The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 6, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ebook and pdf reader TXT] 📗

answered Abd al-Samad, “Rejoice, for Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) hath delivered us from the frightful words and thirsty wastes.” “How knowest thou that?” said Musa, and the other, “I know it for that my father told me of my grandfather that he said, �We were once journeying in this land and, straying from the road, we came to this palace and thence to the City of Brass; between which and the place thou seekest is two full months’

travel; but thou must take to the sea-shore and leave it not, for there be watering-places and wells and camping-grounds established by King Z� al-Karnayn Iskandar who, when he went to the conquest of Mauritania, found by the way thirsty deserts and wastes and wilds and dug therein water-pits and built cisterns.’

” Quoth Musa, “Allah rejoice thee with good news!” and quoth the Shaykh, “Come, let us go look upon yonder palace and its marvels, for it is an admonition to whose will be admonished.” So the Emir went up to the palace, with the Shaykh and his officers, and coming to the gate, found it open. Now this gate was builded with lofty columns and porticoes whose walls and ceilings were inlaid with gold and silver and precious stones; and there led up to it flights of steps, among which were two wide stairs of coloured marble, never was seen their like; and over the doorway was a tablet whereon were graven letters of gold in the old ancient Ionian character. “O Emir,” asked the Shaykh, “Shall I read?”; and Musa answered, “Read and God bless thee!; for all that betideth us in this journey dependeth upon thy blessing.” So the Shaykh, who was a very learned man and versed in all tongues and characters, went up to the tablet and read whatso was thereon and it was verse like this,

“The signs that here their mighty works portray * Warn us that all must tread the self-same way: O thou who standest in this stead to hear Tidings of folk, whose power hath passed for aye, Enter this palace-gate and ask the news Of greatness fallen into dust and clay:

Death has destroyed them and dispersed their might And in the dust they lost their rich display; As had they only set their burdens down To rest awhile, and then had rode away.”

When the Emir Musa heard these couplets, he wept till he lost his senses and said, “There is no god but the God, the Living, the Eternal, who ceaseth not!” Then he entered the palace and was confounded at its beauty and the goodliness of its construction.

He diverted himself awhile by viewing the pictures and images therein, till he came to another door, over which also were written verses, and said to the Shaykh, “Come read me these!” So he advanced and read as follows,

“Under these domes how many a company * Halted of old and fared with-outen stay:

See thou what might displays on other wights * Time with his shifts which could such lords waylay: They shared together what they gathered * And left their joys and fared to Death-decay:

What joys they joyed! what food they ate! and now * In dust they’re eaten, for the worm a prey.”

At this the Emir Musa wept bitter tears; and the world waxed yellow before his eyes and he said, “Verily, we were created for a mighty matter!”[FN#114] Then they proceeded to explore the palace and found it desert and void of living thing, its courts desolate and dwelling places waste laid. In the midst stood a lofty pavilion with a dome rising high in air, and about it were four hundred tombs, builded of yellow marble. The Emir drew near unto these and behold, amongst them was a great tomb, wide and long; and at its head stood a tablet of white marble, whereon were graven these couplets,

“How oft have I fought! and how many have slain! * How much have I witnessed of blessing and bane!

How much have I eaten! how much have I drunk! * How oft have I hearkened to singing-girl’s strain!

How much have I bidden! how oft have forbid! * How many a castle and castellain

I have sieged and have searched, and the cloistered maids * In the depths of its walls for my captives were ta’en!

But of ignorance sinned I to win me the meeds Which won proved naught and brought nothing of gain: Then reckon thy reck’ning, O man, and be wise Ere the goblet of death and of doom thou shalt drain; For yet but a little the dust on thy head * They shall strew, and thy life shall go down to the dead.”

The Emir and his companions wept; then, drawing near unto the pavilion, they saw that it had eight doors of sandal-wood, studded with nails of gold and stars of silver and inlaid with all manner precious stones. On the first door were written these verses,

“What I left, I left it not for nobility of soul, * But through sentence and decree that to every man are dight.

What while I lived happy, with a temper haught and high, My hoarding-place defending like a lion in the fight, I took no rest, and greed of gain forbad me give a grain Of mustard seed to save from the fires of Hell my sprite, Until stricken on a day, as with arrow, by decree * Of the Maker, the Fashioner, the Lord of Might and Right.

