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Saturday, 13 April 2024

The Tale of the Young Man and the Fishes

 The Tale of the Young Man and the Fishes


KNOW, my Lord, that my father was the King of a city which you see not and yet it was here. His name was Mahm*d and he was master of the Black Isles, which are now four mountains. He reigned for seventy years before passing to the mercy of All&h, Remunerator of the world. After his death I became Sult&n and took to wife my cousin, the daughter of my uncle, who so well loved me that if IHINDI-BOOKS

 left her even for a short while she neither ate nor drank till my return. For five years I cherished her until a day came when she went to the hamm&m, after having ordered an alluring supper for us from the cook. Then I entered this hall of my palace and lay down to sleep in my accustomed place, bidding two of my girl slaves to move their fans above me as I slept. One sat at my head and the other at my feet, but I could not sleep for thinking of my wife and, though my eyelids closed, my wits remainedHINDI-BOOKS

 alert. Thus it was that I heard the slave at my head say to the other at my feet: ‘How ill-starred is the youth of our poor lord, Mas*dah. How sad it is that he should have married our mistress, that bitch, that unclean whore.’ ‘God’s curse on all adulteresses!’ the other replied, ‘this bastard who spends her nights in every vagabond bed is a millionfold too evil to be the wife of our master.’ ‘And yet,’ said the first slave, ‘he must be very innocent not to notice the woman’s goings on.’ ‘How can you say that?’HINDI-BOOKS

 objected the other. ‘What chance does she give him to suspect her? Why, every night she puts something into the wine he drinks before he sleeps. She mixes banj with the drink and he sleeps like the dead. How then can he know what she does or where she goes? After making him drink the drugged wine, she dresses and goes out and stays away till morning. When she comes back, she burns a scented something below his nose and he wakes fresh from his sleep.’ My lord, when I heard the conversation of these slaves, light 43 THE TALE OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE FISHES became darkness

 before my eyes, and yet in my impatience I thought that night would never fall. At last, however, my wife came back from the hamm&n, and, spreading the cloth, we ate for an hour, giving each other drink as was our custom. When I asked for the final cup which I drank every night before my sleep, and she handed it to me, I put it to my lips, but instead of drinking spilled it secretly into the upper fold of my robe. At once I lay down on my bed and feigned to go to sleep. Then I heard her saying: ‘Sleep, you devil, sleep, and never wake. As All&h lives, I hate you, yes, every inch of you, and my soul sickens when you are near!’ After this she rose, dressed herself in her finest garments, perfumed herself, girt on

 my sword and left the palace. Instantly I rose and followed her. She crossed all the markets of the city and, coming at last to the outer gates, spoke to them in a tongue I did not understand and lo! the locks fell from their places, the gates swung open of themselves and she went out beyond the city. I followed her unnoticed till she came to certain mounds formed by the heaping up of refuse, in the middle of

 which was a round house built of dry mud and topped by a dome of the same. This place she entered by a door, and I, climbing up into the balcony of the dome, lay still to watch. I saw her enter below into the room of a hideous coal-black negro, whose upper lip was like the lid of a stewpot and his lower lip like the stew-pot itself; great pendulous lips they were, that could have sorted pebbles from the sand of

 the floor. He was rotten with diseases and lay on a heap of refuse of sugarcane. Seeing him, my wife, the daughter of my uncle, kissed the earth between his hands, and he, lifting up his head, addressed her thus: ‘Curse you, why are you so late? I have had other black men here, drinking wine and having their girls. But I had not the heart to drink because you were not here.’ ‘Master, darling of my heart, do you

 not know that I am now married to my cousin, the son of my uncle, that I hate the least detail of his face and am filled with horror to be near him? Ah, if it were not for fear that you would come to harm, I should long ago have destroyed his city, from pinnacle to base, leaving but the voices of owls and of

 crows to be heard in her streets, hurling the stones of her ruin beyond the mountain of K&f!’ ‘You lie, you bitch,’ the negro answered, ‘and I swear to you on the honour and the great virility of black men, on our mighty superiority over all whites, that if you are late once again after to-day I will throw you aside and never lay my body above yours again. Unfaithful THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT

