The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 8 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (great books for teens TXT) 📕

Alas my sorrow! Sorrowing the lover scant avails; Indeed I melt away in grief and passion’s ecstasy: Past is the time of my delight when were we two conjoined:

Would Heaven I wot if Destiny mine esperance will degree!

Redouble then, O Heart, thy pains and, O mine eyes, o’erflow *

With tears till not a tear remain within these eyne of me?

Again alas for loved ones lost and loss of patience eke! * For helpers fail me and my griefs are grown beyond decree.

The Lord of Threefold Worlds I pray He deign to me return * My lover and we meet as wont in joy and jubilee.”

Then Nur al-Din wept with weeping galore than which naught could be more; and peering into ever corner of the room, recited these two couplets,

“I view their traces and with pain I pine * And by their sometime home I weep and yearn;

And Him I pray who parting deigned decree * Some day He deign vouchsafe me their return!”

Then Nur al-Din sprang to his feet and locking the door of the house, fared forth running at speed, to the sea shore whence he fixed his eyes on the place of the ship which had carried off his Miriam whilst sighs burst from his breast and tears from his lids as he recited these couplets,

“Peace be with you, sans you naught compensateth me * The near, the far, two cases only here I see: I yearn for you at every hour and tide as yearns * For water-place wayfarer plodding wearily.

With you abide my hearing, heart and eyen-sight * And (sweeter than the honeycomb) your memory.

Then, O my Grief when fared afar your retinue * And bore that ship away my sole expectancy.”

And Nur al-Din wept and wailed, bemoaned himself and complained, crying out and saying, “O Miriam! O Miriam! Was it but a vision of thee I saw in sleep or in the allusions of dreams?” And by reason of that which grew on him of regrets, he recited these couplets,[FN#506]

“Mazed with thy love no more I can feign patience, This heart of mine has held none dear but thee!

And if mine eye hath gazed on other’s beauty, Ne’er be it joyed again with sight of thee!

I’ve sworn an oath I’ll ne’er forget to love thee, And sad’s this breast that pines to meet with thee!

Thou’st made me drink a love-cup full of passion, Blest time! When I may give the draught to thee!

Take with thee this my form where’er thou goest, And when thou ‘rt dead let me be laid near thee!

Call on me in my tomb, my bones shall answer And sigh responses to a call from thee!

If it were asked, ‘What wouldst thou Heaven should order?’

‘His will,’ I answer, ‘First, and then what pleases thee.’”

As Nur al-Din was in this case, weeping and crying out, “O

Miriam! O Miriam!” behold, an old man landed from a vessel and coming up to him, saw him shedding tears and heard him reciting these verses,

“O Maryam of beauty[FN#507] return, for these eyne * Are as densest clouds railing drops in line: Ask amid mankind and my railers shall say * That mine eyelids are drowning these eyeballs of mine.”

Said the old man, “O my son, meseems thou weepest for the damsel who sailed yesterday with the Frank?” When Nur al-Din heard these words of the Shaykh he fell down in a swoon and lay for a long while without life; then, coming to himself, he wept with sore weeping and improvised these couplets,

“Shall we e’er be unite after severance-tide * And return in the perfectest cheer to bide?

In my heart indeed is a lowe of love * And I’m pained by the spies who my pain deride:

My days I pass in amaze distraught, * And her image a-nights I would see by side:

By Allah, no hour brings me solace of love * And how can it when makebates vex me and chide?

A soft-sided damsel of slenderest waist * Her arrows of eyne on my heart hath plied?

Her form is like B�n[FN#508]-tree branch in garth Shame her charms the sun who his face most hide: Did I not fear God (be He glorified!) ‘My Fair be glorified!’

Had I cried.”

The old man looked at him and noting his beauty and grace and symmetry and the fluency of his tongue and the seductiveness of his charms, had ruth on him and his heart mourned for his case.

Now that Shaykh was the captain of a ship, bound to the damsel’s city, and in this ship were a hundred Moslem merchants, men of the Saving Faith; so he said to Nur al-Din, “Have patience and all will yet be well; I will bring thee to her an it be the will of Allah, extolled and exalted be He!”—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-first Night, She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the old skipper said to Nur al-Din, “I will bring thee to her, Inshallah!” the youth asked, “When shall we set out?” and the other said, “Come but three days more and we will depart in peace and prosperity.” Nur al-Din rejoiced at the captain’s words with joy exceeding and thanked him for his bounty and benevolence.

Then he recalled the days of love-liesse dear and union with his slavegirl without peer, and he shed bitter tears and recited these couplets,

“Say, will to me and you the Ruthful union show * My lords! Shall e’er I win the wish of me or no?

