The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4

R >> Richard F. Burton >> The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4

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When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth the
lady, " 'O Wardan, which of the two courses wouldst thou take;
either obey me in what I shall say and be the means of thine own
safety and competency to the end of thy days, or gainsay me and
so cause thine own destruction?'[FN#434] Answered I, 'I choose
rather to hearken unto thee: say what thou wilt.' Quoth she,
'Then slay me, as thou hast slain this bear, and take thy need of
this hoard and wend thy ways.' Quoth I, 'I am better than this
bear: so return thou to Allah Almighty and repent, and I will
marry thee, and we will live on this treasure the rest of our
lives.' She rejoined, 'O Wardan, far be it from me! How shall I
live after him? By Allah, an thou slay me not I will assuredly do
away thy life! So leave bandying words with me, or thou art a
lost man: this is all I have to say to thee and peace be with
thee!' Then said I, 'I will kill thee, and thou shalt go to the
curse of Allah.' So saying, I caught her by the hair and cut her
throat; and she went to the curse of Allah and of the angels and
of all mankind. And after so doing I examined the place and found
there gold and bezel-stones and pearls, such as no one king could
bring together. So I filled the porter's crate with as much as I
could carry and covered it with the clothes I had on me. Then I
shouldered it and, going up out of the underground treasure-
chamber, fared homewards and ceased not faring on, till I came to
the gate of Cairo, where behold, I fell in with ten of the
bodyguard of Al-Hakim bi' Amri'llah[FN#435] followed by the
Prince himself who said to me, 'Ho, Wardan!' 'At thy service, O
King,' replied I; when he asked, 'Hast thou killed the bear and
the lady?' and I answered, 'Yes.' Quoth he, 'Set down the basket
from thy head and fear naught, for all the treasure thou hast
with thee is thine, and none shall dispute it with thee.' So I
set down the crate before him, and he uncovered it and looked at
it; then said to me, 'Tell me their case, albe I know it, as if I
had been present with you.' So I told him all that had passed and
he said, 'Thou hast spoken the truth,' adding, 'O Wardan, come
now with me to the treasure.' So I returned with him to the
cavern, where he found the trap-door closed and said to me, 'O
Wardan, lift it; none but thou can open the treasure, for it is
enchanted in thy name and nature.'[FN#436] Said I, 'By Allah, I
cannot open it,' but he said, 'Go up to it, trusting in the
blessing of Allah.' So I called upon the name of Almighty Allah
and, advancing to the trap-door, put my hand to it; whereupon it
came up as it had been of the lightest. Then said the Caliph, 'Go
down and bring hither what is there; for none but one of thy name
and semblance and nature hath gone down thither since the place
was made, and the slaying of the bear and the woman was appointed
to be at thy hand. This was chronicled with me and I was awaiting
its fulfilment.'[FN#437] Accordingly (quoth Wardan) I went down
and brought up all the treasure, whereupon the Caliph sent for
beasts of burden and carried it away, after giving me my crate,
with what was therein. So I bore it home and opened me a shop in
the market." And (saith he who telleth the tale) "this market is
still extant and is known as Wardan's Market." And I have heard
recount another story of

THE KING'S DAUGHTER AND THE APE.

