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

young man, and he answered, I am a man from Damascus. From the city or from the villages? Wallahy, O my lord, from Damascus city where I was born. Ja’afar asked, Didst thou happen to known there a man named Attaf? I know when thou wast his friend and he lodged thee in such-and-such a house and thou wentest out to such-and-such a garden; and I know when thou didst marry his cousin-wife, I know when he bade adieu to thee at Katifa where thou drankest with him. Ja’afar said, Yes, all that is true, but what became of him after he left me? He said, O my Lord, there happened to him this and that and he related to him everything from the time he quitted him up to the moment of his standing before him and then recited these verses:—

This age, must it make me its victim, and thou at the same time art living: wolves are seeking to devour me while thou the lion art here.

Every thirsty one that cometh his thirst is quenched by thee: can it be that I thirst while thou art still our refuge?

When he had finished the verses he said, O my lord, I am Attaf, and then recalled all that had taken place between them from first to last. While he was thus speaking a great cry was heard, and it came from a Sheikh who was saying, This is not humanity. They looked at the speaker, who was an old man with trimmed beard dyed with henna, and upon him was a blue kerchief. When Ja’afar saw him he asked him what was the matter, and he exclaimed, Take away the young man from under the sword, for there is no fault in him: he hath killed no one nor doth he know anything of the dead youth. Nobody but myself is the killer. The Wazir said, Then ‘tis thou that killed him? and he answered. Yes.—Why didst thou kill him? hast thou not the fear of God in killing a Hashimy child? The old man said, He was my servant, serving me in the house and working with me at my trade.

Every day he took from me some quarter-pieces of money and went to work for another man called Shumooshag, and to work with Nag�sh, and with Gas�s, and with Gh�bar, and with Gush�r, and every day working with someone. They were jealous of my having him. ‘Odis the sweeper and Abu Butr�n the stoker, and everyone wanted to have him. In vain I corrected him, but he would not abide corrected and ceased not to do thus until I killed him in the ruin, and I have delivered myself from the torment he gave me. That is my story. I kept silent until I saw thee when I made myself known at the time thou savest the head of this young man from the sword. Here I am standing before you: strike my neck and take life for life. Pray do no harm to this young man, for he hath committed no fault. The Wazir said, Neither to thee nor to him. Then he ordered to be brought the parents of the dead lad and reconciled them with the old man, whom he pardoned.

He mounted Attaf upon a horse and took him to his house; then he entered the palace of the Caliph and kissed the earth before him and said, Behold Attaf, he who was my host at Damascus, and of whom I have related his treatment of me and his kindness and generosity, and how he preferred me to himself. Er-Rashid said, Bring him in to me immediately. He presented him to the Caliph in the miserable state in which he had found him; and when he entered, he made his salutations in the best manner and with the most eloquent language. Er-Rashid answered and said to him, What is this state in which I find you? and Attaf wept and made his complaint in these verses:—

Troubles, poverty and distant sojourn far away from the dear ones, and a crushing desire to see them:

The soul is in them, they became like their fellows, thus the enigma remains in the world;

While the generous is stricken with misfortune and grief, where’s the miser that finds not good fortune therein?

When Attaf had finished he conversed with the Caliph about his history and all his life from beginning to end; and Er-Rashid cried and suffered at what had happened to him after the loss of his riches, nor did he cease to weep with Ja’afar until the close of Attaf’s story. The Sheikh who had killed the lad and had been liberated by Ja’afar came in and Er-Rashid laughed at seeing him. Then he caused Attaf to be seated and made him repeat his story. And when Attaf had finished speaking the Caliph looked at Ja’afar and said, The proverb goeth:—

Good for good, to the giver the merit remains; evil for evil, the doer’s most cruel.

Afterwards the Caliph said to Ja’afar, Tell me what thou didst for thy brother Attaf before he came to thee, and he answered, O Commander of the Faithful, he came upon me suddenly, and I now prepare for him three millions of gold, and the like of it in horses, and in slaves, and in boys, and in dresses; and the Caliph said, From me the same. Here endeth the last leaf of the writ, but the Wari says that two days afterwards Ja’afar restored to his friend Attaf his beloved cousin-wife, saying to him, I have divorced her and now I deliver over to thee intact the precious deposit that thou didst place in my hands. Already hath the order from the Caliph been despatched to Damascus enjoining the arrest of the Na�b, to place him in irons and imprison him until further notice. Attaf passed several months in Baghdad enjoying the pleasures of the city in company with his friend Ja’afar and Er-Rashid. He would have liked to have stayed there all his life, but numerous letters from his relations and his friends praying him to return to Damascus, he thought it his duty to do so, and asked leave of the Caliph, who granted it, not without regrets and fears for his future condition.

