Arabian Nights

Then he brought him rich raiment and clothed him therein and, giving him a lighted flambeau, said, ‘Know that I have brought thee hither, meaning to do thee a good turn for the love of Allah: so take this torch and mingle with the people at the Hammam-door and walk on with them without stopping till thou reach the house of the wedding-festival; then go boldly forward and enter the great saloon; and fear none, but take thy stand at the right hand of the Hunchback bridegroom; and, as often as any of the nurses and tirewomen and singing-girls come up to thee, put thy hand into thy pocket which thou wilt find filled with gold. Take it out and throw it to them and spare not; for as often as thou thrusteth fingers in pouch thou shalt find it full of coin. Give largesse by handfuls and fear nothing, but set thy trust upon Him who created thee, for this is not by thine own strength but by that of Allah Almighty, that His decrees may take effect upon his creatures.’

When Badr al-Din Hasan heard these words from the Ifrit he said to himself, ‘Would Heaven I knew what all this means and what is the cause of such kindness!’ However, he mingled with the people and, lighting his flambeau, moved on with the bridal procession till he came to the bath where he found the Hunchback already on horseback. Then he pushed his way in among the crowd, a veritable beauty of a man in the finest apparel, wearing tarbush and turband and a long-sleeved robe purfled with gold; and, as often as the singing women stopped for the people to give them largesse, he thrust his hand into his pocket and, finding it full of gold, took out a handful and threw it on the tambourine till he had filled it with gold pieces for the music-girls and the tirewomen.

The singers were amazed by his bounty and the people marvelled at his beauty and loveliness and the splendour of his dress. He ceased not to do thus till he reached the mansion of the Wazir (who was his uncle), where the Chamberlains drove back the people and forbade them to go forward; but the singing-girls and the tirewomen said, ‘By Allah we will not enter unless this young man enter with us, for he hath given us length o’ life with his largesse and we will not display the bride unless he be present.’ Therewith they carried him into the bridal hall and made him sit down defying the evil glances of the hunchbacked bridegroom. The wives of the Emirs and Wazirs and Chamberlains and Courtiers all stood in double line, each holding a massy cierge ready lighted; all wore thin face-veils and the two rows right and left extended from the bride’s throne to the head of the hall adjoining the chamber whence she was to come forth.

When the ladies saw Badr al-Din Hasan and noted his beauty and loveliness and his face that shone like the new moon, their hearts inclined to him and the singing-girls said to all that were present, ‘Know that this beauty crossed our hands with naught but red gold; so be not chary to do him womanly service and comply with all he says no matter what he ask.’

So all the women crowded round Hasan with their torches and gazed on his loveliness and envied him his beauty; and one and all would gladly have lain on his bosom an hour or rather a year. Their hearts were so troubled that they let fall their veils from before their faces and said, ‘Happy she who belongeth to this youth or to whom he belongeth!’ and they called down curses on the crooked groom and on him who was the cause of his marriage to the girl-beauty; and as often as they blessed Badr al-Din Hasan they damned the Hunchback, saying, ‘Verily this youth and none else deserveth our Bride: ah, well-away for such a lovely one with this hideous Quasimodo; Allah’s curse light on his head and on the Sultan who commanded the marriage!’

Then the singing-girls beat their tabrets and lulliloo’d with joy, announcing the appearing of the bride; and the Wazir’s daughter came in surrounded by her tirewomen who had made her goodly to look upon; for they had perfumed her and incensed her and adorned her hair; and they had robed her in raiment and ornaments befitting the mighty Chosroës Kings. The most notable part of her dress was a loose robe worn over her other garments: it was diapered in red gold with figures of wild beasts, and birds whose eyes and beaks were of gems, and claws of red rubies and green beryl; and her neck was graced with a necklace of Yamani work, worth thousands of gold pieces, whose bezels were great round jewels of sorts, the like of which was never owned by Kaysar or by Tobba King. And the bride was as the full moon when at fullest on fourteenth night; and as she paced into the hall she was like one of the Houris of Heaven – praise be to Him who created her in such splendour of beauty!

The ladies encompassed her as the white contains the black of the eye, they clustering like stars whilst she shone amongst them like the moon when it eats up the clouds. Now Badr al-Din Hasan of Bassorah was sitting in full gaze of the folk, when the bride came forward with her graceful swaying and swimming gait, and her hunchbacked bridegroom stood up to meet and receive her: she, however, turned away from the wight and walked forward till she stood before her cousin Hasan, the son of her uncle. Whereat the people laughed. But when the wedding-guests saw her thus attracted towards Badr al-Din they made a mighty clamour and the singing-women shouted their loudest; whereupon he put his hand into his pocket and, pulling out a handful of gold, cast it into their tambourines and the girls rejoiced and said, ‘Could we win our wish this bride were thine!’