There was once a Sultan's daughter, whose heart was taken with
love of a black slave: he abated her maidenhead and she became
passionately addicted to futtering, so that she could not do
without it a single hour and complained of her case to one of her
body women, who told her that no thing poketh and stroketh more
abundantly than the baboon.[FN$438] Now it so chanced one day,
that an ape-leader passed under her lattice, with a great ape; so
she unveiled her face and looking upon the ape, signed to him
with her eyes, whereupon he broke his bonds and chain and climbed
up to the Princess, who hid him in a place with her, and night
and day he abode there, eating and drinking and copulating. Her
father heard of this and would have killed her;--And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-sixth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Sultan heard of this work he would have slain his daughter; but
she smoked his design; and, disguising herself in Mameluke's
dress, mounted horse after loading a mule with gold and bullion,
and precious stuffs past all account; then carrying with her the
ape, she fled to Cairo, where she took up her abode in one of the
houses without the city and upon the verge of the Suez-desert.
Now, every day, she used to buy meat of a young man, a butcher,
but she came not to him till after noonday; and then she was so
yellow and disordered in face that he said in his mind, "There
must indeed hang some mystery by this slave." "Accordingly (quoth
the butcher) one day when she came to me as usual, I went out
after her secretly, and ceased not to follow her from place to
place, so as she saw me not, till she came to her lodging on the
edge of her waste and entered; and I looked in upon her through a
cranny, and saw her as soon as she was at home, kindle a fire and
cook the meat, of which she ate enough and served up the rest to
a baboon she had by her and he did the same. Then she put off the
slave's habit and donned the richest of women's apparel; and so I
knew that she was a lady. After this she set on wine and drank
and gave the ape to drink; and he stroked her nigh half a score
times without drawing till she swooned away, when he spread over
her a silken coverlet and returned to his place. Then I went down
in the midst of the place and the ape, becoming aware of me,
would have torn me in pieces; but I made haste to pull out my
knife and slit his paunch and his bowels fell out. The noise
aroused the young lady, who awoke terrified and trembling; and,
when she saw the ape in this case, she shrieked such a shriek
that her soul well nigh fled her body. Then she fell down in a
fainting-fit and when she came to herself, she said to me, 'What
moved thee to do thus? Now Allah upon thee, send me after him!'
But I spoke her fair for a while and pledged myself to stand in
the ape's stead in the matter of much poking, till her trouble
subsided and I took her to wife. But when I came to perform my
promise I proved a failure and I fell short in this matter and
could not endure such hard labour: so I complained of my case and
mentioned her exorbitant requirements to a certain old woman who
engaged to manage the affair and said to me, 'Needs must thou
bring me a cooking-pot full of virgin vinegar and a pound of the
herb pellitory called wound-wort.'[FN#439] So I brought her what
she sought, and she laid the pellitory in the pot with the
vinegar and set it on the fire, till it was thoroughly boiled.
Then she bade me futter the girl, and I futtered her till she
fainted away, when the old woman took her up (and she
unconscious), and set her parts to the mouth of the cooking-pot.
The steam of the pot entered her slit and there fell from it
somewhat which I examined; and behold, it was two small worms,
one black and the other yellow. Quoth the old, woman, ''The black
was bred of the strokings of the negro and the yellow of stroking
with the baboon.' Now when she recovered from her swoon she abode
with me, in all delight and solace of life, and sought not
swiving as before, for Allah had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn
of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Three Hundred and Fifty-seventh Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young
man continued: "In truth Allah had done away from her this
appetite; whereat I marvelled and acquainted her with the case.
Thereupon I lived with her and she took the old woman to be to
her in the stead of her mother." "And" (said he who told me the
tale) "the old woman and the young man and his wife abode in joy
and cheer till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and
the Sunderer of societies; and glory be to the Ever-living One,
who dieth not and in whose hand is Dominion of the world visible
and invisible!''[FN#440] And another tale they tell is that of

End of Arabian Nights Volume 4.

Arabian Nights, Volume 4
Footnotes

[FN#1] The name is indifferently derived from the red sand about
the town or the reeds and mud with which it was originally built.
It was founded by the Caliph Omar, when the old Capital-Madain
(Ctesiphon) opposite was held unwholesome, on the West bank of
the Euphrates, four days' march from Baghdad and has now
disappeared. Al-Saffah, the first Abbaside, made it his
Capital--and it became a famous seat of Moslem learning; the Kufi
school of Arab Grammarians being as renowned as their opponents,
the Basri (of Bassorah). It gave a name to the "Cufic" characters
which are, however, of much older date.