 44 whore, filth, foulest of white girls, you are only late because you have been sating your lust with someone else.’ My lord, continued the prince, you can believe that, when I heard with my own ears this fearful conversation and saw with my own eyes what followed between the two, the world grew very black before my face and I knew not where I was. Then my wife, my cousin, wept in terrible humility

 before the negro, saying: ‘Lover, fruit of my heart, there is none but you; dear boy, dear light of life, send me not away!’ When at last he pardoned her because of her weeping, she was filled with joy and, rising, took off all her clothes, even to her petticoat-trousers, and stood before him quite naked. Then she said: ‘Master, have you no refreshment for your slave?’ ‘Look in the pot,’ answered the other, ‘you will find a stew of rat’s bones, and there is some beer in the jerry which you may drink.’ When she had

 eaten and drunken, she washed her hands, and came and lay with the negro on the bed of trash. She was naked and cuddled against him under the unclean rags. When I saw this, I could contain myself no longer; jumping from the dome, I rushed into the room and snatched the sword which my wife was carrying, determined to kill them both. First I slashed the negro across his neck and thought that I had

 killed him. At this point Shahraz&d saw the approach of morning and discreetly fell silent. When day had come, King Shahry&r entered his hall of justice, and the d(w&n sat until nightfall. Then the King returned to his palace, and Dunyaz&d said to her sister: ‘I pray you go on with your story.’ ‘With all my heart and as in duty bound,’ she answered. And when the eighth night had come SHE CONTINUED: It is related, O auspicious King, that the young man who was bewitched went on with his story in this

 fashion: When I slashed the negro across his neck, I severed his windpipe, both the skin and flesh of it, and thought that I had killed him, because a high and terrible cry came from him. I rushed away, and my wife, daughter of my uncle, who had been sleeping, rose, took up and sheathed the sword and, returning to the city, stole into the palace and lay down by me in my bed till morning. Next day I saw that she had cut off her hair and put on mourning garments. This she explained to me by saying:

 ‘Husband, son of my uncle, do not blame me for what I 45 THE TALE OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE FISHES have done. I have just heard that my mother is dead, that my father has been killed in the holy war, that one of my brothers had been stung to death by a scorpion and the other buried alive by the fall of a huge building. It is only right that I should weep and mourn.’ Not wishing to seem as if I

 had noticed anything untoward, I answered: ‘Do what you think necessary; I shall not stop you.’ So it came about that she stayed shut in with her tears, her insane ecstasy of grief for a whole year. At the end of that time, she said: ‘Husband, I wish a tomb built in your palace, in the form of a pillared dome.

 There I can shut myself, in solitude and tears, and call the name of it the House of Mourning.’ ‘Do what you think necessary.’ I answered. So she had her House of Mourning built with the dome above it and a tomb as big as a waterditch inside. To this place she had the negro carried. For he was not dead, though very ill and feeble, and quite unable to be of any delight to my wife. Still this did not prevent him from drinking both wine and beer at all hours of the day. From the moment of his wound he had

 not been able to speak, and now he lived on in the tomb because his time had not yet come. Each day my wife would go in under the dome, at dawn and twilight, and fall to raving and weeping. Also she gave soups and strong broths to the man inside. She behaved in this way, morning and night, for the whole of a second year, while I abode here patiently. But one day, coming upon her unawares, I found

 her weeping and striking her face and in a sad voice saying these verses: When you passed on by my tent door I said goodbye to all the world, Forgetting how to love for ever more When you passed on. If you come back the way you went I pray you take my body up, And set it in a calm grave near your tent When you come back. If your dear voice recall the tones, The sweetness of the way you said my name, Kneel down, dear love, and say the same; I’ll answer with the clicking of my bones. When she had finished this plaint of hers, I drew my sword and cried: ‘O you unfaithful, these are the words of a

 naughty passion and THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT 46 not of grief! I was the more deceived.’ I raised my arm and was about to strike, when she jumped to her feet and, understanding it would seem for the first time that it was I who had wounded her negro, muttered strange unknown words which must have meant: ‘By my dark power, God turn you half to stone!’ And at that moment, my lord, I became as you see me now. I could not move about, nay, could not stir myself an inch; but I lie here, neither dead nor alive. After she had done this horrible thing to me, she bewitched the four isles of my kingdom, turning them to mountains with a lake between and all my people into fishes in

