The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (classic literature list TXT) 📕

hall and entering the closet of ease sat down on the stool. Hardly had he done this when the Ifrit came out of the tank, [FN#418] wherein the water was, in semblance of a mouse and squeaked out “Zeek!” Quoth the Hunchback, “What ails thee?”; and the mouse grew and grew till it became a coal-black cat and caterwauled “Meeao! Meeao!”[FN#419]

Then it grew still more and more till it became a dog and barked out “Owh! Owh!” When the bridegroom saw this he was frightened and exclaimed “Out with thee, O unlucky one!” [FN#420] But the dog grew and swelled till it became an ass-colt that brayed and snorted in his face “Hauk! Hauk!” [FN#421] Whereupon the Hunchback quaked and cried, “Come to my aid, O people of the house!” But behold, the ass-colt grew and became big as a buffalo and walled the way before him and spake with the voice of the sons of Adam, saying, “Woe to thee, O thou Bunch-back, thou stinkard, O thou filthiest of grooms!” Hearing this the groom was seized with a colic and he sat down on the jakes in his clothes with teeth chattering and knocking together. Quoth the Ifrit, “Is the world so strait to thee thou findest none to marry save my lady-love?” But as he was silent the Ifrit continued, “Answer me or I will do thee dwell in the dust!” “By Allah,”

replied the Gobbo, “O King of the Buffaloes, this is no fault of mine, for they forced me to wed her; and verily I wot not that she had a lover among the buffaloes; but now I repent, first before Allah and then before thee.” Said the Ifrit to him, “I swear to thee that if thou fare forth from this place, or thou utter a word before sunrise, I assuredly will wring thy neck.

When the sun rises wend thy went and never more return to this house.” So saying, the Ifrit took up the Gobbo bridegroom and set him head downwards and feet upwards in the slit of the privy, [FN#422] and said to him, “I will leave thee here but I shall be on the look-out for thee till sunrise; and, if thou stir before then, I will seize thee by the feet and dash out they brains against the wall: so look out for thy life!” Thus far concerning the Hunchback, but as regards Badr al-Din Hasan of Bassorah he left the Gobbo and the Ifrit jangling and wrangling and, going into the house, sat him down in the very middle of the alcove; and behold, in came the bride attended by an old woman who stood at the door and said, “O Father of Uprightness, [FN#423] arise and take what God giveth thee.” Then the old woman went away and the bride, Sitt al-Husn or the Lady of Beauty hight, entered the inner part of the alcove broken-hearted and saying in herself, “By Allah I will never yield my person to him; no, not even were he to take my life!” But as she came to the further end she saw Badr al-Din Hasan and she said, “Dearling! Art thou still sitting here? By Allah I was wishing that thou wert my bridegroom or, at least, that thou and the hunchbacked horse-groom were partners in me.” He replied, “O beautiful lady, how should the Syce have access to thee, and how should he share in thee with me?”

“Then,” quoth she, “who is my husband, thou or he?” “Sitt al-Husn,” rejoined Hasan, “we have not done this for mere fun, [FN#424] but only as a device to ward off the evil eye from thee; for when the tirewomen and singers and wedding guests saw they beauty being displayed to me, they feared fascination and they father hired the horse-groom for ten dinars and a porringer of meat to take the evil eye off us; and now he hath received his hire and gone his gait.” When the Lady of Beauty heard these words she smiled and rejoiced and laughed a pleasant laugh. Then she whispered him, “By the Lord thou hast quenched a fire which tortured me and now, by Allah, O my little dark-haired darling, take me to thee and press me to thy bosom!” Then she began singing:—

 

“By Allah, set thy foot upon my soul; * Since long, long years for this alone I long:

And whisper tale of love in ear of me; * To me �tis sweeter than the sweetest song!

No other youth upon my heart shall lie; * So do it often, dear, and do it long.”

 

Then she stripped off her outer gear and she threw open her chemise from the neck downwards and showed her parts genital and all the rondure of her hips. When Badr al-Din saw the glorious sight his desires were roused, and he arose and doffed her clothes, and wrapping up in his bag-trousers [FN#425] the purse of gold which he had taken from the Jew and which contained the thousand dinars, he laid it under the edge of the bedding. Then he took off his turband and set it upon the settle [FN#426] atop of his other clothes, remaining in his skull-cap and fine shirt of blue silk laced with gold. Whereupon the Lady of Beauty drew him to her and he did likewise. Then he took her to his embrace and set her legs round his waist and point-blanked that cannon [FN#427] placed where it battereth down the bulwark of maidenhead and layeth it waste. And he found her a pearl unpierced and unthridden and a filly by all men save himself unridden; and he abated her virginity and had joyance of her youth in his virility and presently he withdrew sword from sheath; and then returned to the fray right eath; and when the battle and the siege had finished, some fifteen assaults he had furnished and she conceived by him that very night. Then he laid his hand under her head and she did the same and they embraced and fell asleep in each other’s arms, as a certain poet said of such lovers in these couplets:—

 

Visit thy lover, spurn what envy told; * No envious churl shall smile on love ensoul’d.

