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
said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Caliph went in to Kut al-Kulub, who rose to him on sighting him and kissed the ground between his hands; when he said to her, “Hath Ala al-Din gone in unto thee?” and she answered, “No, O Commander of the Faithful, I sent to bid him come, but he would not.” So the Caliph bade carry her back to the Harim and saying to Ala al-Din, “Do not absent thyself from us,” returned to his palace. Accordingly, next morning, Ala al-Din mounted and rode to the Divan, where he took his seat as Chief of the Sixty. Presently the Caliph ordered his treasurer to give the Wazir Ja’afar ten thousand dinars and said when his order was obeyed, “I charge thee to go down to the bazar where handmaidens are sold and buy Ala al-Din a slave-girl with this sum.” So in obedience to the King Ja’afar took Ala al-Din and went down with him to the bazar. Now as chance would have it, that very day, the Emir Khálid, whom the Caliph had made Governor of Baghdad, went down to the market to buy a slave-girl for his son and the cause of his going was that his wife, Khátún by name, had borne him a son called Habzalam Bazázah,86 and the same was foul of favour and had reached the age of twenty, without learning to mount horse; albeit his father was brave and bold, a doughty rider ready to plunge into the Sea of Darkness.87 And it happened that on a certain night he had a dream which caused nocturnal pollution, whereof he told his mother who rejoiced and said to his father, “I want to find him a wife, as he is now ripe for wedlock.” Quoth Khalid, “The fellow is so foul of favour and withal so rank of odour, so sordid and beastly that no woman would take him at a gift.” And she answered, “We will buy him a slave-girl.” So it befel, for the accomplishing of what Allah Almighty had decreed, that on the same day Ja’afar and Ala al-Din, the Governor Khalid and his son went down to the market and behold, they saw in the hands of a broker, a beautiful girl lovely-faced and of perfect shape, and the Wazir said to him, “O broker, ask her owner if he will take a thousand dinars for her.” And as the broker passed by the Governor with the slave, Habzalam Bazazah cast at her one glance of the eyes which entailed for himself one thousand sighs; and he fell in love with her and passion got hold of him and he said, “O my father, buy me yonder slave-girl.” So the Emir called the broker, who brought the girl to him, and asked her her name. She replied, “My name is Jessamine;” and he said to Habzalam Bazazah, “O my son, an she please thee, do thou bid higher for her.” Then he asked the broker, “What hath been bidden for her?” and he replied, “A thousand dinars.” Said the Governor’s son, “She is mine for a thousand pieces of gold and one more;” and the broker passed on to Ala al-Din who bid two thousand dinars for her; and as often as the Emir’s son bid another dinar, Ala al-Din bid a thousand. The ugly youth was vexed at this and said, “O broker! who is it that outbiddeth me for the slave-girl?” Answered the broker, “It is the Wazir Ja’afar who is minded to buy her for Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat.” And Ala al-Din continued till he brought her price up to ten thousand dinars, and her owner was satisfied to sell her for that sum. Then he took the girl and said to her, “I give thee thy freedom for the love of Almighty Allah;” and forthwith wrote his contract of marriage with her and carried her to his house. Now when the broker returned, after having received his brokerage, the Emir’s son summoned him and said to him, “Where is the girl?” Quoth he, “She was bought for ten thousand dinars by Ala al-Din, who hath set her free and married her.” At this the young man was greatly vexed and cast down and, sighing many a sigh, returned home, sick for love of the damsel; and he threw himself on his bed and refused food, for love and longing were sore upon him. Now when his mother saw him in this plight, she said to him, “Heaven assain thee, O my son! What aileth thee?” And he answered, “Buy me Jessamine, O my mother.” Quoth she, “When the flower-seller passeth I will buy thee a basketful of jessamine.” Quoth he, “It is not the jessamine one smells, but a slave-girl ‘named Jessamine, whom my father would not buy for me.” So she said to her husband, “Why and wherefore didst thou not buy him the girl?” and he replied, “What is fit for the lord is not fit for the liege and I have no power to take her: no less a man bought her than Ala al-Din, Chief of the Sixty.” Then the youth’s weakness redoubled upon him, till he gave up sleeping and eating, and his mother bound her head with the fillets of mourning. And while in her sadness she sat at home, lamenting