The Arabian Nights (New Deluxe Edition) (25 page)

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then Dinarzad said, “Sister, what a strange and entertaining story!” Shahrazad replied, “What is this compared with what I shall tell you tomorrow night if I stay alive!”

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The following night Dinarzad said to her sister Shahrazad, “Sister, if you are not sleepy, tell us what happened to the envious after he pushed the envied into the well.” Shahrazad replied, “Very well”:

It is related, O King, that the second dervish said to the girl that he told the demon:

Demon, I heard that the envious threw the envied into the ancient well. That well happened to be haunted by a group of demons who caught him and, letting him down little by little, seated him on a rock. Then they asked each other, “Do you know who this man is?” and the answer was “No.” But one of them said, “This man is the envied who, flying from the envious, came to live in our city, built this hermitage, and has ever since delighted us with his litanies and his recitals of the Quran. But the envious journeyed until he rejoined him, tricked him, and threw him into this well where you now are. It so happens that this very night the fame of this man has come to the attention of the king of this city, and he is planning to visit him tomorrow morning, on account of his daughter.” Someone asked him, “What is the matter with her?” He replied, “She is possessed, for the demon Maimun ibn-Damdam is madly in love with her, but if this man knew the remedy, her cure would be as easy as can be.” One of them asked, “What is the remedy?” He replied, “This man has in the hermitage a black cat with a white spot the size of a dirham at the end of his tail. If he plucks seven white hairs from the white spot, burns them, and fumigates her with the smoke, the demon will depart from her head, never to return, and she will be cured that very instant.” O demon, all of this conversation took place while the envied listened. When the day dawned, the mendicants came out in the morning and found the holy man climbing out of the well, and he grew even greater in their esteem. Then the envied endeavored to look for the black cat and, when he found it, he plucked seven hairs from the white spot on its tail and kept them with him.

In the meantime hardly had the sun risen when the king arrived with his troops. He dismounted with the lords of the realm, bidding the rest of his troops stand outside. When he entered the hermitage, the envied welcomed him and, seating him by his side, asked, “Shall I tell you the cause of your visit?” The king replied, “Yes.” The envied continued: “You have come to visit me with the intention of consulting me about your daughter.” The king said, “O man of God, you're right.” The envied said, “Send someone to fetch her, and God the Almighty willing, she will recover presently.” The king gladly sent for his daughter, and they brought her in, bound and fettered. The envied made her sit behind a curtain and, taking out the hairs, burned them and fumigated her with the smoke. At that moment he who was in her head cried out and departed from her, and she instantly recovered her sanity and, veiling her face, asked, “What has happened to me and who brought me here?” The king felt unequaled joy, and he kissed his daughter's eyes and kissed the holy man's hand. Then turning to the great lords of the realm, he asked, “What do you say to this, and what does he who has cured my daughter deserve?” They answered, “He deserves to have her for a wife.” The king said, “You are right.” Then he married her to him, and the envied became son-in-law to the king. A short time later the vizier died, and the king asked, “Whom shall I make vizier?” They answered, “Your son-in-law,” and the envied became vizier. And a short time later, the king also died, and his men asked each other, “Whom shall we make king?” The answer was, “The vizier,” and the envied became a monarch, a sovereign king.

One day, as he was riding with his equipage . . .

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then Dinarzad said, “What a strange and entertaining story!” Shahrazad replied, “What is this compared with what I shall tell you tomorrow night if the king spares me and lets me live!”

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The following night Dinarzad said, “Sister, if you are not sleepy, tell us what happened to the envious and the envied.” Shahrazad replied, “Very well”:

I heard, O King, that the second dervish said to the girl that he told the demon:

One day, as the envied rode with his royal equipage at the head of his princes, viziers, and lords of the realm, his eyes fell on the envious. He turned to one of his viziers and commanded, “Bring me that man, but do not alarm him or frighten him.” The vizier left and came back with the envious neighbor. The king said, “Give him one thousand weights of gold from my treasury, provide him with twenty loads of goods he trades in, and send him with an escort to his own town.” Then the envied bade him farewell and went away without reproaching him for what he had done to him.

I said to the demon, “O demon, consider the mercy of the envied on the envious, who had envied him from the beginning, borne him great malice, pursued him, followed him, and thrown him into the well to kill him. Yet the envied did not respond in kind, but instead of punishing the envious, he forgave him and treated him magnanimously.” Then, O my lady, I wept until I could weep no more and recited the following verses:

Pardon my crime, for every mighty judge

Is used to mercy some offenders show.