At this he smiled and the folk came round him, flambeaux in hand like the eyeball round the pupil, while the Gobbo bridegroom was left sitting alone much like a tail-less baboon; for every time they lighted a candle for him it went out willy-nilly, so he was left in darkness and silence and looking at naught but himself. When Badr al-Din Hasan saw the bridegroom sitting lonesome in the dark, and all the wedding-guests with their flambeaux and wax candles crowding about himself, he was bewildered and marvelled much; but when he looked at his cousin, the daughter of his uncle, he rejoiced and felt an inward delight; he longed to greet her and gazed intently on her face which was radiant with light and brilliancy.

Then the tirewomen took off her veil and displayed her in the first bridal dress which was of scarlet satin; and Hasan had a view of her which dazzled his sight and dazed his wits, as she moved to and fro, swaying with graceful gait; and she turned the heads of all the guests, women as well as men, for she was even as saith the surpassing poet:

A sun on wand in knoll of sand she showed,

Clad in her cramoisy-hued chemisette;

Of her lips honey-dew she gave me drink,

And with her rosy cheeks quencht fire she set.

Then they changed that dress and displayed her in a robe of azure; and she reappeared like the full moon when it riseth over the horizon, with her coal-black hair and cheeks delicately fair; and teeth shown in sweet smiling and breasts firm and rising and crowning sides of the softest and waist of the roundest. And in this second suit she was as a certain master of high conceits saith of the like of her:

She came apparelled in an azure vest,

Ultramarine, as skies are deckt and dight:

I view’d th’ unparallel’d sight, which show’d my eyes

A moon of Summer on a Winter-night.

Then they changed that suit for another and, veiling her face in the luxuriance of her hair, loosed her lovelocks, so dark, so long that their darkness and length outvied the darkest nights, and she shot through all hearts with the magical shaft of her eye-babes. They displayed her in the third dress and she was as said of her the sayer:

Veiling her cheeks with hair a-morn she comes,

And I her mischiefs with the cloud compare:

Saying, ‘Thou veilest morn with night!’. ‘Ah no!’

Quoth she, ‘I shroud full moon with darkling air!’

Then they displayed her in the fourth bridal dress and she came forward shining like the rising sun and swaying to and fro with lovesome grace and supple ease like a gazelle-fawn. And she clave all hearts with the arrows of her eyelashes, even as saith one who described a charmer like her:

The sun of beauty she to sight appears

And, lovely-coy, she mocks all loveliness;

And when he fronts her favour and her smile

A-morn, the Sun of day in clouds must dress.

Then she came forth in the fifth dress, a very light of loveliness like a wand of waving willow or a gazelle of the thirsty wold. Those locks which stung like scorpions along her cheeks were bent, and her neck was bowed in blandishment, and her hips quivered as she went. As saith one of the poets describing her in verse:

She comes like fullest moon on happy night;

Taper of waist, with shape of magic might:

She hath an eye whose glances quell mankind,

And Ruby on her cheeks reflects his light:

Enveils her hips the blackness of her hair;

Beware of curls that bite with viper-bite!

Her sides are silken-soft, the while the heart

Mere rock behind that surface lurks from sight:

From the fringed curtains of her eyne she shoots

Shafts which at farthest range on mark alight:

When round her neck or waist I throw my arms

Her breasts repel me with their hardened height.

Ah, how her beauty all excels! ah how

That shape transcends the graceful waving bough!

Then they adorned her with the sixth toilette, a dress which was green. And now she shamed in her slender straightness the nut-brown spear; her radiant face dimmed the brightest beams of full moon and she outdid the bending branches in gentle movement and flexile grace. Her loveliness exalted the beauties of earth’s four quarters and she broke men’s hearts by the significance of her semblance; for she was even as saith one of the poets in these lines:

A damsel ’twas the tirer’s art had decked with snares and sleight:

And robed in rays as though the sun from her had borrowed light:

She came before us wondrous clad in chemisette of green,

As veiled by its leafy screen pomegranate hides from sight:

And when he said, ‘How callest thou the manner of thy dress?’

She answered us in pleasant way with double meaning dight: