The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 2

by Penguin; Robert Irwin; Malcolm Lyons; Ursula Lyons

  The two of them stayed in the room and locked the door, after which the young man took her and clasped her to him. As they embraced, he had an erection like that of a donkey and he mounted her and stayed for a long time as she sobbed and shrieked, twisting and turning beneath him. Her husband started to call to her, saying: ‘That’s enough. Come out. It has been a long day for the child that you are suckling.’ ‘Go to your baby and then come back,’ the young man kept saying, but she insisted: ‘If I leave you, I shall die, and as for my son, he can cry himself to death or be brought up as an orphan without a mother.’ So she stayed with the young man until he had made love ten times, with her husband on the other side of the door calling to her, shouting, shedding tears and praying for help which did not come. He kept on doing this and threatening to kill himself, and when he could find no way to get to his wife, in an excess of wretchedness and jealousy, he climbed to the top of the baths and threw himself down to his death.

  ‘I have also heard another story of the wiles of women,’ the fourth vizier continued, and when the king asked what this was, HE SAID:

  O king, I was told that there was a lovely, graceful and beautiful girl, perfectly formed and without any equal. She was seen by a young libertine who fell deeply in love with her, but she was too chaste to think of adultery and had no wish for him. As it happened, however, her husband left to visit another land and the young man began sending her message after message every day. When she did not reply to him, he went to an old woman living nearby, and after having greeted her he sat complaining to her of his sufferings as a lover and of his passion for the lady whom he wanted to possess. ‘There is no need to worry,’ said the old woman. ‘I can guarantee you success and, God willing, get you what you want.’ At this, he gave her a dinar and went on his way.

  The next morning the old woman went to renew her acquaintanceship with the girl, and she then started to visit her daily, sharing her morning and evening meals and taking away some food from her house for her own children. She used to joke laughingly with her hostess until she had succeeded in corrupting her to the extent that she could not bear to be parted from her visitor for a single hour. On leaving the house, the old woman used to take a piece of bread, smear it with fat, add some pepper and feed it to a bitch. This went on for some days, and the bitch would follow her because of her kindness in providing this treat. One day, she added a large quantity of pepper to the fat that she gave to the bitch, whose eyes watered when it had eaten it because of the heat of the pepper. It followed the old woman apparently shedding tears, to the great astonishment of the girl, who asked: ‘Mother, why is this bitch crying?’ ‘My daughter,’ answered the old woman, ‘there is a strange story here. This bitch was once a lovely girl, perfect in her beauty, a companion and friend of mine. A young man in the same quarter fell so passionately in love with her that he had to take to his bed. He sent her a number of messages in the hope that she might have pity on him, but she refused, and although I advised her to do what he asked out of compassion and mercy, she would not take my advice. The young man lost patience and complained to some of his friends, after which they produced a magic charm which changed her human shape to that of a dog. When she saw what had happened to her and how she had been metamorphosed, she found that I was the only one in the world to feel sorry for her and she came to my house looking for sympathy, kissing my hands and my feet and weeping. I recognized her and said: “How many times did I give you advice, but it did you no good?” ’

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and eighty-fifth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that THE FOURTH VIZIER SAID:

  This story of the bitch was all a trick to deceive the lady and get her to fall in with the old woman’s purpose, and the old woman continued: ‘When I saw my friend in that state I was sorry for her and kept her with me. This is how she is now, and whenever she thinks about what she was once like she weeps for herself.’

  On hearing this story, the girl became very frightened and said: ‘By God, mother, this story of yours has frightened me.’ The old woman asked why this was, and the girl said: ‘There is a handsome young man who is in love with me and has sent me many messages but I have refused to have anything to do with him and now I am afraid lest the same thing happen to me as happened to this bitch.’ ‘Take care not to reject my advice, daughter,’ said the old woman, ‘for I am very afraid for you. If you don’t know where he lives, tell me what he looks like and I’ll bring him to you, but don’t let anyone’s heart turn against you.’ When the girl described the young man to her, the old woman pretended ignorance, giving the impression that she did not know him, but saying that she would go and ask about him. Then, when she left, she went straight to the man and said: ‘Cheer up, for I have duped the girl. At noon tomorrow, come and wait for me at the top end of the quarter, and I shall come and take you with me to her house, where you can enjoy yourself with her for the rest of the day and all the night.’ The young man was delighted and gave her two dinars, promising her another ten when he had got what he wanted.