When my death was appointed, my life I could not keep * By the many of my stratagems, my cunning and my sleight: My troops I had collected availed me not, and none Of my friends and of my neighbours had power to mend my plight: Through my life I was weaned in journeying to death In stress or in solace, in joyance or despight: So when money-bags are bloated, and dinar unto dinar Thou addest, all may leave thee with fleeting of the night: And the driver of a camel and the digger of a grave[FN#115] Are what shine heirs shall bring ere the morning dawneth bright: And on Judgment Day alone shalt thou stand before thy Lord, *

Overladen with thy sins and thy crimes and shine affright: Let the world not seduce thee with lurings, but behold * What measure to thy family and neighbours it hath doled.”

When Musa heard these verses, he wept with such weeping that he swooned away; then, coming to himself, he entered the pavilion and saw therein a long tomb, awesome to look upon, whereon was a tablet of China steel and Shaykh Abd al-Samad drew near it and read this inscription: “In the name of Everlasting Allah, the Never-beginning, the Never-ending; in the name of Allah who begetteth not nor is He begot and unto whom the like is not; in the name of Allah the Lord of Majesty and Might; in the name of the Living One who to death is never dight!”—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Five Hundred and Sixty-ninth Night, She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Shaykh Abd al-Samad, having read the aforesaid, also found the following, “O

thou who comest to this place, take warning by that which thou seest of the accidents of Time and the vicissitudes of Fortune and be not deluded by the world and its pomps and vanities and fallacies and falsehoods and vain allurements, for that it is flattering, deceitful end treacherous, and the things thereof are but a loan to us which it will borrow back from all borrowers. It is like unto the dreams of the dreamer and the sleep-visions of the sleeper or as the mirage of the desert, which the thirsty take for water;[FN#116] and Satan maketh it fair for men even unto death These are the ways of the world; wherefore put not thou thy trust therein neither incline thereto, for it bewrayeth him who leaneth upon it and who committeth himself thereunto in his affairs. Fall not thou into its snares neither take hold upon its skirts, but be warned by my example. I possessed four thou sand bay horses and a haughty palace, and I had to wife a thou sand daughters of kings, high-bosomed maids, as they were moons: I was blessed with a thousand sons as they were fierce lions, and I abode a thousand years, glad of heart and mind, and I amassed treasures beyond the competence of all the Kings of the regions of the earth, deeming that delight would still endure to me. But there fell on me unawares the Destroyer of delights and the Sunderer of societies, the Desolator of domiciles and the Spoiler of inhabited spots, the Murtherer of great and small, babes and children and mothers, he who hath no ruth on the poor for his poverty, or feareth the King for all his bidding or forbidding.

Verily, we abode safe and secure in this palace, till there descended upon us the judgment of the Lord of the Three Worlds, Lord of the Heavens, and Lord of the Earths, the vengeance of the Manifest Truth[FN#117] overtook us, when there died of us every day two, till a great company of us had perished. When I saw that destruction had entered our dwellings and had homed with us and in the sea of deaths had drowned us, I summoned a writer and bade him indite these verses and instances and admonitions, the which I let grave, with rule and compass, on these doors and tablets and tombs. Now I had an army of a thousand thousand bridles, men of warrior mien with forearms strong and keen, armed with spears and mail-coats sheen and swords that gleam; so I bade them don their long-hanging hauberks and gird on their biting blades and mount their high-mettled steeds and level their dreadful lances; and whenas there fell on us the doom of the Lord of heaven and earth, I said to them, �Ho, all ye soldiers and troopers, can ye avail to ward off that which is fallen on me from the Omnipotent King?’ But troopers and soldiers availed not unto this and said, �How shall we battle with Him to whom no chamberlain barreth access, the Lord of the door which hath no doorkeeper?’ Then quoth I to them, �Bring me my treasures’ Now I had in my treasuries a thousand cisterns in each of which were a thousand quintals[FN#118] of red gold and the like of white silver, besides pearls and jewels of all kinds and other things of price, beyond the attainment of the kings of the earth. So they did that and when they had laid all the treasure in my presence, I said to them, �Can ye ransom me with all this treasure or buy me one day of life therewith?’ But they could not! So they resigned themselves to foreordained Fate and fortune and I submitted to the judgment of Allah, enduring patiently that which he decreed unto me of affliction, till He took my soul and made me to dwell in my grave. And if thou ask of my name, I am K�sh, the son of Shadd�d son of �d the Greater.” And upon the tablets were engraved these lines,

“An thou wouldst know my name, whose day is done With shifts of time and chances ‘neath the sun, Know I am Shadd�d’s son, who ruled mankind And o’er all earth upheld dominion!

All stubborn peoples abject were to me; * And