Er-Rashid appointed him Wali of Damascus and gave him the imperial rescript; and a great escort of horses, mules and dromedaries, with abundant magnificent presents accompanied him as far as Damascus, where he was received with great pomp. All the city was illuminated as a mark of joy for the return of Attaf, so loved and respected by all classes of the people, and above all by the poor who had wept incessantly for him in his absence. As to the Na�b, a second decree of the Caliph ordered his being put to death for his oppression of the people, but by the generous intercession of Attaf Er-Rashid contented himself with commuting the sentence to banishment. Attaf governed his people many years with justice and prosperity, protector of his happy subjects and in the enjoyment of the delights and pleasures of life, until the Angel of Death overtook him and summoned him to Paradise.

HISTORY OF PRINCE HABIB

AND WHAT BEFEL HIM WITH THE

LADY DURRAT AL-GHAWWAS.

Here we begin to indite the history of Sultan Habib and of what befel him with Durrat al-Ghawwas.[FN#378]

It is related (but Allah is All-knowing of His unknown and All-cognisant of what took place and forewent in the annals of folk!) that there was, in days of yore and in times and tides long gone before, a tribe of the tribes of the Arabs hight Ban� Hil�l[FN#379]

whose head men were the Emir Hil�l and the Emir Sal�mah.[FN#380]

Now this Emir Salamah had well nigh told out his tale of days without having been blessed with boon of child; withal he was a ruler valiant, masterful, a fender of his foes and a noble knight of portly presence. He numbered by the thousand horsemen the notablest of cavaliers and he came to overrule threescore-and-six tribes of the Arabs. One chance night of the nights as he lay sleeping in the sweetness of slumber, a Voice addressed him saying, “Rise forthright and know thy wife, whereby she shall conceive under command of Allah Almighty.” Being thus disturbed of his rest the Emir sprang up and compressed his spouse Kamar al-Ashr�f;[FN#381] she became pregnant by that embrace and when her days came to an end she bare a boy as the full moon of the fulness-night who by his father’s hest was named Hab�b.[FN#382] And as time went on his sire rejoiced in him with joy exceeding and reared him with fairest rearing and bade them teach him Koran-reading together with the glorious names of Almighty Allah and instruct him in writing and in all the arts and sciences. After this he bestowed robes of honour and gifts of money and raiment upon the teachers who had made the Sultan[FN#383] Habib, when he reached the age of seventeen, the most intelligent and penetrating and knowing amongst the sons of his time. And indeed men used to admire at the largeness of his understanding and were wont to say in themselves, “There is no help but that this youth shall rise to dignity (and what dignity!) whereof men of highmost intellect shall make loud mention.” For he could write the seven caligraphs[FN#384]

and he could recite traditions and he could improvise poetry; and, on one occasion when his father bade him versify impromptu, that he might see what might come thereof, he intoned, “O my sire, I am lord of all lere man knows or knew— * Have enformed my vitals with lore and with legend true; Nor cease I repeat what knowledge this memory guards * And my writ as ruby and pearl doth appear to view.”

So the Emir Salamah his sire marvelled at the elegance of his son’s diction; and the Notables of the clan, after hearing his poetry and his prose, stood astounded at their excellence; and presently the father clasped his child to his breast and forthright summoned his governor, to whom there and then he did honour of the highmost.

Moreover he largessed him with four camels carrying loads of gold and silver and he set him over one of his subject tribes of the Arabs; then said he to him, “Indeed thou hast done well, O Shaykh; so take this good and fare therewith to such a tribe and rule it with justice and equity until the day of thy death.” Replied the governor, “O King of the Age, I may on no wise accept thy boons, for that I am not of mankind but of Jinn-kind; nor have I need of money or requirement of rule. Know thou, O my lord, that erst I sat as K�zi amongst the Jinns and I was enthroned amid the Kings of the J�nn, whenas one night of the nights a Voice[FN#385] addressed me in my sleep saying, ‘Rise and hie thee to the Sultan Habib son of the Emir Salamah ruler of the tribes of the Arabs subject to the Banu Hilal and become his tutor and teach him all things teachable; and, if thou gainsay going, I will tear thy soul from thy body.’

Now when I saw this marvel-vision in my sleep, I straightway arose and repairing to thy son did as I was bidden.”[FN#386] But as the Emir Salamah heard the words of this Shaykh he bowed him down and kissing his feet cried, “Alhamdolillah—laud to the Lord, who hath vouchsafed thee to us of His bounty; and indeed thy coming to us was of good omen, O Judge of