  The old woman went back to the girl and said: ‘I recognized the man and talked over the matter with him. I found him very angry with you and determined to do you an injury, but I went on trying to win him over and I have persuaded him to come to you at the time of the noon prayer tomorrow.’ The girl was delighted and said: ‘Mother, if he is happy to come to me, then I shall give you ten dinars.’ ‘I am the only one who can see to it that he comes,’ the old woman replied, and then, the next morning, she told the girl: ‘Get a meal ready, put on your finery and wear your best clothes, while I go off and bring him to you.’ So the girl got up to adorn herself and to prepare food, while the old woman went out to wait for the young man, but he did not come. She went round looking for him but could find no news of him. ‘What am I going to do?’ she asked herself. ‘Will the food that the girl has prepared go to waste, as well as the promise of money that she made me? I will not let this scheme go for nothing, and so I shall have to look for someone else and bring him to her instead.’ While she was going round the street, she caught sight of a handsome young man whose face showed signs that he had been on a journey. She went up to him and said: ‘Would you like food, drink and a girl who is ready and waiting for you?’ ‘Where is that?’ the young man asked, and she said: ‘With me, in my house.’ So he went off with her, but what she did not know was that this man was the girl’s husband.

  When she came to the house, she knocked on the door and went in after it had been opened by the girl herself, who then ran off to finish dressing and perfuming herself. Congratulating herself on her masterly plot, the old woman brought the young man into the sitting room. In then came the girl, only to discover her husband, with the old woman sitting beside him. On the spur of the moment she had to improvise a trick, and what she did was to pull off her slipper and say to her husband: ‘This was not the pledge that we had between us. How can you betray me and behave like this to me? When I heard that you had come back, I decided to use this old woman to test you and she has made you fall into the temptation against which I warned you. I used to think that you were chaste, but now that I have seen you with her I know for certain that you must have broken our agreement and that you frequent dissolute women.’ She started to hit him on the head with her slipper, while, for his part, he protested his innocence, swearing that never in his life had he played her false or done what she had accused him of doing. He continued to swear by Almighty God and she continued to strike him, weeping, shrieking and calling: ‘Help me, Muslims!’ He put his hand over her mouth, but she bit it and he then began to cringe before her, kissing her hands and feet. She was not prepared to accept this, and went on slapping him until she winked to make the old woman stop her. The old woman then went up to her, kissed her hands and feet, and got the two of them to sit down. When they were seated, the husband began to kiss the old
woman’s hand, exclaiming: ‘May God Almighty give you the best of rewards for having saved me from her,’ while, for her part, the old woman was filled with admiration for the girl’s trick. This, O king, is an example of the wiles and trickery of women.

  When the king heard the story, he accepted its lesson and changed his mind about having his son executed…

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and eighty-sixth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that when the fourth vizier had told the king his story, he changed his mind about having his son executed, but then on the fifth day the girl came to him holding a cup of poison in her hand, calling for help and slapping her cheeks and her face. ‘O king,’ she cried, ‘either grant me justice and avenge me on your son, or else I shall drain this poisoned cup and die. Then the wrong you have done me will cling to you until the Day of Judgement. These viziers of yours are trying to associate me with wiles and cunning, but nowhere in the world are there any wilier than they. Have you not heard the story of the goldsmith and the singing girl?’ ‘What happened to them?’ asked the king and SHE SAID:

