The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 5 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (best romance novels of all time txt) 📕

my country are houses wide and spacious and fruits ripe and delicious and waters sweet and viands savorous and of goodly use and meats fat and full of juice and flocks innumerous and all things pleasant and all the goods of life, the like whereof are not, save in the Paradise which Allah the Omnipotent hath promised to His servants pious.” Replied she, “All this have I heard: but tell me, have ye a Sultan who ruleth over you and is tyrannical in his rule and under whose hand you are; one who, if any of you commit an offence, taketh his goods and ruineth him and who, whenas he will, turneth you out of house and home and uprooteth you, stock and branch?” Replied the man, “Indeed that may be;” and she rejoined, “If so, by Allah, these your delicious food and life of daintyhood and gifts however good, with tyranny and oppression, are but a searching poison, while our coarse meat which in freedom and safety we eat is a healthful medicine. Hast thou not heard that the best of boons, after Al-Islam, the true Faith, are sanity and security?”[FN#279]

“Now such boons (quoth he who telleth the tale) may be by the just rule of the Sultan, Vice-regent of Allah on His earth, and the goodness of his polity. The Sultan of time past needed but little awfulness, for when the lieges saw him, they feared him; but the Sultan of these days hath need of the most accomplished polity and the utmost majesty, because men are not as men of by-gone time and this our age is one of folk opprobrious, and is greatly calamitous, noted for folly and hardness of heart and inclined to hate and enmity. If, therefore, the Sultan (which Almighty Allah forfend!) be weak or wanting in polity and majesty, this will be the assured cause of his country’s ruin.

Quoth the proverb, ‘An hundred years of the Sultan’s tyranny, but not one year of the people’s tyranny one over other.’ When the lieges oppress one another, Allah setteth over them a tyrannical Sultan and a terrible King. Thus it is told in history that one day there was sent to Al-Hajj�j bin Y�suf a slip of paper, whereon was written, ‘Fear Allah and oppress not His servants with all manner of oppression.’ When he read this, he mounted the pulpit (for he was eloquent and ever ready of speech), and said, ‘O folk, Allah Almighty hath made me ruler over you, by reason of your frowardness;’”—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

 

When it was the Four Hundred and Thirty-sixth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Hajjaj Yousuf-son read the paper he mounted the pulpit and said, “O

folk, Allah Almighty hath made me ruler over you by reason of your frowardness; and indeed, though I die yet will ye not be delivered from oppression, with these your ill deeds; for the Almighty hath created like unto me many an one. If it be not I, ‘twill be one more mischievous than I and a mightier in oppression and a more merciless in his majesty; even as saith the poet:[FN#280]—

 

‘For not a deed the hand can try Save ‘neath the hand of God on high, Nor tyrant harsh work tyranny Uncrushed by tyrant harsh as he.’

 

Tyranny is feared: but justice is the best of all things. We beg Allah to better our case!” And among tales is that of

ABU AL-HUSN AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL

TAWADDUD.[FN#281]

 

There was once in Baghdad a man of consequence and rich in monies and immoveables, who was one of the chiefs of the merchants; and Allah had largely endowed him with worldly goods, but had not vouchsafed him what he longed for of offspring; and there passed over him a long space of time, without his being blessed with issue, male or female. His years waxed great; his bones became wasted and his back bent; weakness and weariness grew upon him, and he feared the loss of his wealth and possessions, seeing he had no child whom he might make his heir and by whom his name should be remembered. So he betook himself with supplication to Almighty Allah, fasting by day and praying through the night.

Moreover, he vowed many vows to the Living, the Eternal; and visited the pious and was constant in supplication to the Most Highest, till He gave ear to him and accepted his prayer and took pity on his straining and complaining; so that, before many days were past, he knew carnally one of his women and she conceived by him the same night. In due time she finished her months and, casting her burden, bore a male child as he were a slice of the moon; whereupon the merchant fulfilled his vows in his gratitude to Allah, (to whom be honour and glory!) and gave alms and clothed the widow and the orphan. On the seventh night after the boy’s birth, he named him Abu al-Husn,[FN#282] and the wet-nurses suckled him and the dry-nurses dandled him and the servants and the slaves carried him and handled him, till he shot up and grew tall and throve greatly and learnt the Sublime Koran and the ordinances of Al-Islam and the Canons of the True Faith; and calligraphy and poetry and mathematics and archery. On this wise he became the union-pearl of his age and the goodliest of the folk of his time and his day; fair of face and of tongue fluent, carrying himself with a light and graceful gait and glorying in his stature proportionate and amorous graces which were to many a bait: and his cheeks were red and flower-white was his forehead and his side face waxed brown with tender down, even as saith one, describing him,

 

“The spring of the down on cheeks right clearly shows: * And how when the Spring is gone shall last the rose?

