The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 15, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ereader that reads to you .txt] 📗
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The Nine Hundred and Sixteenth Night, Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the woman who bode alone having been abandoned by her husband and her children, cried, “I am here sitting sans my mate and sans my sons; whatso ever shall I do?” and anon the case became grievous to her and she set out to bewander the regions saying, “Haply shall Allah reunite me with my children and my husband!” And she stinted not passing from place to place and shifting from site to site until she reached a town upon the margin of the main and found a vessel in cargo and about to sail.[FN#622] Now by the decree of the Decreer the ship-captain having heard tell of the Sultan’s generosity and open-handedness had made ready for him a present and was about to voyage therewith to his capital.
Learning this the woman said to him, “Allah upon thee, O Captain, take me with thee;” and he did accordingly, setting sail with a fair wind. He sped over the billows of that sea for a space of forty days and throughout this time he kept all the precepts and commandments of religion, as regards the woman,[FN#623] supplying her with meat and drink; nay more, he was wont to address her, “O
my mother.” And no sooner had they made the city than he landed and disembarked the present and loading it upon porters’ backs took his way therewith to the Sovran and continues faring until he entered the presence. The Sultan accepted the gift and largessed him in return, and at eventide the skipper craved leave of return to his ship fearing lest any harm befal vessel or passengers. So he said, “O King of the Age, on board with me is a woman, but she is of goodly folk and godly and I am apprehensive concerning her.” “Do thou night here with us,” quoth the Sovran, “and I will dispatch my two Wazirs to keep guard over her until dawn shall break.” Quoth the Captain, “Hearing and obeying,” and he sat with the Sultan, who at nightfall commissioned his two Ministers and placed the vessel under their charge and said, “Look ye well to your lives, for an aught be lost from the ship I will cut off your heads,” So they went down to her and took their seats the one on poop and the other on prow until near midnight when both were seized by drowsiness; and said to each other, “Sleep is upon us, let us sit together[FN#624] and talk.”
Hereupon he who was afore returned to him who was abaft the ship[FN#625] and they sat side by side in converse while the woman in the cabin sat listening to them.—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and fell silent and ceased saying her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, “How sweet and tasteful is thy tale, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate an the Sovran suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was,
The Nine Hundred and Seventeenth Night, Dunyazad said to her, “Allah upon thee, O my sister, an thou be other than sleepy, finish for us thy tale that we may cut short the watching of this our latter night!” She replied, “With love and good will!” It hath reached me, O auspicious King, the director, the right-guiding, lord of the rede which is benefiting and of deeds fair-seeming and worthy celebrating, that the two sons foregathered in converse while the mother was listening and anon quoth the elder to the younger, “Allah upon thee, O Wazir of the Left, do thou relate to me whatso befel and betided thee in thy time and what was the true cause of thy coming to this city; nor conceal from me aught.” “By Allah, O Wazir of the Right,”
quoth the other, “my tale is wondrous and mine adventure marvelous and were it paged upon paper the folk would talk thereanent race after race.”[FN#626] “And what may that be?”
asked he, and the other answered, “‘Tis this. My sire was son to a mighty merchant who had of moneys and goods and estates and such like what pens may not compute and which intelligence may not comprehend. Now this my grandsire was a man whose word was law and every day he held a Divan wherein the traders craved his counsel about taking and giving and selling and buying; and this endured until what while a sickness attacked him and he sensed his end drawing near. So he summoned his son and charged him and insisted thereon as his last will and testament that he never and by no means make oath in the name of Allah or truly or falsely.”
Now the younger brother had not ended his adventure before the elder Wazir threw himself upon him and flinging his arms around his neck cried, “Wall�hi, thou art my brother by father and mother!” and when the woman heard these words of the twain her wits wandered for joy, but she kept the matter hidden until morning. The two Wazirs rejoiced in having found each of them a long-lost brother and slumber fled their eyes until dawned the day when the woman sent for the Captain and as soon as he appeared said to him, “Thou broughtest two men to protect me but they caused me only trouble and travail.” The man hearing these words repaired forthright and reported them to the Sovran who waxed madly wroth and bade summon his two Ministers and when they stood between his hands asked them, “What was’t ye did in the ship?” They answered, “By Allah, O King, there befel us naught but every weal;” and each said, “I recognized this my brother for indeed hi is the son of the same parents,” whereat the Sovran wondered and quoth he, “Laud to the Lord, indeed these two Wazirs must have a strange story.” So he made them repeat whatso they had said in the ship and they related to him their adventure from the beginning to end. Hereupon the King cried, “By Allah, ye be certainly my sons,” when lo and behold! the woman came forwards and repeated to him all that the Wazirs had related whereby it was certified that she was the King’s lost wife and their lost mother.[FN#627] Hereupon they conducted her to the Harem and all sat down to banquet and they led ever after the most joyous of lives. All this the King related to the Judge and finally said, “O our lord the Kazi, such-and-such and so-and-so befel until Allah deigned reunite me with my children and my wife.
End of Volume XV.
Appendix I.
CATALOGUE OF WORTLEY MONTAGUE
MANUSCRIPT CONTENTS.
I here proceed to offer a list of the tales in the Wortley Montague MS. (Nos. 550-556), beginning with
VOL. I.,
which contains 472 pages=92 Nights. It is rudely written, with great carelessness and frequent corrections, and there is a noted improvement in the subsequent vols. which Scott would attribute to another transcriber. This, however, I doubt: in vol. i. the scribe does not seem to have settled down to his work. The MS.
begins abruptly and without caligraphic decoration; nor is there any red ink in vol. i. except for the terminal three words. The topothesia is in the land of S�s�n, in the Isles of Al-Hind and Al-Sind; the elder King being called “B�z” and “Sh�r-b�z” and the younger “Kahraman” (p. l, 11. 5-6), and in the same page (1. 10) “Saharban, King of Samarkand”; while the Wazir’s daughters are “Shahrz�dah” and “Duny�z�dah” (p. 8). The Introduction is like that of the Mac. Edit. (my text); but the dialogue between the Wazir and his Daughter is shortened, and the “Tale of the Merchant and his Wife,” including “The Bull and the Ass,” is omitted. Of novelties we find few. When speaking of the Queen and Mas’�d the Negro (called Sa’id in my text, p. 6) the author remarks:—
Take no black to lover; pure musk tho’ he be * Carrion-taint shall pierce to the nose of thee.
And in the “Tale of the Trader and the Jinni ” (MS. 1, 9: see
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