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

and open it and see what is within, though within it were sudden death!” Then he took the key and, opening the door,[FN#50] saw therein no treasure but he espied a vaulted and winding staircase of Yamani onyx at the upper end of the chamber. So he mounted the stair, which brought him out upon the terrace-roof of the palace, whence he looked down upon the gardens and vergiers, full of trees and fruits and beasts and birds warbling praises of Allah, the One, the All-powerful; and said in himself “This is that they forbade to me.” He gazed upon these pleasaunces and saw beyond a surging sea, dashing with clashing billows, and he ceased not to explore the palace right and left, till he ended at a pavilion builded with alternate courses, two bricks of gold and one of silver and jacinth and emerald and supported by four columns. And in the centre he saw a sitting-room paved and lined with a mosaic of all manner precious stones such as rubies and emeralds and balasses and other jewels of sorts; and in its midst stood a basin[FN#51]

brimful of water, over which was a trellis-work of sandalwood and aloes-wood reticulated with rods of red gold and wands of emerald and set with various kinds of jewels and fine pearls, each sized as a pigeon’s egg. The trellis was covered with a climbing vine, bearing grapes like rubies, and beside the basin stood a throne of lign-aloes latticed with red gold, inlaid with great pearls and comprising varicoloured gems of every sort and precious minerals each kind fronting each and symmetrically disposed.

About it the birds warbled with sweet tongues and various voices celebrating the praises of Allah the Most High: brief, it was a palace such as nor C�sar nor Chosro�s ever owned; but Hasan saw therein none of the creatures of Allah, whereat he marvelled and said in himself, “I wonder to which of the Kings this place pertaineth, or is it Many-Columned Iram whereof they tell, for who among mortals can avail to the like of this?” And indeed he was amazed at the spectacle and sat down in the pavilion and cast glances around him marvelling at the beauty of its ordinance and at the lustre of the pearls and jewels and the curious works which therein were, no less than at the gardens and orchards aforesaid and at the birds that hymned the praises of Allah, the One, the Almighty; and he abode pondering the traces of him whom the Most High had enabled to rear that structure, for indeed He is muchel of might.[FN#52] And presently, behold, he espied ten birds[FN#53] flying towards the pavilion from the heart of the desert and knew that they were making the palace and bound for the basin, to drink of its waters: so he hid himself, for fear they should see him and take flight. They lighted on a great tree and a goodly and circled round about it; and he saw amongst them a bird of marvel-beauty, the goodliest of them all, and the nine stood around it and did it service; and Hasan marvelled to see it peck them with its bill and lord it over them while they fled from it. He stood gazing at them from afar as they entered the pavilion and perched on the couch; after which each bird rent open its neck-skin with its claws and issued out of it; and lo!

it was but a garment of feathers, and there came forth therefrom ten virgins, maids whose beauty shamed the brilliancy of the moon. They all doffed their clothes and plunging into the basin, washed and fell to playing and sporting one with other; whilst the chief bird of them lifted up the rest and ducked them down and they fled from her and dared not put forth their hands to her. When Hasan beheld her thus he took leave of his right reason and his sense was enslaved, so he knew that the Princesses had not forbidden him to open the door save because of this; for he fell passionately in love with her, for what he saw of her beauty and loveliness, symmetry and perfect grace, as she played and sported and splashed the others with the water. He stood looking upon them whilst they saw him not, with eye gazing and heart burning and soul[FN#54] to evil prompting; and he sighed to be with them and wept for longing, because of the beauty and loveliness of the chief damsel. His mind was amazed at her charms and his heart taken in the net of her love; lowe was loosed in his heart for her sake and there waxed on him a flame, whose sparks might not be quenched, and desire, whose signs might not be hidden. Presently, they came up out of that basin, whilst Hasan marvelled at their beauty and loveliness and the tokens of inner gifts in the elegance of their movements. Then he cast a glance at the chief damsel who stood mother-naked and there was manifest to him what was between her thighs a goodly rounded dome on pillars borne, like a bowl of silver or crystal, which recalled to him the saying of the poet,[FN#55]

 

“When I took up her shift and discovered the terrace-roof of her kaze, I found it as strait as my humour or eke my worldly ways:

So I thrust it, incontinent, in, halfway, and she heaved a sigh.

‘For what dost thou sigh?’ quoth I. ‘For the rest of it sure,’ she says.”

 

Then coming out of the water they all put on their dresses and ornaments, and the chief maiden donned a green dress,[FN#56]

wherein she surpassed for loveliness all the fair ones of the world and the lustre of her face outshone the resplendent full moons: she excelled the branches with the grace of her bending gait and confounded the wit with apprehension of disdain; and indeed she was as saith the poet,[FN#57]

 

“A maiden ‘twas, the dresser’s art had decked with cunning sleight;

The sun thou ‘d’st say had robbed her cheek and shone with borrowed light.