[FN#2] "Ni'amat" = a blessing, and the word is perpetually
occurring in Moslem conversation, "Ni'amatu'llah" (as pronounced)
is also a favourite P.N. and few Anglo-Indians of the Mutiny date
will forget the scandalous disclosures of Munshi Ni'amatu 'llah,
who had been sent to England by Nana Sahib. Nu'm = prosperity,
good fortune, and a P. N. like the Heb. "Naomi."

[FN#3] i.e. "causing to be prosperous", the name, corrupted by
the Turks to "Tevfik," is given to either sex, e.g. Taufik Pasha
of Egypt, to whose unprosperous rule and miserable career the
signification certainly does not apply.

[FN#4] Lane (ii. 187) alters the two to four years.

[FN#5] i.e. "to Tom, Dick or Harry:" the names like John Doe and
Richard Roe are used indefinitely in Arab. Grammar and Syntax. I
have noted that Amru is written and pronounced Amr: hence Amru,
the Conqueror of Egypt, when told by an astrologer that Jerusalem
would be taken only by a trium literarum homo, with three letters
in his name sent for the Caliph Omar (Omr), to whom the so-called
Holy City at once capitulated. Hence also most probably, the tale
of Bhurtpore and the Lord Alligator (Kumbhir), who however did
not change from Cotton to Combermore for some time after the
successful siege.

[FN#6] BinYusuf al-Sakafi, a statesman and soldier of the
seventh and eighth centuries (A.D.). He was Governor of Al-Hij az
and Al-Irak under the fifth and sixth Ommiades, and I have
noticed his vigorous rule of the Moslems' Holy Land in my
Pilgrimage (iii. 194, etc.). He pulled down the Ka'abah and
restored it to the condition in which it now is. Al-Siyuti (p.
219) accuses him of having suborned a man to murder Ibn Omar with
a poisoned javelin, and of humiliating the Prophet's companions
by "sealing them in the necks and hands," that is he tied a thong
upon the neck of each and sealed the knot with lead. In Irak he
showed himself equally masterful, but an iron hand was required
by the revolutionists of Kufah and Basrah. He behaved like a good
Knight in rescuing the Moslem women who called upon his name when
taken prisoners by Dahir of Debal (Tatha in Sind). Al-Hajjaj was
not the kind of man the Caliph would have chosen for a pander;
but the Shi'ahs hates him and have given him a lasting bad name.
In the East men respect manly measures, not the hysterical,
philanthropic pseudo-humanitarianism of our modern government
which is really the cruellest of all. When Ziyad bin Abihi was
sent by Caliph Mu'awiyah to reform Bassorah, a den of thieves, he
informed the lieges that he intended to rule by the sword and
advised all evil-doers to quit the city. The people were
forbidden, under pain of teeth, to walk the streets after
prayers, on the first night two hundred suffered; on the second
five and none afterwards. Compare this with our civilised rule in
Egypt where even bands of brigands, a phenomenon perfectly new
and unknown to this century, have started up, where crime has
doubled in quantity and quality, and where "Christian rule" has
thoroughly scandalised a Moslem land.

[FN#7] The old bawd's portrait is admirably drawn: all we
dwellers in the East have known her well: she is so and so. Her
dress and manners are the same amongst the Hindus (see the
hypocritical-female ascetic in the Katha, p. 287) as amongst the
Moslems; men of the world at once recognise her and the prudent
keep out of her way. She is found in the cities of Southern
Europe, ever pious, ever prayerful; and she seems to do her work
not so much for profit as for pure or impure enjoyment. In the
text her task was easy, as she had to do with a pair of
innocents.

[FN#8] Koran, xxv. 70. I give Sale's version.

[FN#9] Easterns, I have observed, have no way of saying "Thank
you;" they express it by a blessing or a short prayer. They have
a right to your surplus: daily bread is divided, they say and,
eating yours, they consider it their own. I have discussed this
matter in Pilgrimage i. 75-77, in opposition to those who declare
that "gratitude" is unknown to Moslems.

[FN#10] Cufa (Kufah) being a modern place never had a "King,"
but as the Hindu says, " Delhi is far" it is a far cry to Loch
Awe. Here we can hardly understand "Malik" as Governor or
Viceroy: can it be syn. with Zu-mal-(moneyed)?

