The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (summer reading list txt) 📕

putting it in a basket committed it to the stream which floweth by the palace to the intent that it might die an obscure death. But it so fortuned that the Intendant of thy royal gardens espied these baskets one and all as they floated past his grounds, and took charge of the infants he found therein. He then caused them to be nursed and reared with all care and, whilst they were growing up to man’s estate, he looked to their being taught every art and science; and whilst his life endured he dealt with them and brought them up in love and tenderness as though they had been his very own.

And now, O Khusrau Shah, wake from thy sleep of ignorance and heedlessness, and know that these two Princes Bahman and Parwez and the Princess Perizadah their sister are thine own issue and thy rightful heirs.” When the King heard these words and was assured of the purport being true and understood the evil doing of those Satans, his sisters-in-law, he said, “O Bird, I am indeed persuaded of thy soothfastness, for when I first saw these youths at the hunting-ground my bowels yearned with affection towards them and my heart felt constrained to love them as though they had been my own seed. Both they and their sister have drawn my affections to them as a magnet draweth iron: and the voice of blood crieth to me and compelleth me to confess the tie and to acknowledge that they are my true children, borne in the womb of my Queen, whose direful Destiny I have been the means of carrying out.” Then turning to the Princes and their sister he said with tearful eyes and broken voice, “Ye are my children and henceforth do ye regard me as your father.” At this they ran to him with rare delight and falling on his neck embraced him. Then they all sat down to meat and when they had finished eating, Khusrau Shah said to them, “O my children, I must now leave you, but Inshallah—Allah willing—I will come again tomorrow and bring with me the Queen your mother.” So saying he farewelled them fondly and mounting his horse departed to his palace; and no sooner had he seated himself upon his throne than he summoned the Grand Wazir and commanded him saying, “Do thou send this instant and bind in heaviest bonds those vile women, the sisters of my Queen; for their ill deeds have at last come to light and they deserve to die the death of murtherers. Let the Sworder forthright make sharp his sword; for the ground thirsteth for their blood. Go see thyself that they are beheaded without stay or delay: await not other order, but instantly obey my commandment.” The Grand Wazir went forth at one and in his presence the Envious Sisters were decapitated and this underwent fit punishment for their malice and their evil doing. After this, Khusrau Shah with his retinue walked afoot to the Cathedral-mosque whereby the Queen had been imprisoned for so many years in bitter grief and tenderly embraced her. Then seeing her sad plight and her careworn countenance and wretched attire he wept and cried, “Allah Almighty forgive me this mine unjust and wrongful dealing towards thee. I have put to death thy sisters who deceitfully and despitefully raised my wrath and anger against thee, the innocent, the guiltless; and they have received due retribution for their misdeeds.”—And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her peace till

 

The end of the Six Hundred and Eighty-eighth Night.

 

Then said she:—I have heard, O auspicious King that the King spake kindly and fondly to his Consort, and told her all that had betided him, and what the Speaking-Bird had made known to him, ending with these words, “Come now with me to the palace where thou shalt thee thy two sons and daughter grown up to become the loveliest of things. Hie with me and embrace them and take them to thy bosom, for they are our children, the light of our etes.

