Arabian Nights

The lovers’ plaint is not told for pay:

If I put on patience, a lover’s life

After loss of love will not last a day:

Naught is left me now by regret, repine

And tears flooding cheeks for ever and aye:

O thou who the babes of these eyes hast fled

Thou art homed in heart that shall never stray:

Would heaven I wot hast thou kept our pact

Long as stream shall flow, to have firmest fay?

Or hast forgotten the weeping slave

Whom groans afflict and whom griefs waylay?

Ah, when severance ends and we side by side

Couch, I’ll blame thy rigours and chide thy pride.’

Now when the Portress heard her second ode she shrieked aloud and said, ‘By Allah! ’tis right good!’ and laying hands on her garments tore them, as she did the first time, and fell to the ground fainting. Thereupon the Procuratrix rose and brought her a second change of clothes after she had sprinkled water on her. She recovered and sat upright and said to her sister the Cateress,

‘Onwards, and help me in my duty, for there remains but this one song.’ So the Provisioneress again brought out the lute and began to sing these verses:

‘How long shall last, how long this rigour rife of woe

May not suffice thee all these tears thou seest flow?

Our parting thus with purpose fell thou dost prolong.

Is’t not enough to glad the heart of envious foe?

Were but this lying world once true to lover-heart

He had not watched the weary night in tears of woe:

Oh pity me whom overwhelmed thy cruel will

My lord, my king, ’tis time some ruth to me thou show:

To whom reveal my wrongs who murdered me?

Sad, who of broken troth the pangs must undergo!

Increase wild love for thee and phrenzy hour by hour

And days of exile minute by so long, so slow;

O Moslems, claim vendetta for this slave of Love

Whose sleep Love ever wastes, whose patience Love lays low:

Doth law of Love allow thee, O my wish! to lie

Lapt in another’s arms and unto me cry “Go!?”

Yet in thy presence, say, what joys shall I enjoy

When he I love but works my love to overthrow?’

When the Portress heard the third song she cried aloud; and, laying hands on her garments, rent them down to the very skirt and fell to the ground fainting a third time, again showing the scars of the scourge. Then said the three Kalandars ‘Would heaven we had never entered this house, but had rather nighted on the mounds and heaps outside the city! for verily our visit hath been troubled by sights which cut to the heart.’ The Caliph turned to them and asked, ‘Why so?’ and they made answer, ‘Our minds are sore troubled by this matter.’ Quoth the Caliph, ‘Are ye not of the household?’ and quoth they, ‘No; nor indeed did we ever set eyes on the place till within this hour.’

Hereat the Caliph marvelled and rejoined, ‘This man who sitteth by you, would he not know the secret of the matter?’ and so saying he winked and made signs at the Porter. So they questioned the man and he replied, ‘By the All-might of Allah, in love all are alike! I am the growth of Baghdad, yet never in my born days did I darken these doors till today and my companying with them was a curious matter.’ ‘By Allah,’ they rejoined, ‘we took thee for one of them and now we see thou art one like ourselves’ Then said the Caliph, ‘We be seven men, and they only three women without even a fourth to help them; so let us question them of their case; and, if they answer us not, fain we will be answered by force.’ All of them agreed to this except Ja’afar who said, ‘This is not my reckoning; let them be; for we are their guests and, as ye know, they made a compact and condition with us which we accepted and promised to keep: wherefore it is better that we be silent concerning this matter; and, as but little of the night remaineth, let each and every of us gang his own gait.’ Then he winked at the Caliph and whispered to him, ‘There is but one hour of darkness left and I can bring them before thee tomorrow, when thou canst freely question them all concerning their story.’ But the Caliph raised his head haughtily and cried out at him in wrath, saying, ‘I have no patience left for my longing to hear of them: let the Kalandars question them forthright.’ Quoth Ja’afar, ‘This is not my rede.’

Then words ran high and talk answered talk; and they disputed as to who should first put the question, but at last all fixed upon the Porter. And as the jangle increased the house-mistress could not but notice it and asked them, ‘O ye folk! on what matter are ye talking so loudly?’ Then the Porter stood up respectfully before her and said, ‘O my lady this company earnestly desire that thou acquaint them with the story of the two bitches and what maketh thee punish them so cruelly; and then thou fallest to weeping over them and kissing them; and lastly they want to hear the tale of thy sister and why she hath been bastinado’d with palm-sticks like a man. These are the questions they charge me to put, and peace be with thee.’

Thereupon quoth she who was the lady of the house to the guests, ‘Is this true that he saith on your part?’ and all replied, ‘Yes!’ save Ja’afar who kept silence. When she heard these words she cried, ‘By Allah, ye have wronged us, O our guests, with grievous wronging; for when you came before us we made compact and condition with you, that whoso should speak of what concerneth him not should hear what pleaseth him not. Sufficeth ye not that we took you into our house and fed you with our best food? But the fault is not so much yours as hers who let you in.’ Then she tucked up her sleeves from her wrists and struck the floor thrice with her hand crying, ‘Come ye quickly;’ and lo! a closet door opened and out of it came seven negro slaves with drawn swords in hand to whom she said, ‘Pinion me those praters’ elbows and bind them each to each.’

They did her bidding and asked her, ‘O veiled and virtuous! is it thy high command that we strike off their heads?’ but she answered, ‘Leave them awhile that I question them of their condition, before their necks feel the sword.’ ‘By Allah, O my lady!’ cried the Porter, ‘slay me not for another’s sin; all these men offended and deserve the penalty of crime save myself. Now by Allah, our night had been charming had we escaped the mortification of those monocular Kalandars whose entrance into a populous city would convert it into a howling wilderness.’ Then he repeated these verses:

‘How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother!

And fairest fair when shown to weakest brother.

By Love’s own holy tie between us twain,

Let one not suffer for the sin of other.’

When the Porter ended his verse the lady laughed.

(#ulink_e31a75e9-e8a9-5c7d-a4e3-e139b94eeb76)Mendicant Monks.

(#ulink_ec15e2fd-8bde-5e4a-9a6e-1e83f90ea387)Wine-drinking, at all times forbidden to Moslems, vitiates the Pilgrimage-rite.

CHAPTER 4 The Hunchback’s Tale (#ulink_20a004d5-9982-5294-8aa0-cc5b95921cc0)

It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that there dwelt during times of yore, and years and ages long gone before, in a certain city of China, a Tailor who was an open-handed man that loved pleasuring and merry-making; and who was wont, he and his wife, to solace themselves from time to time with public diversions and amusements. One day they went out with the first of the light and were returning in the evening when they fell in with a Hunchback, whose semblance would draw a laugh from care and dispel the horrors of despair. So they went up to enjoy looking at him and invited him to go home with them and converse and carouse with them that night.

He consented and accompanied them afoot to their home; whereupon the Tailor fared forth to the bazar (night having just set in) and bought a fried fish and bread and lemons and dry sweetmeats for dessert; and set the victuals before the Hunchback and they ate. Presently the Tailor’s wife took a great fid of fish and gave it in a gobbet to the Gobbo, stopping his mouth with her hand and saying, ‘By Allah, thou must down it with a single gulp; and I will not give thee time to chew it.’ So he bolted it; but therein was a stiff bone which stuck in his gullet, and, his hour being come, he died.

Seeing this the Tailor cried aloud. ‘There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah! Alas, that this poor wretch should have died in so foolish fashion at our hands!’ and the woman rejoined, ‘Why this idle talk? Hast thou not heard his saying who said:

‘Why then waste I my time in grief, until