She came to us apparelled fair in under vest of green, Like as the ripe pomegranate hides beneath its leafy screen; And when we asked her what might be the name of what she wore, She answered in a quaint reply that double meaning bore: The desert’s heart we penetrate in such apparel dressed, And Pierce-heart therefore is the name by which we call the vest.”

 

—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

 

When it was the Seven Hundred and Eighty-seventh Night, She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Hasan saw the damsels issue forth the basin, the chief maiden robbed his reason with her beauty and loveliness compelling him to recite the couplets forequoted. And after dressing they sat talking and laughing, whilst he stood gazing on them, drowned in the sea of his love, burning in the flames of passion and wandering in the Wady of his melancholy thought. And he said to himself, “By Allah, my sister forbade me not to open the door, but for cause of these maidens and for fear lest I should fall in love with one of them! How, O Hasan shalt thou woo and win them?

How bring down a bird flying in the vasty firmament? By Allah thou hast cast thyself into a bottomless sea and snared thyself in a net whence there is no escape! I shall die desolate and none shall wot of my death.” And he continued to gaze on the charms of the chief damsel, who was the loveliest creature Allah had made in her day, and indeed she outdid in beauty all human beings. She had a mouth magical as Solomon’s seal and hair blacker than the night of estrangement to the love-despairing man; her brow was bright as the crescent moon of the Feast of Ramaz�n[FN#58] and her eyes were like eyes wherewith gazelles scan; she had a polished nose straight as a cane and cheeks like blood-red anemones of Nu’uman, lips like coralline and teeth like strung pearls in carcanets of gold virgin to man, and a neck like an ingot of silver, above a shape like a wand of B�n: her middle was full of folds, a dimpled plain such as enforceth the distracted lover to magnify Allah and extol His might and main, and her navel[FN#59] an ounce of musk, sweetest of savour could contain: she had thighs great and plump, like marble columns twain or bolsters stuffed with down from ostrich ta’en, and between them a somewhat, as it were a hummock great of span or a hare with ears back lain while terrace-roof and pilasters completed the plan; and indeed she surpassed the bough of the myrobalan with her beauty and symmetry, and the Indian rattan, for she was even as saith of them the poet whom love did unman,[FN#60]

 

“Her lip-dews rival honey-sweets, that sweet virginity; *

Keener than Hindi scymitar the glance she casts at thee: She shames the bending bough of B�n with graceful movement slow *

And as she smiles her teeth appear with leven’s brilliancy: When I compared with rose a-bloom the tintage of her cheeks, *

She laughed in scorn and cried, ‘Whoso compares with rosery My hue and breasts, granados terms, is there no shame in him? *

How should pomegranates bear on bough such fruit in form or blee?

Now by my beauty and mine eyes and heart and eke by Heaven *

Of favours mine and by the Hell of my unclemency, They say ‘She is a garden-rose in very pride of bloom’; *

And yet no rose can ape my cheek nor branch my symmetry!

If any garden own a thing which unto me is like, *

What then is that he comes to crave of me and only me?”’

 

They ceased not to laugh and play, whilst Hasan stood still a-watching them, forgetting meat and drink, till near the hour of midafternoon prayer, when the beauty, the chief damsel, said to her mates, “O Kings’ daughters, it waxeth late and our land is afar and we are weary of this stead. Come, therefore, let us depart to our own place.” So they all arose and donned their feather vests, and becoming birds as they were before, flew away all together, with the chief lady in their midst. Then, Hasan, despairing of their return, would have arisen and gone down into the palace but could not move or even stand; wherefore the tears ran down his cheeks and passion was sore on him and he recited these couplets,

 

“May God deny me boon of troth if I * After your absence sweets of slumber know:

Yea; since that sev’rance never close mine eyes, * Nor rest repose me since departed you!

‘Twould seem as though you saw me in your sleep; * Would Heaven the dreams of sleep were real-true!

Indeed I dote on sleep though needed not, * For sleep may bring me that dear form to view.”

 

Then Hasan walked on, little by little, heeding not the way he went, till he reached the foot of the stairs, whence he dragged himself to his own chamber; then he entered and shutting the door, lay sick eating not nor drinking and drowned in the sea of his solitude. He spent the night thus, weeping and bemoaning himself, till the morning, and when it morrowed he repeated these couplets,

 

“The birds took flight at eve and winged their way; * And sinless he who died of Love’s death-blow.

I’ll keep my love-tale secret while I can * But, an desire prevail, its needs must show:

Night brought me nightly vision, bright as dawn; * While