘What’s the news?’ they asked. ‘By God, he knows us,’ their leader told them, ‘and he has done us a favour by not giving us away! Come on, let’s take him the gold and the silver and give it to him, together with a thousand dinars of our own, a hundred from each of us as a price for our heads. We can then ask him to be good to us and not tell anyone about us.’ ‘Do as you think best,’ they told him, and at that they took all the stolen money as well as the extra thousand dinars and brought it to ‘Usfur’s door, where he and his wife were talking. They knocked, and ‘Usfur’s wife asked: ‘Who is that?’ ‘We want to speak to the sage,’ they said, at which ‘Usfur came out, shaking his beard and spreading his fingers open. When they saw him they fell down at his feet, kissing them and clutching at the hem of his robe. ‘We want you to do us a favour,’ they told him. ‘We know that you have known about us from the very first day, but you have not given us away. The ten of us took the king’s gold, but we have been caught out and we have brought you a thousand dinars of our own so that you may oblige us by keeping this a secret. Here is the gold.’ ‘Usfur told them: ‘God knows that I only asked the king for a ten-day delay
to give you more time lest he kill you. For if I had told him about you he would have executed you all.’ ‘We know that, and that’s why we are here,’ they said, and ‘Usfur promised: ‘Now that you’ve done that, no harm will come to you.’

  He took the gold into his house, and his wife asked him if he now saw what a blessing her advice had brought him. ‘Bitch,’ he said; ‘you’re never going to stop trailing after me until you get me crucified.’ He then took the thousand dinars and sat eating with his wife and children until the ten days were up.

  On the eleventh day the king sent ten servants to fetch him. When they came and knocked at the door, his wife asked who was there, and they said: ‘Let the sage come and talk to the king.’ She went in and told ‘Usfur to do this and to give him the gold, pointing out that it was thanks to her advice that he had been successful. ‘You bring luck, do you?’ he asked. ‘Had those feeble-witted fellows not come here, you and I would have been hanged today.’ ‘Get up,’ she repeated, ‘for relief comes between one moment and the next.’

  ‘Usfur got up and put on the best robe that he had and walked on to the palace. There he found that permission for him to enter had already been given, so he went in and greeted the king, who stood up for him, as did all his courtiers, while the astrologers were forced to do the same. When he had sat down, the king said: ‘Sage, we want the money.’ ‘Usfur politely agreed but said that the astrologers were to confess their powerlessness so that he could do what he wanted with them or else they should say what they did know. The king told them: ‘You have heard what he says. Can any one of you produce the money?’ ‘No,’ they answered and at that ‘Usfur clapped his hands and said to the king: ‘Come and get it.’ ‘Where is it?’ asked the king and ‘Usfur said: ‘Buried in the square.’ In fact, he had told the thieves to bury it there and they had done so.

  When it was uncovered, shouts of jubilation arose, and the king said: ‘Let all those who love me give this man a robe of honour,’ at which they deluged him with robes. ‘Usfur then said that he wanted the astrologers to be slapped all the way from the palace to his house. This was done on the king’s orders, as ‘Usfur rode on his mule with drums and trumpets going on ahead. When they got to the house the mistreated astrologers went off, and ‘Usfur handed the bandsmen quantities of dinars. They then left gratefully.

  ‘What happened to you?’ his wife asked as he entered the house. He told her that he had had the astrologers slapped after admitting their powerlessness and he added: ‘When they get back and slap me, I’ll have made up for it in advance.’ ‘Cheer up,’ she said, ‘as nothing but good is going to happen.’ He said: ‘How often do you try to make me think that disasters are not so bad! Let’s go somewhere else, for we’ve enough to last us till we die.’ ‘No,’ she said, and he cursed her and told her that she would end on the gallows. He then stayed eating and drinking and going all the time to the princess and the king, who had told her that he had produced the money. ‘There is no one like him in the whole world,’ the princess repeated.

  As fate had decreed, one day the king happened to eat out in the palace orchard, and when he had got up to wash his hands in the pool he forgot a ring he had been wearing on his finger which protected against poison. As he got up he left it by the side of the pool, and up came a lame duck that swallowed it in sight of a young eunuch. When the king remembered it, he could not find it, and to his distress no one could tell him anything about it, for, as the eunuch was intending to kill the duck and take the ring, he had said nothing at all.

  The king ordered the astrologers to be fetched, as his emirs and viziers had interceded for them, reminding him that these were servants of his who had burned themselves out in his service. The king said: ‘When I have allowed someone to make a wish, there is nothing for it but to let him have what he wants.’ The courtiers were happy with this, and the king gave robes of honour to the astrologers and conciliated them. When they were all there he told them that he had lost a ring that he had had since his father’s time and by which he set great store. He promised them a thousand dinars if they could find it. Some of them consulted the sand and others the stars but they could not track it down and when the king asked them what they had done they said: ‘By God, Your Majesty, we are at a loss, and the ring has stayed hidden from us.’