 the lake. But this is not all. Every day she comes to torture me and give me a hundred lashes with a leather thong. After she has done this she puts a shirt of hair next to my skin under my clothes, all over the upper sentient part of me. At this stage in his tale the young man burst into tears and moaned these lines: I have waited upon His justice, I have tarried for the pleasure of my God And the time of His coming to judgment. Though my afflictions rise about me like trees, I look for the deliverance of the sword of All&h With patient eyes. The King turned to the young man and said: ‘Your story has added a sorrow to my sorrows. Tell me, where is this woman?’ ‘With the negro in the tomb under the dome,’ he answered. ‘Each day she comes to me, beating me as I have said, and I cannot stir an inch to help

 myself. Then she goes back to her negro, night and morning, with wines and broth.’ ‘As All&h lives, my brave young man,’ exclaimed the King, ‘now must I do you a service that will be remembered, a benefit that shall pass into the books of history!’ After talking with the prince till nightfall, the King rose and, on the striking of the night hour of wizardry, undressed, girt on his sword, and stole towards the negro’s tomb. In it he saw lighted candles and hanging lamps, incense and perfumes and all unguents. Without delay he smote the negro with his sword and, when he was dead, lifted him upon h

is back and hurled his body to the bottom of a certain well which was in the palace. Then he came back, put on the negro’s clothes, and walked up and down below the dome, waving his great and naked sword. 47 THE TALE OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE FISHES After an hour, the wanton sorceress came into the young prince her husband and, baring his body, lashed him cruelly. When he cried out: ‘Ay, ay, enough, for pity’s sake enough!’ she answered: ‘Pity? What pity had you for me and for my lover?’ After this she wrapped him in a goat’s-hair shirt, replacing his other clothes on top of it, and went to visit her negro, carrying a cup of wine and a bowl of vegetable soup. Entering under the dome,

 she wept, saying: ‘Speak to me, O my master, let me hear your voice!’ Then in deep grief she intoned these lines: If you desire these sweet fain limbs of mine To comfort you like wine, Turn not aside; But if you lust after my misery, My torment, and not me, Be satisfied. Finishing, she burst into sobs and repeated: ‘Speak to me, O my master!’ Then the supposed negro, putting his tongue across his mouth, so that he should sound like a black man, called out: ‘Aha, there is no strength nor power save in

 All&h!’ When she heard him speak who had so long been silent, she shouted with joy and fainted away. But coming to herself she said: ‘Praise be, praise be, my master is himself again!’ Then said the King in a disguised and feeble voice: ‘O curse of mine, you have not merited a word from me!’ ‘How is that?’ she said. And the King answered: ‘You lash your husband every day, so that his groans and cries for help take all my sleep away from me at night; he weeps for mercy, so that I cannot sleep. If it had not been so I should have been cured long before this.’ ‘Since you order it,’ she said, ‘I am willing to

 save him from his present state.’ ‘Do so,’ said the King, ‘and let us have a little peace.’ Murmuring: ‘I hear, and I obey!’, she rose and left the dome. Arrived at the great hall, she took a copper bowl filled with water and said magic words over it. When the water began to boil and bubble as if it had been in a fiery cauldron, she sprinkled the prince with it, saying: ‘By these words that I have uttered, by this spellHINDI-BOOKS

 that I have muttered, turn to what you were before!’ At this the young man shivered and rose upright upon his feet, shouting for joy and crying: ‘There is no other God but All&h, and Muhammad is His prophet, whom All&h bless and keep!’ ‘Go,’ shrieked his wife in his very face, ‘and never return, or I shall kill you!’ The young man THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT 48 slipped away from the palace and his wife, going back to the dome, called softly: ‘Rise up, my master, that I may look upon you!’ In a very feeble voice came this answer: ‘You have done nothing yet; you have hardly restored a twentieth of my peace, for the main cause of my trouble still remains.’ ‘What is this main

