The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 16, Sir Richard Francis Burton [novels to read for beginners TXT] 📗

teacher of the Time and sum and substance of revolving Tide, why hast thou wrought to me on this wise in the matter of my daughter and destroyed my servants and soldiers?” “O Viceregent of Allah upon His Earth,” replied the Sage, “I am a stranger, and having eaten bread and salt with this youth, I formed friendship and familiarity with him: then, seeing his case which was sad and his state which was marvellous as it had afflicted him with sickness, I took compassion upon him; moreover I designed to show you all what I am and what Almighty Allah hath taught me of occult knowledge. Hitherto there hath been naught save weal, and now I desire of thy favour that thou marry thy daughter to this youth, my familiar, for that she suiteth none other save himself.” Quoth the Caliph, “This proceeding I look upon as the fittest and it besitteth us that we obey thy bidding.” Presently he robed the youth with a sumptuous robe worth the kingdom of a King, and commanded him to sit beside the presence and seated the Sage upon a chair of ebony-wood. Now whilst they were in converse the Warlock turned round and beheld arear of the Caliph a hanging of sendal whereupon stood figured lions twain: so he signed with his hand to these forms which were mighty huge of limb and awesome to look upon, when each put forth his paw upon his fellow and both roared with roars like unto the bellow of ear-rending thunder.

Hereat all present were perplex in the extreme and were in admiration at that matter and especially the Prince of True Believers who cried, “O Wazir what seest thou in this business?”

The Wazir replied, “O Caliph of the Age, verily Allah Almighty to thee hath sent this Sage that He[FN#260] might show thee such marvels as these.” Then the Warlock signalled with his hand to the lions which shrank till they became as cats which carried on the combat; and both Caliph and Wazir wondered thereat with excessive wonderment. Anon quoth the King to the Minister, “Bid the Sage display to us more of his marvels;” and accordingly the Wazir obeyed his lord’s be hest, and the Warlock replied, “To hear is to obey.” He then said, “Bring hither to me a chauldron full of water;” and when it was brought he asked the Courtiers, “Which of you would divert himself?” “I,” quoth the Wazir; when quoth the Sage, “Do thou rise to thy feet and doff thy robes and gird thee with a zone:” whereto said the other, “Bring me a waistcloth;” and when it was brought he did therewith as he was bidden. Hereat said the Warlock, “Seat thee in the centre of the chauldron;” so he plunged into the water, but when he would have seated him amiddlemost thereof as ordered he saw only that he had entered a sea dashing with surges clashing wherein whoso goeth is lost to view, and whence whoso cometh is born anew; and he fell to swimming from side to side intending to issue forth, while the waves suffered him not to make the shore. And while he was in this case behold, a billow of the billows vomited[FN#261] him up from the sea to the strand and he stood on dry land, when he surveyed his person and suddenly saw that he had become a woman with the breasts of a woman and the solution of continuity like a woman, and long black hair flowing down to his heels even as a woman’s. Then said he to himself, “O ill-omened diversion! What have I done with such unlucky disport that I have looked upon this marvel and wonder of wonderments, only to become a woman.[FN#262] Verily we are Allah’s, and unto Him shall we return;” adding as he took thought of the matter and of what had befallen him, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great.” Presently a Fisherman approached him and sighting a fair girl said, “This be none other than a blessed day which Allah hath opened to us with a beautiful maiden for quarry; and she is doubtless of the Daughters of the Deep, whom Allah Almighty hath sent to us that I may espouse her to my son.” Hearing these words said the transformed to himself, “Now after being a Wazir I have become a woman and this be for that as tit for tat,[FN#263] and the wight furthermore desireth to see me married, and as for the Caliph and the kingdom and the countries, who shall now be able to offer them counsel?” But the Fisherman who for his joyance had no stomach to ply his pursuit, as was his custom, forthwith arose and taking with him the Daughter of the Deep led her to his house, and on entering the door cried aloud to his wife, “This day hath been a lucky for my fishing craft: during all these years it never befel me to happen upon a Mermaid save on this best-omened of all the days,� adding, “Where is thy son, to whom Allah hath sent this Daughter of the Daughters of the Main; and hath made her his portion and vouchsafed her to his service? for ‘tis my design to marry them.” Replied the woman, “He hath taken the beasts and hath fared forth to pasture it and plough therewith; but right soon will he return.[FN#264] And whilst they were thus conversing the youth came forward, and the Wazir on sighting him groaned and cried, Well-away for me! this very night I shall become a bride for this blamed lad[FN#265] to sleep withal. And if I say to them, ‘What intent have ye? Ye are in meanness and misery[FN#266] while I am Wazir to the Caliph;’

they will never believe me for that I have become a woman, and all thereto appertaining now belongeth to me. Alack and alas for that I did with mine own self; indeed what business had I with such diversion?” Hereupon the fisherman called out, “O my son, up with thee and straightway take this Mermaid and marry her and abate her pucelage and be blessed with her and enjoy thy joy with her during all the days of thy life-tide: doubtless, O my child, thou art in all boon fortune, seeing that what good befel thee never betided any before thee nor will become the lot of one after thee.” So the youth arose and for his delight hardly believing in his conquest, married her and lay with her and did away her maidenhead and on that very night she conceived by him.

