The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 9 by Sir Richard Francis Burton (ebook reader library .TXT) 📕

They ne’er tasted the bitters of parting nor felt * Fire beneath my ribs that flames fierce and fell!

None but baffled lover knows aught of Love, * Whose heart is lost where he wont to dwell.’

The folk rejoiced in her song with exceeding joy and my gladness redoubled, so that I took the lute from the damsel and preluding after the most melodious fashion, sang these couplets, �Ask (if needs thou ask) the Compassionate, * And the generous donor of high estate.

For asking the noble honours man * And asking the churl entails bane and bate:

When abasement is not to be ‘scaped by wight * Meet it asking boons of the good and great.

Of Grandee to sue ne’er shall vilify man, * But �tis vile on the vile of mankind to ‘wait.’

The company rejoiced in me with joy exceeding and the ceased not from pleasure and delight, whilst anon I sang and anon the damsel, till we came to one of the landing-places, where the vessel moored and all on board disembarked and I with them. Now I was drunken with wine and squatted on my hams to make water; but drowsiness overcame me and I slept, and the passengers returned to the ship which ran down stream without any missing me, for that they also were drunken, and continued their voyage until they reached Bassorah. As for me I awoke not till the heat of the sun aroused me, when I rose and looked about me, but saw no one.

Now I had given my spending money to the damsel and had naught left: I had also forgotten to ask the Hashimi his name and where his house was at Bassorah and his titles; thus I was confounded and my joy at meeting the damsel had been but a dream; and I abode in perplexity till there came up a great vessel wherein I embarked and she carried me to Bassorah. Now I knew none there, much less the Hashimi’s house, so I accosted a grocer and taking of him inkcase and paper, — And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Eight Hundred and Ninety-ninth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Baghdad man who owned the maid entered Bassorah, he was perplexed for not knowing the Hashimi’s house. “So I accosted” (said he) “a grocer and, taking of him inkcase and paper, sat down to write.

He admired my handwriting and seeing my dress stained and soiled, questioned me of my case, to which I replied that I was a stranger and poor. Quoth he, �Wilt thou abide with me and order the accounts of my shop and I will give thee thy food and clothing and half a dirham a day for ordering the accompts of my shop?’; and quoth I, �‘Tis well,’ and abode with him and kept his accounts and ordered his income and expenditure for a month, at the end of which he found his income increased and his disbursements diminished; wherefore he thanked me and made my wage a dirham a day. When the year was out, he proposed to me to marry his daughter and become his partner in the shop. I agreed to this and went in to my wife and applied me to the shop. But I was broken in heart and spirit, and grief was manifest upon me; and the grocer used to drink and invite me thereto, but I refrained for melancholy. I abode on this wise two years till, one day, as I sat in the shop, behold, there passed by a parcel of people with meat and drink, and I asked the grocer what was the matter. Quoth he, �This is the day of the pleasure-makers, when all the musicians and dancers of the town go forth with the young men of fortune to the banks of the Ubullah river[FN#50] and eat and drink among the trees there.’ The spirit prompted me to solace myself with the sight of this thing and I said in my mind, �Haply among these people I may foregather with her I love.’ So I told the grocer that I had a mind to this and he said, �Up and go with them an thou please.’ He made me ready meat and drink and I went till I came to the River of Ubullah, when, behold, the folk were going away: I also was about to follow, when I espied the Rais of the bark wherein the Hashimi had been with the damsel and he was going along the river. I cried out to him and his company who knew me and took me onboard with them and said to me, �Art thou yet alive?’; and they embraced me and questioned me of my case. I told them my tale and they said, �Indeed, we thought that drunkenness had gotten the better of thee and that thou hadst fallen into the water and wast drowned.’ Then I asked them of the damsel, and they answered, �When she came to know of thy loss, she rent her raiment and burnt the lute and fell to buffeting herself and lamenting and when we returned with the Hashimi to Bassorah we said to her, �Leave this weeping and wailing.’ Quoth she, �I will don black and make me a tomb beside the house and abide there and repent from singing.’[FN#51] we allowed her so to do and on this wise she abideth to this day. Then they carried me to the Hashimi’s house, where I saw the damsel as they had said.