I stand before you guilty of all sins,

But you the ways of grace and mercy know.

For he who seeks forgiveness from above,

Should pardon the offenders here below.

The demon replied, “I will not kill you, but in no way will I pardon you and let you go unharmed. I have spared you from death, but I will put you under a spell.” Then he snatched me up and flew with me upward until the earth appeared like a white cloud. Soon he set me down on a mountain and, taking a little dust, mumbled some incantation and sprinkled me with the dust, saying, “Leave your present form and take the form of an ape.” At that very instant, I became an ape, and he flew away and left me behind.

When I saw that I was an ape, I wept for myself and blamed life, which is fair to none. Then I descended the mountain and found a vast desert, over which I journeyed for a month until I reached the seashore. As I stood on the shore, looking at the sea, I saw in the offing a ship sailing under a fair wind and cleaving the waves. I went to a tree and, breaking off a branch, began to signal the ship with it, running back and forth and waving the branch to and fro, but being unable to speak or cry out for help, I began to despair. Suddenly the ship turned and began to sail toward the shore, and when it drew near, I found that it was a large ship, full of merchants and laden with spices and other goods. When the merchants saw me, they said to the captain, “You have risked our lives and property for an ape, who brings bad luck with him wherever he goes.” One of them said, “Let me kill him.” Another said, “Let me shoot him with an arrow.” And a third said, “Let us drown him.” When I heard what they said, I sprang up and held the hem of the captain's gown like a suppliant, as my tears began to flow over my face. The captain and all the merchants were amazed, and some of them began to feel pity for me. Then the captain said, “Merchants, this ape has appealed to me for protection, and I have taken him under my care. Let none of you hurt him in any way, lest he become my enemy.” Then he treated me kindly, and I understood whatever he said and did his bidding, although I could not respond to him with my tongue.

For fifty days the ship sailed on before a fair wind until we came to a great city, vast and teeming with countless people. No sooner had we entered the port and cast anchor than we were visited by messengers from the king of that city. They boarded the ship and said, “Merchants, our king congratulates you on your safe arrival, sends you this roll of paper, and bids each of you write one line on it. For the kings vizier, a man learned in state affairs and a skilled calligrapher, has died, and the king has sworn a solemn oath that he will appoint none in his place, save one who can write as well as he could.” Then they handed the merchants a roll of paper, ten cubits long and one cubit wide, and each of the merchants who knew how to write wrote a line. When they came to the end, I snatched the scroll out of their hands, and they screamed and scolded me, fearing that I would throw it into the sea or tear it to pieces, but I signed to them that I wanted to write on it, and they were exceedingly amazed, saying, “We have never yet seen an ape write.” The captain said to them, “Let him write what he likes, and if he merely scribbles, I will beat him and chase him away, but if he writes well, I will adopt him as my son, for I have never seen a more intelligent or a better-behaved ape. I wish that my son had this ape's understanding and good manners,” Then I held the pen, dipped it in the inkpot, and in Ruqa' script
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wrote the following lines:

Time's record of the favors of the great

Has been effaced by your greater favor.

Of you your children God will not deprive,

You, being to grace both mother and father.

Then under these, in Muhaqqiq script I wrote the following lines:

His pen has showered bounty everywhere

And without favor favored every land.

Yet even the Nile, which destroys the earth,

Cannot its ink use with such mighty hand.

And in Raihani script I wrote the following lines:

I swore, whoever uses me to write,

By the One, Peerless, Everlasting God,

That he would never any man deny

With one of the pen's strokes his livelihood.

Then in Naskhi script I wrote the following lines:

There is no writer who from death will flee,

But what his hand has written time will keep.

Commit to paper nothing then, except

What you would like on Judgment Day to see.

Then in Thuluth script I wrote the following lines:

When the events of life our love condemned

And painful separation was our end,

We turned to the inkwell's mouth to complain,

And voiced with the pen's tongue our parting's pain

Then in Tumar script I wrote the following lines:

When you open the inkwell of your boon

And fame, let the ink be munificence and grace.

Write good and generous deeds while write you can;

Both pen and sword such noble deeds will praise.

Then I handed them the scroll, and they took it back in amazement.

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then Dinarzad said, “Sister, what an amazing and entertaining story!” Shahrazad replied, “What is this compared with what I shall tell you tomorrow night if I stay alive!”

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