Dost thou not see that the growth upon his cheek * Is violet-bloom that from its leaves outgrows.”

 

He abode awhile in ease and happiness with his father, who rejoiced and delighted in him, till he came to man’s estate, when the merchant one day made him sit down before him and said, “O my son, the appointed term draweth near; my hour of death is at hand and it remaineth but to meet Allah (to whom belong Majesty and Might!). I leave thee what shall suffice thee, even to thy son’s son, of monies and mansions, farms and gardens; wherefore, fear thou Almighty Allah, O my son, in dealing with that which I bequeath to thee and follow none but those who will help thee to the Divine favour.” Not long after, he sickened and died; so his son ordered his funeral,[FN#283] after the goodliest wise, and burying him, returned to his house and sat mourning for him many days and nights. But behold, certain of his friends came in to him and said to him, “Whoso leaveth a son like thee is not dead; indeed, what is past is past and fled and mourning beseemeth none but the young maid and the wife cloistered.” And they ceased not from him till they wrought on him to enter the Hammam and break off his mourning.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

 

When it was the Four Hundred and Thirty-seventh Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Abu al-Husn was visited by his friends and taken to the Hamman and persuaded to break off his mourning, he presently forgot his father’s charge, and his head was turned by his riches; he thought fortune would always wone with him as it was, and that wealth would ever wax and never wane. So he ate and drank and made merry and took his pleasure and gave gifts of gear and coin and was profuse with gold and addrest himself up to eating fowls and breaking the seals of wine-flasks and listening to the giggle of the daughter of the vine, as she gurgled from the flagon and enjoying the jingle of the singing-girls; nor did he give over this way of life, till his wealth was wasted and the case worsened and all his goods went from him and he bit his hands[FN#284] in bitter penitence. For of a truth he had nothing left, after that which he had squandered, but a concubine, a slave-girl whom his father had bequeathed to him with the rest of his estate: and she had no equal in beauty and loveliness and brightness and liveliness and symmetric stature and perfect grace. She was past mistress in every manner of arts and accomplishments and endowed with many excellences, surpassing all the folk of her age and time. She was grown more notorious than a way-mark,[FN#285] for her seductive genius, and outdid the fair both in theory and practice, and she was noted for her swimming gait, flexile and delicate, albeit she was full five feet in height and by all the boons of fortune deckt and dight, with strait arched brows twain, as they were the crescent moon of Sha’ab�n,[FN#286] and eyes like gazelles’ eyne; and nose like the edge of scymitar fine and cheeks like anemones of blood-red shine; and mouth like Solomon’s seal and sign and teeth like necklaces of pearls in line; and navel holding an ounce of oil of benzoin and waist more slender than his body whom love hath wasted and whom concealment hath made sick with pine and hind parts heavier than two hills of sand; briefly she was a volume of charms after his saying who saith,

 

“Her fair shape ravisheth, if face to face she did appear, * And if she turn, for severance from her she slayeth sheer.

Sun-like, full-moon-like, sapling-like, unto her character *

Estrangement no wise appertains nor cruelty austere.

Under the bosom of her shift the garths of Eden are * And the full-moon revolveth still upon her neck-rings’

sphere.”[FN#287]

 

She seemed a full moon rising and a gazelle browsing, a girl of nine plus five[FN#288] shaming the moon and sun, even as saith of her the sayer eloquent and ingenious, “Semblance of full-moon Heaven bore, * When five and five are conjoined by four;

‘Tis not my sin if she made of me * Its like when it riseth horizon o’er.”[FN#289]

 

Clean of skin, odoriferous of breath, it seemed as if she were of fire fashioned and of crystal moulded; rose-red was the cheek of her and perfect the shape and form of her; even as one saith of her, describing her,

 

“Scented with sandal[FN#290] and musk, right proudly doth she go, * With gold and silver and rose and saffron-colour aglow.

A flower in a garden she is, a pearl in an ouch of gold * Or an image in chapel[FN#291] set for worship of high and low.

Slender and shapely she is; vivacity bids her arise, * But the weight of her hips says, ‘Sit, or softly and slowly go.’

Whenas her favours I seek and sue for my heart’s desire, * ‘Be gracious,’ her beauty says; but her coquetry answers, ‘No.’

Glory to Him who made beauty her portion, and that * Of her lover to be the prate of the censurers, heigho!”[FN#292]

 

She captivated all who saw her, with the excellence of her beauty and the sweetness of her smile,[FN#293] and shot them down with the shafts she launched from her eyes; and withal she was eloquent of speech and excellently skilled in verse. Now when Abu al-Husn had squandered all his gold, and his ill-plight all could behold, and there remained to him naught save this slave-girl, he abode three days without tasting meat or taking rest in sleep,