  The king then called out for the princess’s sage, and his servants went off to ‘Usfur, who was sitting at home. ‘Something has happened,’ he said to himself, and he got up and went out to ask who was there. ‘Come and speak to the king,’ they told him, and when he asked them what the king wanted, they told him of the loss of his old ring and that, as the astrologers couldn’t find it, the king had sent for him to produce it. ‘Usfur went to his wife and, after cursing her and wishing her ill, he said: ‘What am I to do? Tell me.’ ‘What has happened?’ she asked, and he told her about the loss of the king’s ring and the fact that the astrologers hadn’t been able to find it. ‘The king has sent for me to produce it for him, so what am I to say? This is another case like that of the robbers, and this time the king will hang me, as he will say: “You are laughing at me, and it was you who slapped my astrologers.” ’ She said: ‘Go off and put your trust in the Great and Glorious God, for nothing but good will come of this.’ ‘You’ve got me ready for crucifixion,’ he told her, ‘so that you can sit until I alone become the victim, while you take the gold and go off, but, by God, nothing is going to happen to me before it happens to you first.’

  He went out and rode to the palace on his mule. There he dismounted and took his seat by the door, waiting for permission to go in. Over the door was a silk screen covered with all kinds of pictures of ducks, doves, gazelles, hares and the like. ‘Usfur sat looking at this and shaking his head. The eunuch came up to him, saying to himself: ‘This sage has seen the duck on the screen and he knows that it took the ring. It won’t take him long to realize that I saw it but said nothing and when he tells the king I shall be hanged.’

  ‘Usfur shook his head at the eunuch, who told himself: ‘By God, that pimp knows, and the king is going to have me killed today.’ He held back ‘Usfur in the hall and said: ‘By God, wise man, take this hundred dinars from me as a sweetener and say nothing about me to the king, for I saw a lame duck swallow the ring by the pool in the orchard, where the king was washing his hands.’ ‘I knew that,’ ‘Usfur said, ‘and had you not spoken to me I would have told the king to put you to death. Now go off and don’t tell anyone or else I’ll let him hang you.’

  The eunuch left and went to the king, with whom, as he could see, the astrologers, viziers and a crowd of others were gathered. ‘Usfur greeted them and took his seat, before asking the king what his orders were. ‘What can you do for me?’ said the king. ‘I have lost a ring that was dearer to me than the whole of my kingdom and I don’t know where it can have gone.’ ‘And these astrologers,’ asked ‘Usfur, ‘how can this be concealed from them so that they don’t produce it?’ ‘They can’t do that,’ the king told him, ‘and I shall give a thousand dinars to anyone who can.’ ‘I can’t do this until you tell me what I need to know,’ ‘Usfur said. The king agreed to this, and ‘Usfur then asked him: ‘Where were you when you lost the ring?’ ‘In the palace orchard,’ the king told him. ‘Take me there,’ said ‘Usfur, and the king and his courtiers got up and went off to it.

  ‘Usfur took from his pocket a stick with a rope fastened to it and he lowered it into the water and left it for a time, causing one of the astrologers to exclaim that this was going to be a disaster. Then he lifted it and dragged it around, prompting another exclamation. Next he asked the king to get the eunuchs to see what wild creatures and the like, such as birds and beasts, were in the orchard and to show them all to him. The king ordered this to be done, and first of all he was shown the eunuchs, the servants young and old and every person who was in the orchard. They were followed by the wild animals, gazelles, hares and the like, and after them came the birds, geese, ostriches, chickens, falcons, sparr
ow hawks and so on. At the end came the ducks, and each one that the servants brought was made to pass in front of ‘Usfur. When it was the turn of the lame duck, he stared at it wide-eyed, shook his head and spread open his fingers. The people there laughed at him, this being the duck that used to make the king laugh when he was angry. Now, when it passed, he laughed so much that he fell over on his back, but when ‘Usfur saw it he gave so loud a shout that he startled his audience. ‘Hold it,’ he cried, ‘for it was this that took the ring!’ ‘What?’ exclaimed the king, and when ‘Usfur swore that this was the thief the astrologers laughed at him, and the king told him that the duck had been there ever since his father’s time. ‘If you want the ring, take it from this duck,’ insisted ‘Usfur, and when the king asked what would happen if there was nothing there, ‘Usfur promised that in that case he would replace the ring.

  The king ordered the duck to be killed, although inwardly he was hoping that nothing would be found, but in fact there was the ring in its craw. When he saw it, he was delirious with joy and exclaimed to ‘Usfur: ‘By God, you have no match in the whole world!’ He presented him with a robe of honour, a thousand dinars and food for three meals a day from the royal kitchens. The astrologers, cheated of their revenge, almost expired of anger and envy, and ‘Usfur told the king that there was still one condition that he had not fulfilled. ‘Tell me what you want,’ said the king and ‘Usfur told him that he wanted to drive the astrologers in front of him, slapping them from the palace to the door of his house. ‘Spare them this,’ said the king but when ‘Usfur insisted he gave the order. ‘Usfur mounted his mule, wearing his robe of honour, surrounded by servants, who were slapping the astrologers in front of him until they got to his house. The servants were presented with gold and dismissed, while the astrologers went off in the most wretched of states.