[FN#11] Abd al-Malik has been before mentioned as the "Sweat of
a Stone," etc. He died recommending Al-Hajjaj to his son,
Al-Walid, and one of his sayings is still remembered. "He who
desireth to take a female slave for carnal-enjoyment, let him
take a native of Barbary; if he need one for the sake of
children, let him have a Persian; and whoso desireth one for
service, let him take a Greek." Moderns say, "If you want a
brother (in arms) try a Nubian; one to get you wealth an
Abyssinian and if you want an ass (for labour) a Sawahili, or
Zanzibar negroid."

[FN#12] Probably suggested by the history of Antiochus and
Stratonice, with an addition of Eastern mystery such as geomancy.

[FN#13] Arab, "Karurah": the "water-doctor" has always been an
institution in the east and he has lately revived in Europe
especially at the German baths and in London.

[FN#14] Lane makes this phrase "O brother of the Persians!"
synonymous with "O Persian!" I think it means more, a Persian
being generally considered "too clever by half."

[FN#15] The verses deal in untranslatable word-plays upon
women's names, Naomi (the blessing) Su'ada or Su'ad (the happy,
which Mr. Redhouse, in Ka'ab's Mantle-poem, happily renders
Beatrice); and Juml (a sum or total) the two latter, moreover,
being here fictitious.

[FN#16] "And he (Jacob) turned from them, and said, 'O how I am
grieved for Joseph' And his eyes became white with mourning. ...
(Quoth Joseph to his brethren), 'Take this my inner garment and
throw it on my father's face and he shall recover his sight.' . .
. So, when the messenger of good tidings came (to Jacob) he threw
it (the shirt) over his face and he recovered his eye-sight."
Koran, xii. 84, 93, 96. The commentators, by way of improvement,
assure us that the shirt was that worn by Abraham when thrown
into the fire (Koran, chaps. xvi.) by Nimrod (!). We know little
concerning "Jacob's daughters" who named the only bridge spanning
the upper Jordan, and who have a curious shrine tomb near Jewish
"Safe" (North of Tiberias), one of the four "Holy Cities." The
Jews ignore these "daughters of Jacob" and travellers neglect
them.

[FN#17] Easterns, I have remarked, mostly recognise the artistic
truth that the animal-man is handsomer than woman and that "fair
sex" is truly only of skin-colour. The same is the general-rule
throughout creation, for instance the stallion compared with the
mare, the cock with the hen; while there are sundry exceptions
such as the Falconidae.

[FN#18] The Badawi (who is nothing if not horsey) compares the
gait of a woman who walks well (in Europe rarely seen out of
Spain) with the slightly swinging walk of a thoroughbred mare,
bending her graceful neck and looking from side to side at
objects as she passes.

[FN#19] Li'llahi (darr') al-kail, a characteristic idiom.
"Darr"=giving (rich) milk copiously and the phrase expresses
admiration, "To Allah be ascribed (or Allah be praised for) his
rich eloquence who said etc. Some Hebraists would render it,
"Divinely (well) did he speak who said," etc., holding "Allah" to
express a superlative like "Yah" Jah) in Gen. iv. 1; x. 9. Nimrod
was a hunter to the person (or presence) of Yah, i.e. mighty
hunter.

[FN#20] Hamzah and Abbas were the famous uncles of Mohammed
often noticed: Ukayl is not known; possibly it may be Akil, a son
of the fourth Caliph, Ali.