A visit-boon by you will shifty Time vouchsafe? * And seize your image eyelids which so hungry grow?

With you were Union to be sold, I fain would buy; * But ah, I see such grace doth all my means outgo!”

Then Nur al-Din went forthright to the market and bought what he needed of viaticum and other necessaries for the voyage and returned to the Rais, who said to him, “O my son, what is that thou hast with thee?” said he, “My provisions and all whereof I have need for the voyage.” Thereupon quoth the old man, laughing, “O my son, art thou going a-pleasuring to Pompey’s Pillar?[FN#509] Verily, between thee and that thou seekest is two months’ journey and the wind be fair and the weather favourable.”

Then he took of him somewhat of money and going to the bazar, bought him a sufficiency of all that he needed for the voyage and filled him a large earthen jar[FN#510] with fresh water. Nur al-Din abode in the ship three days until the merchants had made an end of their precautions and preparations and embarked, when they set sail and putting out to sea, fared on one-and-fifty days. After this, there came out upon them corsairs,[FN#511]

pirates who sacked the ship and taking Nur al-Din and all therein prisoners, carried them to the city of France and paraded them before the King, who bade cast them into jail, Nur al-Din amongst the number. As they were being led to prison the galleon[FN#512]

arrived with the Princess Miriam and the one-eyed Wazir, and when it made the harbour, the lameter landed and going up to the King gave him the glad news of his daughter’s safe return: whereupon they beat the kettledrums for good tidings and decorated the city after the goodliest fashion. Then the King took horse, with all his guards and lords and notables and rode down to the sea to meet her. The moment the ship cast anchor she came ashore, and the King saluted her and embraced her and mounting her on a bloodsteed, bore her to the palace, where her mother received her with open arms, and asked her of her case and whether she was a maid as before or whether she had become a woman carnally known by man.[FN#513] She replied, “O my mother, how should a girl, who hath been sold from merchant to merchant in the land of Moslems, a slave commanded, abide a virgin? The merchant who bought me threatened me with the bastinado and violenced me and took my maidenhead, after which he sold me to another and he again to a third.” When the Queen heard these her words, the light in her eyes became night and she repeated her confession to the King who was chagrined thereat and his affair was grievous to him. So he expounded her case to his Grandees and Patricians[FN#514] who said to him, “O King, she hath been defiled by the Moslems and naught will purify her save the striking off of an hundred Mohammedan heads.” Whereupon the King sent for the True Believers he had imprisoned; and they decapitated them, one after another, beginning with the captain, till none was left save Nur al-Din.

They tare off a strip of his skirt and binding his eyes therewith, led him to the rug of blood and were about to smite his neck, when behold, an ancient dame came up to the King at that very moment and said, “O my lord, thou didst vow to bestow upon each and every church five Moslem captives, to held us in the service thereof, so Allah would restore thee thy daughter the Princess Miriam; and now she is restored to thee, so do thou fulfil thy vow.” The King replied, “O my mother, by the virtue of the Messiah and the Veritable Faith, there remaineth to me of the prisoners but this one captive, whom they are about to put to death: so take him with thee to help in the service of the church, till there come to me more prisoners of the Moslems, when I will send thee other four. Hadst thou come earlier, before they hewed off the heads of these, I had given thee as many as thou wouldest have.” The old woman thanked the King for his boon and wished him continuance of life, glory and prosperity. Then without loss of time she went up to Nur al-Din, whom she raised from the rug of blood; and, looking narrowly at him saw a comely youth and a dainty, with a delicate skin and a face like the moon at her full; whereupon she carried him to the church and said to him, “O my son, doff these clothes which are upon thee, for they are fit only for the service of the Sultan.”[FN#515] So saying the ancient dame brought him a gown and hood of black wool and a broad girdle,[FN#516] in which she clad and cowled him; and, after binding on his belt, bade him do the service of the church.

Accordingly, he served the church seven days, at the end of which time behold, the old woman came up to him and said, “O Moslem, don thy silken dress and take these ten dirhams and go out forthright and divert thyself abroad this day, and tarry not here a single moment, lest thou lose thy life.” Quoth he, “What is to do, O my mother?”; and quoth she, “Know, O my son, that the King’s daughter, the Princess Miriam the Girdle-girl, hath a mind to visit the church this day, to seek a blessing by pilgrimage and to make oblation thereto, a douceur[FN#517] of thank-offering for her deliverance from the land of the Moslems and in fulfilment of the vows she vowed to the Messiah, so he would save her. With her are four hundred damsels, not one of whom but is perfect in