When she espied me, she cried out a great cry, methought she had died, and I embraced her with a long embrace. Then said the Hashimi to me, �Take her;’ and I said, �‘Tis well: but do thou free her and according to thy promise marry her to me.’

Accordingly he did this and gave us costly goods and store of raiment and furniture and five hundred dinars, saying, �This is the amount of that which I purpose to allow you every month, but on condition that thou be my cup-companion and that I hear the girl sing when I will.’ Furthermore, he assigned us private quarters and bade transport thither all our need; so, when I went to the house I found it filled full of furniture and stuffs and carried the damsel thither. Then I betook myself to the grocer and told him all that had betided me, begging to hold me guiltless for divorcing his daughter, without offence on her part; and I paid her her dowry[FN#52] and what else behoved me.[FN#53] I abode with the Hashimi in this way two years and became a man of great wealth and was restored to the former estate of prosperity wherein I had been at Baghdad, I and the damsel. And indeed Allah the Bountiful put an end to our troubles and loaded us with the gifts of good fortune and caused our patience to result in the attainment of our desire: wherefore to Him be the praise in this world and the next whereto we are returning.”[FN#54] And among the tales men tell is that of

KING JALI’AD OF AND HIS WAZIR SHIMAS; FOLLOWED BY THE HISTORY OF KING WIRD KHAN, SON OF KING JALI’AD, WITH HIS WOMEN AND

WAZIRS.[FN#55]

There was once in days of yore and in ages and times long gone before, in the land of Hind, a mighty King, tall of presence and fair of favour and goodly of parts, noble of nature and generous, beneficent to the poor and loving to his lieges and all the people of his realm. His name was Jal�’�d and under his hand were two-and-seventy Kings and in his cities three hundred and fifty Kazis. He had three score and ten Wazirs and over every ten of them he set a premier. The chiefest of all his ministers was a man called Shim�s[FN#56] who was then[FN#57] two and twenty years old, a statesman of pleasant presence and noble nature, sweet of speech and ready in reply; shrewd in all manner of business, skilful withal and sagacious for all his tender age, a man of good counsel and fine manners versed in all arts and sciences and accomplishments; and the King loved him with exceeding love and cherished him by reason of his proficiency in eloquence and rhetoric and the art of government and for that which Allah had given him of compassion and brooding care[FN#58] with his lieges for he was a King just in his Kingship and a protector of his peoples, constant in beneficence to great and small and giving them that which befitted them of good governance and bounty and protection and security and a lightener of their loads in taxes and tithes. And indeed he was loving to them each and every, high and low, entreating them with kindness and solicitude and governing them in such goodly guise as none had done before him.

But, with all this, Almighty Allah had not blessed him with a child, and this was grievous to him and to the people of his reign. It chanced, one night, as Jali’ad[FN#59] lay in his bed, occupied with anxious thought of the issue of the affair of his Kingdom, that sleep overcame him and he dreamt that he poured water upon the roots of a tree,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundredth Night, She continued: It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the King saw himself in his vision pouring water upon the roots of a tree, about which were many other trees; and lo and behold! there came fire out of this tree and burnt up every growth which encompassed it; whereupon Jali’ad awoke affrighted and trembling, and calling one of his pages said to him, “Go fetch the Wazir Shimas in all haste.” So he betook himself to Shimas and said to him, “The King calleth for thee forthright because he hath awoke from his sleep in fright and hath sent me to bring thee to him in haste.” When Shimas heard this, he arose without stay or delay and going to the King, found him seated on his bed. He prostrated himself before him, wishing him permanence of glory and prosperity, and said, “May Allah not cause thee grieve, O King!

What hath troubled thee this night, and what is the cause of thy seeking me thus in haste?” The King bade him be seated; and, as soon as he sat down, began telling his tale and said to him, “I have dreamt this night a dream which terrified me, and ‘twas, that methought I poured water upon the roots of a tree where about were many other trees and as I was thus engaged, lo and behold! fire issued therefrom and burnt up all the growths that were around it; wherefore I was affrighted and fear took me. Then I awoke and sent to bid thee to me, because of thy knowledge and skill in the interpretation of dreams and of that which I know of the vastness of thy wisdom