A plain and literal translation of the Arabian nights entertainments, now entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 (of 17). Richard Francis Burton
house and there he left him standing at the door, whilst he himself went in to the young lady and said, “Take the bond of thy marriage-settlement, for I have wedded thee to a handsome youth by name Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat: so do thou use him with the best of usage.” Then he put the bond into her hands and left her and went to his own lodging. Now the lady’s cousin had an old duenna who used to visit Zubaydah, and he had done many a kindness to this woman, so he said to her, “O my mother, if my cousin Zubaydah see this handsome young man, she will never after accept my offer; so I would fain have thee contrive some trick to keep her and him apart.” She answered, “By the life of thy youth,55 I will not suffer him to approach her!” Then she went to Ala al-Din and said to him, “O my son, I have a word of advice to give thee, for the love of Almighty Allah and do thou accept my counsel, as I fear for thee from this young woman: better thou let her lie alone and feel not her person nor draw thee near to her.” He asked, “Why so?”; and she answered, “Because her body is full of leprosy and I dread lest she infect thy fair and seemly youth.” Quoth he, “I have no need of her.” Thereupon she went to the lady and said the like to her of Ala al-Din; and she replied, “I have no need of him, but will let him lie alone, and on the morrow he shall gang his gait.” Then she called a slave-girl and said to her, “Take the tray of food and set it before him that he may sup.” So the handmaid carried him the tray of food and set it before him and he ate his fill: after which he sat down and raised his charming voice and fell to reciting the chapter called Y. S.56 The lady listened to him and found his voice as melodious as the psalms of David sung by David himself,57 which when she heard, she exclaimed, “Allah disappoint the old hag who told me that he was affected with leprosy! Surely this is not the voice of one who hath such a disease; and all was a lie against him.”58 Then she took a lute of India-land workmanship and, tuning the strings, sang to it in a voice so sweet its music would stay the birds in the heart of heaven; and began these two couplets: —
I love a fawn with gentle white-black eyes, ✿ Whose walk the willow-wand with envy kills:
Forbidding me he bids for rival mine, ✿ Tis Allah’s grace who grants to whom He wills!
And when he heard her chant these lines he ended his recitation of the chapter, and began also to sing and repeated the following couplet: —
My Salám to the Fawn in the garments concealed, ✿ And to roses in gardens of cheek revealed.
The lady rose up when she heard this, and her inclination for him redoubled and she lifted the curtain; and Ala al-Din, seeing her, recited these two couplets: —
She shineth forth, a moon, and bends, a willow-wand, ✿ And breathes out ambergris, and gazes, a gazelle.
Meseems as if grief loved my heart and when from her ✿ Estrangement I abide possession to it fell.59
Thereupon she came forward, swinging her haunches and gracefully swaying a shape the handiwork of Him whose boons are hidden; and each of them stole one glance of the eyes that cost them a thousand sighs. And when the shafts of the two regards which met rankled in his heart, he repeated these two couplets: —
She ‘spied the moon of Heaven, reminding me ✿ Of nights when met we in the meadows li’en:
True, both saw moons, but sooth to say, it was ✿ Her very eyes I saw, and she my eyne.
And when she drew near him, and there remained but two paces between them, he recited these two couplets: —
She spread three tresses of unplaited hair ✿ One night, and showed me nights not one but four;
And faced the moon of Heaven with her brow, ✿ And showed me two-fold moons in single hour.