 cause, my darling?’ she asked. ‘The fish in the lake, the people of this ancient city and of the Four Isles,’ he answered. ‘At midnight every night they lift their heads out of the lake and pray down curses upon you and me. I cannot get well while this goes on. Deliver them, my dear, and afterwards come back to take me by the hand and help me rise, for surely then I shall be whole and well.’ Thinking he

 was the negro, she answered cheerfully: ‘Master, your wish is as the law of my head and the object of my eye. Bismill&h!’ Saying this, she rose and ran and coming to the lake, took up a little of the water and… At this point Shahraz&d saw the approach of morning and discreetly fell silent. And when the ninth night had come SHE SAID: It is related, O auspicious King, that when the young witch took up a little water out of the lake and said over it certain words, the fishes wriggled and trembled in the water and lifted their heads and became men again. The magic that had held them slacked off from the bodies

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 of the people, and their place became again a great and flourishing city with mighty markets, and each man in it went about his business and concern. The mountains became again the islands of old time, and the woman ran back to the King. Still thinking him the negro, she said: ‘Give me your generous hand,

 my darling, that I may kiss it.’ ‘Come near me, then,’ answered the King, in a low voice. So she came

 near and he, lifting his good sword, pierced her through the breast so that the point came out behind her back. He struck her again, and cut her into two halves; which done, he went out of that place and found

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 the young man who had been bewitched waiting for him. He congratulated him on his deliverance, and the young man kissed his hands and thanked him heartily. Later the King asked: ‘Do you wish to stay in your own city, or come with me to mine?’ ‘King of all time,’ answered the young man, ‘do you know how far your city is from here?’ ‘Two and a half days’ journey,’ said the King. Then the young man laughed and said: ‘If you are sleeping, my King, 49 THE TALE OF THE YOUNG MAN AND THE FISHES wake up. Even with All&h speeding the journey, it would take you a year to get to your own city. If you came here in two days and a half it was because my kingdom was contracted and bewitched. As for your question, know that I shall never leave you again, even for the winking of an eye.’ The

 King rejoiced at this and cried: ‘Praise be to All&h who set you upon my road! Henceforth you shall be my son, for He has not blessed me with a child of my own.’ So they fell upon each other’s necks and rejoiced exceedingly. Going up to the palace, the King who had been spellbound made proclamation to the chief men of his kingdom that he was about to set out upon the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. When all the necessary preparations had been made, he and the Sult&n set forth, the heart of the latter burning for his kingdom from which he had been absent for a whole year. They journeyed with a troop of fifty Mamel*ks charged with gifts and rarities, and halted not night or day for a whole year, until they came

 in sight of the Sult&n’s city. On their approach the waz(r and all the fighting men came out to meet their King, whom they had never thought to see again. They came near and kissed the earth between his hands, giving him welcome. The King went up into his palace, sat upon his throne and, calling the waz(r to him, told him all that had happened. Hearing the strange adventures of the young man, the

 waz(r congratulated him upon his deliverance and present safety. After he had given audience and gifts to many, the King said to his waz(r: ‘Send quickly for the fisherman who brought the fishes which were the cause of all these things.’ The waz(r sent and fetched the fisherman, who had in truth delivered the inhabitants of that other city, and the King presented him with robes of honour, questioning him aboutV

 his manner of life and asking him if he had any children. When the fisherman answered that he had one son and two daughters, the King straightway married one of the two daughters himself, and the prince married the other. Their father the King kept in his train and made treasurer-in-chief of all the kingdomHINDI-BOOKS

 The Waz(r he appointed Sult&n of the prince’s city and of the Black Islands, sending him thither with the same fifty Mamel*ks and many robes of honour for all the am(rs of that land. The waz(r kissed his King’s hand and departed to take over his own kingdom, while the Sult&n and the prince lived together in joy and contentment. As for the fisherman, thanks to his position as treasurer-in-chief, he soon became THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT 50 the richest man of all that century, and his daughters were the wives of kings even till the days of their death. But do not believe, said Shahraz&d, that this tale is at all more wonderful than the tale of the Porter.

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