But first do thou repair to the Hammam and don thy royal robes and jewels.” Meanwhile tidings of these events were noised about the city how the King had at length shown due favour to the Queen, and had released her from bondage with his own hands and prayed forgiveness for the wrongs he had done to her; and how the Princes and the Princess had been proved to be her true-born children, and also how Khusrau Shah had punished her sisters who conspired against her; so joy and gladness prevailed both in city and kingdom, and all the folk blessed the Shah’s B�n� and cursed the Satanesses her sisters. And next day when the Queen had bathed in the Hammam and had donned royal dress and regal jewels, she went to meet her children together with the King who led up to her the Princes Bahman and Parwez and the Princess Perizadah and said, “See, here are thy children, fruit of thy womb and core of thy heart, thine own very sons and thy daughter: embrace them with all a mother’s love and extend thy favour and affection to them even as I have done. When thou didst give them birth, thine illomened sisters bore them away from thee and cast them into yonder stream and said that thou hadst been delivered first of a puppy, then of a kitten and lastly of a musk-ratling. I cannot console myself for having credited their calumnies and the only recompense I can make is to place in thine embrace these three thou broughtest forth, and whom Allah Almighty hath restored to us and hath made right worthy to be called our children.” Then the Princes and Princess fell upon their mother’s neck and fondly embraced her weeping tear-floods of joy. After this the Shah and the Banu sai down to meat together with their children; and when they had made an end of eating, King Khusrau Shah repaired to the garden with his Consort that he might show her the Singing-Tree and the fountain of Golden-Water, whereat the Queen was filled with wonder and delight. Next they turned to the belvedere and visited the Speaking-Bird of whom, as they sat at meat, the King had spoken to her in highest praise, and the Queen rejoiced in his sweet voice and melodious singing. And when they had seen all these things, the King mounted horse, Prince Bahman riding on his right hand and on his left Prince Parwez, while the Queen took Princess Perizadah with her inside her litter, and thus they set forth for the palace. As the royal cavalcade passed the city walls and entered the capital with royal pomp and circumstance, the subjects who had heard the glad tidings thronged in multitudes to see their progress and volleyed shouts of acclamation; and as the lieges had grieved aforetime to see the Queen-consort imprisoned, so now the rejoiced with exceeding joy to find her free once more. But chiefly they marvelled to look upon the Speaking-Bird, for the Princess carried the cage with her, and as they rode along thousands of sweet-toned songsters came swarming round them from every quarter, and flew as an escort to the cage, filling the air with marvellous music; while flocks of others, perching upon the trees and the housetops, carolled and warbled as it were to greet their lord’s cage accompanying the royal cavalcade. And when the palace was reached, the Shah and his Queen and his children sat down to a sumptuous banquet; and the city was illuminated, and everywhere dancings and merry-makings testified to the joy of the lieges; and for many days these revels and rejoicings prevailed throughout the capital and the kingdom where every man was blithe and happy and had feastings and festivities in his house, After these festivals King Khusrau Shah made his elder son Bahman heir to his throne and kingdom and committed to his hands the affairs of state in their entirety, and the Prince administered affairs with such wisdom and success that the greatness and glory of the realm were increased twofold. The Shah also entrusted to his youngest son Parwez the charge of his army, both of horsemen and foot-soldiers; and Princess Perizadah was given by her sire in marriage to a puissant King who reigned over a mighty country; and lastly the Queen-mother forgot in perfect joy and happiness the pangs of her captivity. Destiny ever afterwards endowed them, one and all, with days the most delectable and they led the liefest of lives until at last there came to them the Destroyer of delights and the Sunderer of societies and the Depopulator of palaces and the Garnerer of graveyards and the Reaper for Resurrection-day, and they became as though they had never been.

So laud be to the Lord who dieth not and who knoweth no shadow of change.

 

End of Volume 9.

 

Appendix.

 

VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES OF THE TALES In VOLUME XIII.

 

By W. A. Clouston.

 

The Tale of Zayn Al-Asnam—p. 1.

 

This story is a compound of two distinct tales, namely, the Dream of Riches and the Quest of the Ninth Image. It has always been one of the most popular of the tales in our common version of the “Arabian Nights,” with this advantage, that it is perhaps the only one of the whole collection in which something like a moral purpose may be discovered—“a virtuous woman is more precious than fine gold.” Baron de Sacy has remarked of The Nights, that in the course of a few years after Galland’s version appeared “it filled Europe with its fame, though offering no object of moral or philosophical interest, and detailing stories merely for the pleasure of relating them.” But this last statement is not quite accurate: Shahrazad relates her stories merely to prolong her own life.

 

It is a curious fact—and one perhaps not very generally known—that the Tale of Zayn al-Asn�m is one of two (the other being that of Khud�d�d) which Galland repudiated, as having been foisted into his 8th volume without his knowledge, as he expressly asserts in the “Avertissement” to the 9th vol., promising to remove them in a second edition, which, however, he did not live to see. I understand that M. Herrmann Zotenberg purposes showing, in his forthcoming edition of “Aladdin,” that these two histoires (including that of the Princess of Dary�b�r, which is interwoven with the tale of Khud�d�d and his Brothers) were Turkish tales translated by M. Petis de la Croix and were intended to appear in his “Mille et un Jours,” which was published, after his death, in 1710; and that, like most of the tales in that work, they were derived from the Turkish collection entitled “Al-Far�j ba’d al-Shiddah,” or Joy after Affliction. But that Turkish story-book is said to be a translation of the Persian collection entitled “Haz�r � Yek R�z” (the Thousand and One Days), which M. Petis rendered into French.

 

In the preface to Petis’ work it is stated that during his residence in Persia, in 1675, he made a transcript of the “Haz�r � Yek R�z,” by permission of the author, a dervish named Mukhlis, of Isfah�n. That transcript has not, I understand, been found; but Sir William Ouseley brought a manuscript from Persia which contained a portion of the “Haz�r � Yek R�z,” and which he says (“Travels” vol. ii. p. 21, note) agreed so far with the French version. And it does seem strange that Petis should go to the Turkish book for tales to include in his “Mille et un Jours” when he had before him a complete copy of the Persian original, and even if he did so, how came his French rendering of the tales in question into the hands of Galland’s