After nine months she bare him issue and the couple ceased not to be after this fashion till she had become a mother of seven. But the Wazir, of his stress and excess of the trouble and the travail he endured, said to himself, “How long shall last this toil and torment wherewith I am liver-smitten and that too by mine own consent? So e’en will I arise and hie me to this sea and hurl me thereinto and whatso shall become of me let it be: haply I may find rest from these torments into which I have fallen.”

And forthright he arose and sought the shore and did as he had devised, when a wave enveloped him and cast him deep into the depths and he was like to choke, when suddenly his head protruded from the chauldron and he was seated as before he had ducked it.

Hereupon he saw the Caliph sitting in state with the Sage by his side and all the Lords of the land and the Notables of the commons awaiting the end of his adventure. So he gazed at them and showed a smiling face[FN#267] and laughed aloud when the Prince of True Believers asked him saying, “What hast thou seen, O Wazir?” So he repeated to the Sovran all he had sighted and everything that had come down upon his head, presently adding, “O

Caliph of the Age and the sum and sub stance of the Time and the Tide, what be these marvels wrought by this Sage? Verily I have beheld the garths of Paradise[FN#268] with maidens of the H�r and the youths of Heaven, and wonderments galore unlooked upon by mankind at all, at all. But, an thou be pleased, O Commander of the Faithful, to espy these rare spectacles and marvellous conditions with thine own eyes, deign go down into the water; so shalt thou divert thyself with peregrine matters and adventures seld-seen.” The Sultan, delighted at this rede, arose and doffed his dress; then, girding his loins with a zone, he entered the chauldron whereat the Sage cried out to him, “O my lord, sit thee down and duck thy head.” But when this was done the Caliph found himself in a bottomless sea and wide dispread and never at rest by any manner of means, so he fell to swimming therein, when a huge breaker threw him high ashore and he walked up the beach mother-naked save for his zone. So he said in his mind, “Let me see what hath been wrought with me by the Sage and the Wazir who have thus practiced upon me and have cast me in this place; and haply they have married my daughter to the youth, and they have stolen my kingdom, the Sage becoming Sultan in my stead. And now let me ask myself, ‘What had I to do with such damned diversion as this?’” But as he brooded over these thoughts and the like of them behold, a bevy of maidens came forwards to fill their pitchers from a fountain and a pool of sweet water lying beside the sea; and sighting him they exclaimed, “Thou, who art thou?

say sooth be thou of mankind or rather haply of Jinn-kind?” He replied, “I am a mortal and of the noblest-born; withal I am a stranger in the land and I wot not whither I should wend.” “Of what country art thou?” asked they, and he answered, “I am from Baghdad.” “Up with thee,” quoth one of the damsels, “to yonder knoll, then down to the flat on the further side, and thou shalt sight a city whose name is ‘Om�n,[FN#269] whereinto do thou enter.” The Caliph did her bidding, and no sooner had the people seen him stripped than they said one to other, “This man is a merchant who hath been shipwrecked;” so they gave him by way of almsgift a Tobe[FN#270] all tattered and torn wherewith he veiled his shame. And after so doing he fell to wandering about the city for pastime, and while walking about he passed into a Bazar and there sighted a cook, before whom he stood open mouthed (for indeed famine had thinned him), and he bethought him of what to do, and he knew not how to act. However the cook at first sight was certified of his being a foreigner, and haply a shipwrecked mariner so he asked him, “O my brother, why cost thou not come in and sit thee down, for thou art a stranger and without means; so in the way of Allah I would engage thy services and will pay thee daily two dirhams to provide thee with meat and drink.” Answered the Caliph, “Hearing and obeying,” after which he abode with the cook and served him and stinted not to serve him for a long time, saying in himself the while, “This for that is tit for tat! and after the Caliphate and commandment and happiness and honour, this day art thou left to lick the platters. What had I to do with such diversion as this? Withal ‘tis fairer than the spectacle that anyone even