  There was once a goldsmith who was inordinately fond of women and of drinking wine. One day, when he was in a friend’s house, he looked around and saw on a wall a picture of the loveliest and most charming girl whom anyone had ever seen. He looked at it again and again, admiring the beauty of the painting, until he had fallen so deeply in love with it that he fell ill and was on the point of death. One of his friends came to visit him and sat by his head, asking him how he was and what his complaint might be. ‘My brother,’ replied the goldsmith, ‘all my sickness and all my sufferings are caused by heartache, for I have fallen in love with a picture painted on the wall of a friend of mine.’ His visitor said reproachfully: ‘This shows a lack of intelligence on your part. How can you fall in love with a picture on a wall, something that can do neither harm nor good; it cannot look, see, take or withhold?’ ‘The painter must have painted it using a beautiful model,’ said the goldsmith, and when his friend pointed out that it might have been a work of imagination, the goldsmith replied: ‘At all events, I am dying of love, and if the painting has a subject to be found in this world, I hope that Almighty God will let me live long enough to see her.’

  Those who were at his sickbed went off and asked about the painter, only to find that he had gone to another town. They sent him a letter describing their friend’s miserable state and asking him how he had come to paint that picture, whether it was an imaginary portait or whether he had seen the model for it in this world. In his reply he wrote: ‘I painted it using as a model a singing girl belonging to a vizier in the city of Kashmir in India.’ When the goldsmith heard the news, he made his preparations and set out from his native Persia on his way to India. After much toil, he reached Kashmir and entered the city, where he took up residence. Then, one day, he went to a perfume seller, a native of the place, who was a shrewd, intelligent and sensible man, and asked him about the king and his way of life. ‘Our king is an upright man,’ the perfume seller replied, ‘who conducts himself well, is good to those who are in his service and treats his subjects with justice. The only people whom he dislikes in the world are magicians, and when he comes across one of them, male or female, he has them thrown into a pit outside the city, where he leaves them to starve to death.’ The goldsmith next asked about the viziers, each of whose conduct and character the Kashmiri described for him, until the conversation came round to the singing girl, and the goldsmith was told to which of the viziers she belonged.

  For some time after that he waited until he had worked out a scheme. On a night of rain and thunder with a stormy wind, he took with him the tools of a thief and set out for the palace of the girl’s owner. He managed to fasten his rope ladder with grappling hooks and climbed to the roof, from where he made his way down into the courtyard. He saw all the slave girls asleep on their couches, and there on a couch of marble was a girl as glorious as the full moon on its fourteenth night. He went up to her, sat by her head and lifted the covering. This was embroidered with gold, and there was a candle at her head and another at her feet, each of ambergris and each in a candlestick of gleaming gold, while beneath her pillow under her head was a silver casket containing all her jewellery. He took out a knife and gave her a superficial wound on the buttocks, at which she woke up in alarm. When she saw him she kept quiet, being too frightened to cry out, but then, thinking that he wanted her treasures, she said: ‘Take the casket and everything in it. It will do you no good to kill me and I appeal to your honour to protect me.’ So the goldsmith took the casket and went off.

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and eighty-seventh night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that the goldsmith went to the vizier’s palace, where he wounded the girl on the buttocks and went off with the casket that contained her jewellery. THE GIRL WENT ON:

  The next morning, taking it with him, he went to the king and, after having kissed the ground before him, he said: ‘O king, I am a sincere friend of yours. I left Khurasan, my own country, to travel to you because of your reputation for fair and just dealing with your subjects, which made me want to serve under your banner. I arrived at your city at the end of the day to find the gate shut, and so I had to sleep outside it. While I was still half-awake I caught sight of four women, one of whom was riding on a broomstick and another on a fan, and I realized that they must be witches who were on their way into the city. One of them came up to me and, after kicking me, she struck me with a fox’s brush which she was holding in her hand. The sharpness of the blow caused me pain and so I struck back with a knife that I had with me and wounded her on the backside as she turned away. When I did so, she fled off before me, dropping this casket and its contents. I took it and on opening it I discovered this valuable jewellery. Please take it, for I have no need of it, as I am a wanderer in the mountains who has cleansed his heart of worldly things and all worldly desires.’ He then left the casket with the king and went on his way.