[FN#21] The Eastern ring is rarely plain; and, its use being
that of a signet, it is always in intaglio: the Egyptians
invented engraving hieroglyphics on wooden stamps for marking
bricks and applied the process to the ring. Moses B. C. 1491
(Exod. xxviii. 9) took two onyx-stones, and graved on them the
names of the children of Israel. From this the signet ring was
but a step. Herodotus mentions an emerald seal-set in gold, that
of Polycrates, the work of Theodorus, son of Telecles the Samian
(iii. 141). The Egyptians also were perfectly acquainted with
working in cameo (anaglyph) and rilievo, as may be seen in the
cavo rilievo of the finest of their hieroglyphs. The Greeks
borrowed from them the cameo and applied it to gems (e.g.
Tryphon's in the Marlborough collection), and they bequeathed the
art to the Romans. We read in a modern book "Cameo means an onyx,
and the most famous cameo in the world is the onyx containing the
Apotheosis of Augustus." The ring is given in marriage because it
was a seal--by which orders were signed (Gen. xxxviii. 18 and
Esther iii. 10-12). I may note that the seal-ring of Cheops
(Khufu), found in the Greatest Pyramid, was in the possession of
my old friend, Doctor Abbott, of Auburn (U.S.), and was sold with
his collection. It is the oldest ring in the world, and settles
the Cheops-question.

[FN#22] This habit of weeping when friends meet after long
parting is customary, I have noted, amongst the American
"Indians," the Badawin of the New World; they shed tears thinking
of the friends they have lost. Like most primitive people they
are ever ready to weep as was AEneas or Shakespeare's saline
personage,

"This would make a man, a man of salt
To use his eyes for garden waterpots."
(King Lear, iv. 6.)

[FN#23] Here poetical-justice is not done; in most Arab tales
the two adulterous Queens would have been put to death.

[FN#24] Pronounce Aladdin Abush-Shamat.

[FN#25] Arab. "Misr," vulg. Masr: a close connection of Misraim
the "two Misrs," Egypt, upper and lower.

[FN#26] The Persians still call their Consuls "Shah-bander,"
lit. king of the Bandar or port.

[FN#27] Arab. "Dukhul," the night of going in, of seeing the
bride unveiled for the first time, etcaetera.

[FN#28] Arab. "Barsh" or "Bars," the commonest kind. In India it
is called Ma'jun (=electuary, generally): it is made of Ganja or
young leaves, buds, capsules and florets of hemp (C. saliva),
poppy-seed and flowers of the thorn-apple (daiura) with milk and
auger-candy, nutmegs, cloves, mace and saffron, all boiled to the
consistency of treacle which hardens when cold. Several-recipes
are given by Herklots (Glossary s.v. Majoon). These electuaries
are usually prepared with "Charas," or gum of hemp, collected by
hand or by passing a blanket over the plant in early morning, and
it is highly intoxicating. Another intoxicant is "Sabzi," dried
hemp-leaves, poppy-seed, cucumber heed, black pepper and
cardamoms rubbed down in a mortar with a wooden pestle, and made
drinkable by adding milk, ice-cream, etc. The Hashish of Arabia
is the Hindustani Bhang, usually drunk and made as follows. Take
of hemp-leaves, well washed, 3 drams black pepper 45 grains and
of cloves, nutmeg and mace (which add to the intoxication) each
12 grains. Triturate in 8 ounces of water or the juice of
watermelon or cucumber, strain and drink. The Egyptian Zabibah is
a preparation of hemp florets, opium and honey, much affected by
the lower orders, whence the proverb: "Temper thy sorrow with
Zabibah. In Al-Hijaz it is mixed with raisins (Zabib) and smoked
in the water-pipe. (Burck hardt No. 73.) Besides these there is
(1) "Post" poppy-seed prepared in various ways but especially in
sugared sherbets; (2) Datura (stramonium) seed, the produce of
the thorn-apple breached and put into sweetmeats by dishonest
confectioners; it is a dangerous intoxicant, producing
spectral-visions, delirium tremens, etc., and (3) various
preparations of opium especially the "Madad," pills made up with
toasted betel-leaf and smoked. Opium, however, is usually drunk
in the shape of "Kusumba," a pill placed in wet cotton and
squeezed in order to strain and clean it of the cowdung and other
filth with which it is adulterated.