And as she was hard by him he said to her, “Keep away from me, lest thou infect me.” Whereupon she uncovered her wrist60 to him, and he saw that it was cleft, as it were in two halves, by its veins and sinews and its whiteness was as the whiteness of virgin silver. Then said she, “Keep away from me, thou! for thou art stricken with leprosy, and may be thou wilt infect me.” He asked, “Who told thee I was a leper?” and she answered, “The old woman so told me.” Quoth he, “’Twas she told me also that thou wast afflicted with white scurvy;” and so saying, he bared his forearms and showed her that his skin was also like virgin silver. Thereupon she pressed him to her bosom and he pressed her to his bosom and the twain embraced with closest embrace, then she took him and, lying down on her back, let down her petticoat-trousers, and in an instant that which his father had left him rose up in rebellion against him and he said, “Go it, O Shaykh Zachary61 of shaggery, O father of veins!”; and putting both hands to her flanks, he set the sugar-stick62 to the mouth of the cleft and thrust on till he came to the wicket called “Pecten.” His passage was by the Gate of Victories63 and therefrom he entered the Monday market, and those of Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,64 and, finding the carpet after the measure of the daïs-floor,65 he plied the box within its cover till he came to the end of it. And when morning dawned he cried to her, “Alas for delight which is not fulfilled! The raven66 taketh it and flieth away!” She asked, “What meaneth this saying?”; and he answered, “O my lady, I have but this hour to abide with thee.” Quoth she, “Who saith so?” and quoth he, “Thy father made me give him a written bond to pay ten thousand dinars to thy wedding-settlement; and, except I pay it this very day, they will imprison me for debt in the Kazi’s house; and now my hand lacketh one half-dirham of the sum.” She asked, “O my lord, is the marriage-bond in thy hand or in theirs?”; and he answered, “O my lady, in mine, but I have nothing.” She rejoined, “The matter is easy; fear thou nothing. Take these hundred dinars: an I had more, I would give thee what thou lackest; but of a truth my father, of his love for my cousin, hath transported all his goods, even to my jewellery, from my lodging to his. But when they send thee a serjeant of the Ecclesiastical Court,” – And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young lady rejoined to Ala al-Din, “And when they send thee at an early hour a serjeant of the Ecclesiastical Court, and the Kazi and my father bid thee divorce me, do thou reply, By what law is it lawful and right that I should marry at nightfall and divorce in the morning? Then kiss the Kazi’s hand and give him a present, and in like manner kiss the Assessors’ hands and give each of them ten gold pieces. So they will all speak with thee, and if they ask thee, Why dost thou not divorce her and take the thousand dinars and the mule and suit of clothes, according to contract duly contracted? do thou answer, Every hair of her head is worth a thousand ducats to me and I will never put her away, neither will I take a suit of clothes nor aught else. And if the Kazi say to thee, Then pay down the marriage settlement, do thou reply, I am short of cash at this present; whereupon he and the Assessors will deal in friendly fashion with thee and allow thee time to pay.” Now whilst they were talking, behold, the Kazi’s officer knocked at the door; so Ala al-Din went down and the man said to him, “Come, speak the Efendi,67 for thy father-in-law summoneth thee.” So Ala al-Din gave him five dinars and said to him, “O Summoner, by what law am I bound to marry at nightfall and divorce next morning?” The serjeant answered, “By no law of ours at all, at all; and if thou be ignorant of the religious law, I will act as thine advocate.” Then they went to the divorce-court and the Kazi said to Ala al-Din, “Why dost thou not put away the woman and take what falleth to thee by the contract?” Hearing this he went up to the Kazi; and, kissing his hand, put fifty dinars in it and said, “O our lord the Kazi, by what law is it lawful and right that
This is a woman’s oath, not used by men.
Pronounced “Yá Sín” (chapt. xxxvi.) the “heart of the Koran” much used for edifying recitation. Some pious Moslems in Egypt repeat it as a Wazífah, or religious task, or as masses for the dead, and all educated men know its 83 versets by rote.
Arab. “Ál Dáúd” = the family of David,
There is a peculiar thickening of the voice in leprosy which at once betrays the hideous disease.
These lines have occurred in Night clxxxiii. I quote Mr. Payne (in loco) by way of variety.
Where the “Juzám” (leprosy, elephantiasis, morbus sacrum, etc. etc.) is supposed first to show: the swelling would alter the shape. Lane (ii. 267) translates “her wrist which was bipartite.”
Arab. “Zakariyá” (Zacharias): a play upon the term “Zakar” = the sign of “masculinity.” Zacharias mentioned in the Koran as the educator of the Virgin Mary (chapt. iii.) and repeatedly referred to (chapt. xix. etc.), is a well-known personage amongst Moslems and his church is now the great Cathedral-Mosque of Aleppo.
Arab. “Ark al-Haláwat” = vein of sweetness.
Arab. “Futúh,” which may also mean openings, has before occurred.
Arab. “Ghuráb al-
– who blacked the raven o’er
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.
This use of a Turkish title, “Efendi” being = our esquire, and inferior to a Bey, is a rank anachronism, probably of the copyist.