  When he had gone, the king opened the casket, took out all the ornaments and started turning them over in his hand. Among them he discovered a necklace that he had presented as a gift to the vizier who owned the singing girl. He summoned the man and asked him, on his arrival: ‘Is this the necklace that I gave you?’ When the vizier saw it, he recognized it and said yes, adding: ‘And I gave it to a singing girl of mine.’ The king told him to fetch the girl immediately, and when she had been brought into his presence he told the vizier to inspect her buttocks to see whether or not there was the mark of a wound. When the vizier looked, he found the scar left by the knife and said to the king: ‘Yes, master, she has been wounded.’ ‘There can be absolutely no doubt that she is a witch, as the pious man said,’ the king told him, and he then ordered her to be put into the witches’ pit. She was sent there that day, and when night fell the goldsmith, finding that his trick had worked, went to the guard posted by the pit with a purse containing a thousand dinars in his hand. The two of them sat talking for the first third of the night, after which the goldsmith came to the point and said: ‘Brother, you have to know that this girl is innocent of what she has been charged with and it was I who got her into this position.’ After having told the man his story from beginning to end, he went on: ‘Take this purse of a thousand dinars, my brother, and let me have the girl, so that I can take her off with me to my own country. You will find it more useful to have the money than to keep the girl here, and you will be rewarded by God on our behalf, as the two of us will call down blessings on you and pray for your safety.’ The guard was astonished when he heard how the trick had been worked and, taking the purse and its contents, he left the girl to the goldsmith on condition that he would not stay with her in the city for a single hour. The goldsmith went off with her immediately and travell
ed as fast as he could until he returned to his own land, having done what he had set out to do.

  Look, then, O king, at the cunning wiles of men. Your viziers are trying to stop you from avenging me, but a time will come when you and I shall stand before a just Judge, Who will take vengeance for me from you.

  When the king heard what she said, he again ordered his son to be executed, but at that point his fifth vizier came in, kissed the ground before him and said: ‘Great king, take your time and be in no hurry to have your son killed. Many a hasty act is followed by repentance, and I am afraid that you may have to repent like the man who never laughed again for the rest of his life.’ ‘How was that?’ asked the king.

  The vizier said: ‘I have heard a story, O king, that at his death a certain man, one of those who owned houses and cattle, wealth, eunuchs, slaves and properties, left a young son. When the boy grew up, he began to pass his time eating and drinking, listening to music and songs and making generous gifts, until he had spent what his father had bequeathed him and all his wealth was gone.’

  Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the five hundred and eighty-eighth night, SHE CONTINUED:

  I have heard, O fortunate king, that THE FIFTH VIZIER SAID:

  When the son had lost the money that his father had bequeathed him and it was all gone, he resorted to selling his slaves, male and female, together with his properties, but when he had spent everything that he had, both his father’s money and everything else, he became so poor that he was forced to work as a labourer. Things went on like this for a year until one day, when he was sitting under a wall waiting for someone to hire him, a handsome and well-dressed shaikh came up and greeted him. ‘Uncle,’ said the young man, ‘have you met me before?’ ‘I don’t know you at all, my son,’ the man replied, ‘but although you are reduced to this state, I see that you have been well brought up.’ ‘The decree of fate has been fulfilled,’ the young man said, and he went on to ask whether there was any job that he could do for the man. ‘Yes, my son,’ the shaikh replied, ‘there is a small job on which I should like to employ you,’ and when he was asked what this was, he said: ‘I have ten other shaikhs living with me in the same house, with nobody to run our errands. We can supply you with food and clothes and, if you are prepared to act as our servant, we will give you, in cash and kind, enough to restore you to your former prosperity.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ said the young man, at which the shaikh told him: ‘This is on one condition,’ and he went on to explain: ‘The condition is that, whatever you see us doing, you must keep our secret, and if you see us shedding tears you must not ask us why.’ The young man agreed to this and the shaikh said: ‘Come with me, my boy, with the blessing of Almighty God.’