Merciful Allah made no fairer sight * Than coupled lovers single couch doth hold;

Breast pressing breast and robed in joys their own, * With pillowed forearms cast in finest mould: And when heart speaks to heart with tongue of love, Folk who would part them hammer steel ice-cold: If a fair friend[FN#428] thou find who cleaves to thee, Live for that friend, that friend in heart enfold.

O ye who blame for love us lover kind * Say, can ye minister to diseas�d mind?

 

This much concerning Badr al-Hasan and Sitt al-Husn his cousin; but as regards the Ifrit, as soon as he saw the twain asleep, he said to the Ifritah, “Arise, slip thee under the youth and let us carry him back to his place ere dawn overtake us; for the day is nearhand.” Thereupon she came forward and, getting under him as he lay asleep, took him up clad only in his fine blue shirt, leaving the rest of his garments; and ceased not flying (and the Ifrit vying with her in flight) till the dawn advised them that it had come upon them mid-way, and the Muezzin began his call from the Minaret, “Haste ye to salvation! Haste ye to salvation!” [FN#429] Then Allah suffered his angelic host to shoot down the Ifrit with a shooting star, [FN#430] so he was consumed, but the Ifritah escaped and she descended with Badr al-Din at the place where the Ifrit was burnt, and did not carry him back to Bassorah, fearing lest he come to harm. Now by the order of Him who predestineth all things, they alighted at Damascus of Syria, and the Ifritah set down her burden at one of the city-gates and flew away. When day arose and the doors were opened, the folks who came forth saw a handsome youth, with no other raiment but his blue shirt of gold-embroidered silk and skull-cap,[FN#431] lying upon the ground drowned in sleep after the hard labour of the night which had not suffered him to take his rest. So the folk looking at him said, “O her luck with whom this one spent the night! but would he had waited to don his garments.” Quoth another, “A sorry lot are the sons of great families! Haply he but now came forth of the tavern on some occasion of his own and his wine flew to his head,[FN#432]

whereby he hath missed the place he was making for and strayed till he came to the gate of the city; and finding it shut lay him down and to by-by!” As the people were bandying guesses about him suddenly the morning breeze blew upon Badr al-Din and raising his shirt to his middle showed a stomach and navel with something below it, [FN#433] and legs and thighs clear as crystal and smooth as cream. Cried the people, “By Allah he is a pretty fellow!”; and at the cry Badr al-din awoke and found himself lying at a city-gate with a crowd gathered around him. At this he greatly marvelled and asked, “Where am I, O good folk; and what causeth you thus to gather round me, and what have I had to do with you?”; and they answered, “We found thee lying here asleep during the call to dawn-prayer and this is all we know of the matter, but where diddest thou lie last night?” [FN#434] “By Allah, O good people,” replied he, “I lay last night in Cairo.”

Said somebody, “Thou hast surely been eating Hashish,” [FN#435]

and another, “He is a fool;” and a third, “He is a citrouille;”

and a fourth asked him, “Art thou out of thy mind? thou sleepest in Cairo and thou wakest in the morning at the gate of Damascus-city!” [FN#436] Cried he, “By Allah, my good people, one and all, I lie not to you: indeed I lay yesternight in the land of Egypt and yesternoon I was at Bassorah.” Quoth one, “Well!

well!”; and quoth another, “Ho! ho!”; and a third, “So! so!”; and a fourth cried, “This youth is mad, is possessed of the Jinni!”

So they clapped hands at him and said to one another, “Alas, the pity of it for his youth: by Allah a madman! and madness is no respecter of persons.” Then they said to him, “Collect thy wits and return to thy reason! How couldest thou be in Bassorah yesterday and Cairo yesternight and withal awake in Damascus this morning?” But he persisted, “Indeed I was a bridegroom in Cairo last night.” “Belike thou hast been dreaming,” rejoined they, “and sawest all this in thy sleep.” So Hasan took thought for a while and said to them, “By Allah, this is no dream; nor vision-like doth it seem! I certainly was in Cairo where they displayed the bride before me, in presence of a third person, the Hunchback groom who was sitting hard by. By Allah, O my brother, this be no dream, and if it were a dream, where is the bag of gold I bore with me and where are my turband and my robe, and my trousers?”

Then he rose and entered the city, threading its highways and by-ways and bazar-streets; and the people pressed upon him and jeered at him, crying out “Madman! madman!” till he, beside himself with rage, took refuge in a cook’s shop. Now that Cook had been a trifle too clever, that is, a rogue and thief; but Allah had made him repent and turn from his evil ways and open a cookshop; and all the people of Damascus stood in fear of his boldness and