over her son, behold, came in to her an old woman, known as the mother of Ahmad Kamákim88 the arch-thief, a knave who would bore through a middle wall and scale the tallest of the tall and steal the very kohl off the eye-ball.89 From his earliest years he had been given to these malpractices, till they made him Captain of the Watch, when he stole a sum of money; and the Chief of Police, coming upon him in the act, carried him to the Caliph, who bade put him to death on the common execution-ground.90 But he implored protection of the Wazir whose intercession the Caliph never rejected; so he pleaded for him with the Commander of the Faithful who said, “How canst thou intercede for this pest of the human race?” Ja’afar answered, “O Commander of the Faithful, do thou imprison him; whoso built the first jail was a sage, seeing that a jail is the grave of the living and a joy for the foe.” So the Caliph bade lay him in bilboes and write thereon, “Appointed to remain here until death and not to be loosed but on the corpse-washer’s bench;” and they cast him fettered into limbo. Now his mother was a frequent visitor to the house of the Emir Khalid, who was Governor and Chief of Police; and she used to go in to her son in jail and say to him, “Did I not warn thee to turn from thy wicked ways?”91 And he would always answer her, “Allah decreed this to me; but, O my mother, when thou visitest the Emir’s wife make her intercede for me with her husband.” So when the old woman came into the Lady Khatun, she found her bound with the fillets of mourning and said to her, “Wherefore dost thou mourn?” She replied, “For my son Habzalam Bazazah;” and the old woman exclaimed, “Heaven assain thy son!; what hath befallen him?” So the mother told her the whole story, and she said, “What wouldst thou say of him who should achieve such a feat as would save thy son?” Asked the lady, “And what feat wilt thou do?” Quoth the old woman, “I have a son called Ahmad Kamakim, the arch-thief, who lieth chained in jail and on his bilboes is written: – Appointed to remain till death; so do thou don thy richest clothes and trick thee out with thy finest jewels and present thyself to thy husband with an open face and smiling mien; and when he seeketh of thee what men seek of women, put him off and baulk him of his will and say: – By Allah, ‘tis a strange thing! When a man desireth aught of his wife he dunneth her till she doeth it; but if a wife desire aught of her husband, he will not grant it to her. Then he will say: – What dost thou want?; and do thou answer: – First swear to grant my request. If he swear to thee by his head or by Allah, say to him: – Swear to me the oath of divorce, and do not yield to him, except he do this. And whenas he hath sworn to thee the oath of divorce, say to him: – Thou keepest in prison a man called Ahmad Kamakim, and he hath a poor old mother, who hath set upon me and who urgeth me in the matter and who saith, Let thy husband intercede for him with the Caliph, that my son may repent and thou gain heavenly guerdon.” And the Lady Khatun replied, “I hear and obey.” So when her husband came into her – And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Governor came in to his wife, who spoke to him as she had been taught and made him swear the divorce-oath before she would yield to his wishes. He lay with her that night and, when morning dawned, after he had made the Ghusl-ablution and prayed the dawn-prayer, he repaired to the prison and said, “O Ahmad Kamakim, O thou arch-thief, dost thou repent of thy works?”; whereto he replied, “I do indeed repent and turn to Allah and say with heart and tongue: – I ask pardon of Allah.” So the Governor took him out of jail and carried him to the Court (he being still in bilboes) and, approaching the Caliph kissed ground before him. Quoth the King, “O Emir Khalid, what seekest thou?”; whereupon he brought forward Ahmad Kamakim, shuffling and tripping in his fetters, and the Caliph said to him, “What! art thou yet alive, O Kamakim?” He replied, “O Commander of the Faithful, the miserable are long-lived.” Quoth the Caliph to the Emir, “Why hast thou brought him hither?”; and quoth he, “O Commander of the Faithful, he hath a poor old mother cut off from
“Khatun” in Turk. means any lady: mistress, etc., and follows the name,
Or night. A metaphor for rushing into peril.
Plur. of kumkum, cucurbite, gourd-shaped vessel, jar.
A popular exaggeration for a very expert thief.
Arab. “Buka’at al-dam”: lit. the “low place of blood” (where it stagnates): so Al-Buká’ah = Cœlesyria.
That common and very unpleasant phrase, full of egotism and self-esteem, “I told you so,” is even more common in the naïve East than in the West. In this case the son’s answer is far superior to the mother’s question.