[FN#29] Arab. "Sikankur" (Gr. {Greek letters}, Lat. Scincus) a
lizard (S. officinalis) which, held in the hand, still acts as an
aphrodisiac in the East, and which in the Middle Ages was
considered a universal-medicine. In the "Adja'ib al-Hind" (Les
Merveilles de l'Inde) we find a notice of a bald-headed old man
who was compelled to know his wife twice a day and twice a night
in consequence of having eaten a certain fish. (Chaps. Ixxviii.
of the translation by M. L. Marcel Devic, from a manuscript of
the tenth century, Paris Lemaire, 1878.) Europeans deride these
prescriptions, but Easterns know better: they affect the fancy,
that is the brain, and often succeed in temporarily relieving
impotence. The recipes for this evil, which is incurable only
when it comes from heart-affections, are innumerable in the East;
and about half of every medical-work is devoted to them. Many a
quack has made his fortune with a few bottles of tincture of
cantharides, and a man who could discover a specific would become
a millionaire in India only. The curious reader will consult for
specimens the Ananga-Ranga Shastra by Koka Pandit; or the "Ruju
'al-Shaykh ila 'l-Sabah fi Kuwwati 'l-Bah" (the Return of the Old
Man to Youth in power of Procreation) by Ahmad bin Sulayman known
as Ibn Kamal-Basha, in 139 chapters lithographed at Cairo. Of
these aphrodisiacs I shall have more to say.

[FN#30] Ala al-Din (our old friend Aladdin) = Glory of the
Faith, a name of which Mohammed who preferred the simplest, like
his own, would have highly disapproved. The most grateful names
to Allah are Abdallah (Allah's Slave) and Abd al-Rahman (Slave of
the Compassionate); the truest are Al-Harith (the gainer, "bread
winner") and Al-Hammam (the griever); and the hatefullest are
Al-Harb (witch) and Al-Murrah (bitterness, Abu Murrah being a
kunyat or by-name of the Devil). Abu al-Shamat (pronounced
Abushshamat)=Father of Moles, concerning which I have already
given details. These names ending in -Din (faith) began with the
Caliph Al-Muktadi bi-Amri 'llah (regn. A.H. 467= 1075), who
entitled his Wazir "Zahir al-Din (Backer or Defender of the
Faith) and this gave rise to the practice. It may be observed
that the superstition of naming by omens is in no way obsolete.

[FN#31] Meaning that he appeared intoxicated by the pride of his
beauty as though it had been strong wine.

[FN#32] i.e. against the evil eye.

[FN#33] Meaning that he had been delicately reared.

[FN#34] A traditional-saying of Mohammed.

[FN#35] So Boccaccio's "Capo bianco" and "Coda verde." (Day iv.,
Introduct.)

[FN#36] The opening chapter is known as the "Mother of the Book"
(as opposed to Ya Sin, the "heart of the Koran"), the "Surat
(chapter) of Praise," and the "Surat of repetition" (because
twice revealed?) or thanksgiving, or laudation (Ai-Masani) and by
a host of other names for which see Mr. Rodwell who, however,
should not write "Fatthah" (p. xxv.) nor "Fathah" (xxvii.). The
Fatihah, which is to Al-Islam much what the "Paternoster" is to
Christendom, consists of seven verses, in the usual-Saj'a or
rhymed prose, and I have rendered it as follows:

In the name of the Compassionating, the Compassionate! * Praise
be to Allah who all the Worlds made * The Compassionating, the
Compassionate * King of the Day of Faith! * Thee only do we adore
and of Thee only do we crave aid * Guide us to the path which is
straight * The path of those for whom Thy love is great, not
those on whom is hate, nor they that deviate * Amen! O Lord of
the World's trine.

My Pilgrimage (i. 285; ii. 78 and passim) will supply instances
of its application; how it is recited with open hands to catch
the blessing from Heaven and the palms are drawn down the face
(Ibid. i. 286), and other details,

[FN#37] i.e. when the evil eye has less effect than upon
children. Strangers in Cairo often wonder to see a woman richly
dressed leading by the hand a filthy little boy (rarely a girl)
in rags, which at home will be changed to cloth of gold.

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