The Arabian Nights Entertainments, - [best autobiographies to read .txt] 📗

him; he said, “I know he has more confidence in you than he has in me, and will be more likely to attend to your advice. I therefore desire you would take an opportunity to talk to him seriously, and urge upon him, that if he persists in his obstinacy, he will oblige me to have recourse to measures which would be disagreeable to me, and which would give him cause to repent having disobeyed me.”

Fatima, for so was the lady called, told the prince the first time she saw him, that she had been informed of his second refusal to marry; and how much chagrin his resolution had occasioned his father. “Madam,” replied the prince, “I beseech you not to renew my grief upon that head. I fear, under my present uneasiness, something may escape me, which may not be consistent with the respect I owe you.” Fatima judged from this answer that this was not a proper time to speak to him, and therefore deferred what she had to say to another opportunity.

Some considerable time after, Fatima thought she had found a more favourable season, which gave her hopes of being heard upon that subject. “Son,” said she, “I beg of you, if it be not disagreeable, to tell me what reason you have for your great aversion to marriage? If it be the wickedness of some women, nothing can be more unreasonable and weak. I will not undertake the defence of those that are bad; there are a great number of them undoubtedly; but it would be the height of injustice on their account to condemn all the sex. Alas! my son, you have in your books read of many bad women, who have occasioned great mischief, and I will not excuse them: but you do not consider how many monarchs, sultans, and other princes there have been in the world, whose tyrannies, barbarities, and cruelties astonish those that read of them, as well as myself. Now, for one wicked woman, you will meet with a thousand tyrants and barbarians; and what torment do you think must a good woman undergo, who is matched with any of these wretches?”

“Madam,” replied the prince, “I doubt not there are a great number of wise, virtuous, good, affable, and well-behaved women in the world; would to God they all resembled you! But what deters me is, the hazardous choice a man is obliged to make, and oftentimes one has not the liberty of following his inclination.

“Let us suppose then, madam,” continued he, “that I had a mind to marry, as the sultan my father so earnestly desires; what wife, think you, would he be likely to provide for me? Probably a princess whom he would demand of some neighbouring prince, and who would think it an honour done him to send her. Handsome or ugly, she must be taken; nay, suppose no other princess excelled her in beauty, who can be certain that her temper would be good; that she would be affable, complaisant, easy, obliging, and the like? That her conversation would generally turn on solid subjects, and not on dress, fashions, ornaments, and a thousand such fooleries, which would disgust any man of sense? In a word, that she would not be haughty, proud, arrogant, impertinent, scornful, and waste an estate in frivolous expenses, such as gay clothes, jewels, toys, and foolish mistaken magnificence?

“You see, madam,” continued he, “by one single article, how many reasons a man may have to be disgusted at marriage. Let this princess be ever so perfect, accomplished, and irreproachable in her conduct, I have yet a great many more reasons not to alter my opinion and resolution.”

“What, son,” exclaimed Fatima; “have you then more reasons after those you have already alleged? I do not doubt of being able to answer them, and stop your mouth with a word.” “You may proceed, madam,” returned the prince, “and perhaps I may find a reply to your answer.”

“I mean, son,” said Fatima, “that it is easy for a prince, who has had the misfortune to marry such a wife as you describe, to get rid of her, and take care that she may not ruin the state.”

“Ah, madam,” replied the prince, “but you do not consider what a mortification it would be to a person of my quality to be obliged to come to such an extremity. Would it not have been more for his honour and quiet that he had never run such a risk?”

“But, son,” said Fatima once more, “as you take the case, I apprehend you have a mind to be the last king of your race, who have reigned so long and gloriously over the isles of the children of Khaledan?”

“Madam,” replied the prince, “for myself I do not desire to survive the king my father; and if I should die before him, it would be no great matter of wonder, since so many children have died before their parents. But it is always glorious to a race of kings, that it should end with a prince worthy to be so, as I should endeavour to make myself like my predecessors, and like the first of our race.”

From that time Fatima had frequent conferences with her son the prince on the same subject; and she omitted no opportunity or argument to endeavour to root out his aversion to the fair sex; but he eluded all her reasonings by such arguments as she could not well answer, and continued unaltered.

The year expired, and, to the great regret of the sultan, prince Kummir al Zummaun gave not the least proof of having changed his sentiments. One day, therefore, when there was a great council held, the prime vizier, the other viziers, the principal officers of the crown, and the generals of the army being present, the sultan thus addressed the prince: “My son, it is now a long while since I expressed to you my earnest desire to see you married, and I imagined you would have had more complaisance for a father, who required nothing unreasonable of you, than to oppose him so long. But after such a resistance on your part, which has almost worn out my patience, I have thought fit to propose the same thing once more to you in the presence of my council. It is not merely to oblige a parent that you ought to have acceded to my wish, the well-being of my dominions requires your compliance, and this assembly join with me in expecting it: declare yourself, then; that your answer may regulate my proceedings.”

The prince answered with so little reserve, or rather with so much warmth, that the sultan, enraged to see himself thwarted by him in full council, exclaimed, “How, unnatural son! have you the insolence to talk thus to your father and sultan?” He ordered the guards to take him away, and carry him to an old tower that had been long unoccupied; where he was shut up, with only a bed, a little furniture, some books, and one slave to attend him.

Kummir al Zummaun, thus deprived of liberty, was nevertheless pleased that he had the freedom to converse with his books, which made him regard his confinement with indifference. In the evening he bathed and said his prayers; and after having read some chapters in the Koraun, with the same tranquillity of mind as if he had been in the sultan’s palace, he undressed himself and went to bed, leaving his lamp burning by him while he slept.

In this tower was a well, which served in the daytime for a retreat to a certain fairy, named Maimoune, daughter of Damriat, king or head of a legion of genies. It was about midnight when Maimoune sprung lightly to the mouth of the well, to wander about the world after her wonted custom, where her curiosity led her.

She was surprised to see a light in the prince’s chamber. She entered, and without stopping at the slave who lay at the door, approached the bed.

The prince had but half covered his face with the bed-clothes, which Maimoune lifted up, and perceived the finest young man she had ever seen in her rambles through the world. “What beauty, or rather what prodigy of beauty,” said she within herself, “must this youth appear, when the eyes, concealed by such well-formed eyelids, shall be open? What crime can he have committed, that a man of his high rank can deserve to be treated thus rigorously?”

for she had already heard his story, and could hardly believe it.

She could not forbear admiring the prince, till at length having kissed him gently on both cheeks, and in the middle of the forehead, without waking him, she laid the bed-clothes in the order they were in before, and took her flight into the air. As she was ascending into the middle region, she heard a great flapping of wings, towards which she directed her course; and when she approached, she knew it was a genie who made the noise, but it was one of those that are rebellious against God. As for Maimoune, she belonged to that class whom the great Solomon had compelled to acknowledge him.

This genie, whose name was Danhasch, and son of Schamhourasch, knew Maimoune, and was seized with fear, being sensible how much power she had over him by her submission to the Almighty. He would fain have avoided her, but she was so near him, he must either fight or yield. He therefore broke silence first.

“Brave Maimoune,” said he, in the tone of a suppliant, “swear to me in the name of the great God, that you will not hurt me; and I swear also on my part not to do you any harm.”

“Cursed genie,” replied Maimoune, “what hurt canst thou do me? I fear thee not; but I will grant thee this favour; I will swear not to do thee any harm. Tell me then, wandering spirit, whence thou comest, what thou hast seen, and what thou hast done this night?” “Fair lady,” answered Danhasch, “you meet me in a good time to hear something very wonderful.”

Danhasch, the genie rebellious against God, proceeded and said to Maimoune, “Since you desire, I will inform you that I have come from the utmost limits of China, which comprise the remotest islands of this hemisphere… . . But, charming Maimoune,” said Danhasch, who trembled with fear at the sight of this fairy, so that he could hardly speak, “promise me at least you will forgive me, and let me proceed after I have satisfied your request.”

“Go on, cursed spirit,” replied Maimoune; “go on, and fear nothing. Dost thou think I am as perfidious as thyself, and capable of breaking the solemn oath I have made? Be sure you relate nothing but what is true, or I shall clip thy wings, and treat thee as thou deserves”

Danhasch, a little encouraged by the words of Maimoune, said, “My dear lady, I will tell you nothing but what is strictly true, if you will but have the goodness to hear me. The country of China, from whence I come, is one of the largest and most powerful kingdoms of the earth, on which depend the remotest islands of this hemisphere, as I have already told you. The king of this country is at present Gaiour, who has an only daughter, the finest woman that ever was seen in the world since it has been a world. Neither you nor I, neither your class nor mine, nor all our respective genies, have expressions forcible enough, nor eloquence sufficient to convey an adequate description of her charms. Her hair is brown, and of such length as to trail on the ground; and so thick, that when she has fastened it in buckles on her head, it may be fitly