1001 Arabian Nights (Season 1 : Episode 14 - Tale of the Second Kalandar)

INDEED, mistress, neither was I born with one eye only; and the

story which I am going to tell you is so marvellous that, if it were

written with a needle on the inner corner of any eye, yet would it

serve as a lesson to the circumspect.

Though you see me thus, I am a king and the son of a king, a man

of education beyond the ordinary. I have read the Koran with all its

seven narratives, I have read all essential books and the writings of

the masters of science, I have studied the lore of the stars and the

starlike lore of the poets. So rapidly did I learn that I surpassed in

knowledge all the men of my time.

Especially did my fame spread abroad as a calligrapher; I became

renowned in all countries and my worth was known among kings. So

it happened that the King of Hind heard tell of me and sent begging

my father to let me visit him. This invitation he accompanied with

sumptuous gifts and presents meet for us; so my father consented and

fitted out six ships for me with all manner of luxuries, and I departed.

After a month’s voyage, we came to land and, unshipping the

horses and camels we had with us, loaded them with presents for the

King of Hind and set out on our journey. But hardly had we started

than a great dust storm rose, filling all the sky and the earth with sand

for the space of an hour. When it died down, we found close upon us

a troop of sixty armed men, raging like lions, desert Arabs, cutpurses

of the highway. We turned and fled, but, when they saw our ten

camels loaded with gifts for the King of Hind, they pursued us at a

gallop. So we signed to them with our finger that we were envoys to

the mighty King and should not be molested. But they answered:

‘We know nothing of kings,’ and forthwith killed some of my slaves.

The rest of us took to flight in all directions, I with a great and

terrible wound, while the Arabs contented themselves with pillaging

our rich belongings.

I fled and I fled, despairing bitterly at my change of fortune, till I

came to the top of a mountain, where I found a cave in which I

passed the night.

Next morning I left the cave and journeyed on until I came to a

great and beautiful city, whose air was of such potent balm that Winter

might not lay hand upon her but the Spring covered her with his

roses all the year. I wept with joy when I reached this city, being

fatigued and broken by my journey, worn and pale from my wound

and utterly changed from my former state.

I was wandering ignorantly about the streets when I passed a

tailor sewing in his shop, whom I greeted and who greeted me. He

cordially invited me to seat myself, embraced me, and asked me

generous questions about my wanderings. I told him all that had

befallen me from beginning to end and he was much moved at my

recital, saying to me: ‘My sweet young man, you must on no account

tell this story to any other person here; for the king of this city is a

deadly enemy of your father, having an old grudge against him, and I

fear for your safety.’

He gave me food and drink, and we ate and drank together. After

a long conversation, he brought out a mattress and a quilt for me, and

let me sleep that night in a corner of his shop. I stayed with him for

three days, and at the end of that time he asked if I knew any trade by

which I could earn a livelihood. ‘Certainly I do,’ I answered, ‘I am

deeply read in the law, I am a past-master of all sciences, literature and

computation are thoroughly well known to me.’ ‘My friend,’ he

answered “all that is not a trade, or rather, if you wish, it is a trade’ (for

he saw that I was annoyed), ‘but it is not of very much account in the

markets of our city. No one here knows anything of study or of writing

or of reading, they simply know how to make money.’ I could only

answer that I knew nothing beside these things. Said he: ‘Come, my

son, pull yourself together, take an axe and a cord, go out and cut wood

in the countryside till Allah show you a better occupation. Above all,

tell your story to no one or they will kill you.’ With this the good man

bought me an axe and a rope, and sent me out in charge of a gang of

woodcutters, under whose special care he placed me.

I went out with the woodcutters and, when I had chopped

sufficient faggots, loaded them on my head and sold them in the

streets of the city for half a d(nar. With a little of this money I bought

food, and the rest I carefully put aside. I laboured in this way for a full

year, visiting my friend the tailor in his shop every day and resting

there in my corner without having to pay him anything.

One day, straying away from the others, I came to a thickly-wooded

glade where there were many faggots to be had. I chose a dead tree

and was beginning to loosen the earth about her roots when the

head of my axe was caught in a copper ring. I removed the earth all

about this ring and, coming to a wooden cover in which it was

fastened, lifted it and found an underground staircase. In my curiosity

I went down the stairs to the bottom and, opening a door, entered

the mighty hall of a most marvellous palace. In this hall there was a

young girl, more beautiful than all the pearls of history; I had endured

much and yet at the sight of her all my troubles were left behind and

I knelt down in adoration before Allah who had moulded so perfect

a beauty out of the centuries.

She looked at me and said: ‘Are you a man or a Jinn(?’ ‘A man,’ I

answered, and she asked: ‘Who then has led you to this hall where for

full twenty years I have not seen a human face?’ I found her words

and herself so sweet that I answered: ‘Lady, it was Allah who led me

to your home that all my troubles and my sorrows might be forgotten.’

I told her my story from beginning to end; she wept for me and told

me her story likewise:

‘I am the daughter of King Ifïtam*s, latest of the Kings of Hind and

master of the Isle of Ebony. I was to be married to my cousin, but on

my wedding night, even before my virginity had been taken, the Ifr(t

Jurj(s, son of Rajm*s, son of the Foul Fiend himself, carried me off and

put me in this place, which he had provisioned with all I could desire

of sweet things and of jams, of robes and precious stuffs, of furniture

and meat and drink. Since then he has come to see me every ten days

and lies one night with me, going away in the morning. Also he has

told me that if I have need of him during the ten days that he is away

I have nothing to do but to touch with my hand two lines which are

written under the cupola of that little room. If I but touch them he will

appear at once. It is four days since he has been here, so that there will

be six more before he comes again. Therefore you can stay with me

for five days and go away on the day before he comes.’

‘Most certainly I can,’ I answered, and she was filled with joy. She

got up from where she was lying and, taking me by the hand, led me

through many arched arpartments to a warm agreeable hammam

where all the air was scented. Here we both undressed naked and

bathed together. After our bath, we sat side by side on the hammam

couch and she regaled me with musk-sweetened sherbert and delicious

cakes. We talked for a long time and ate unsparingly of the provisions

of the Ifr(t who had ravished her.

At last she said: For this evening you had better sleep and rest after

all your toil; you will be the more ready for me then,’

I was indeed weary, so I thanked her and lay down to sleep,

forgetting all my cares. When I woke I found her by my side, pleasantly

massaging my limbs and my feet. So I called down all the blessings of

Allah upon her, and we sat together for an hour saying sweet things

to each other. ‘As God lives,’ she sighed at last, ‘before you came I

was all alone in this underground palace for twenty years, no one to

speak to, with no companion save sorrow and a bosom filled by sobs,

but now glory be to Allah that He has brought you to me!’

Then in a sweet voice she sang this song:

For your feet,

If we had known of your coming,

We would have been weaving

Our heart’s blood,

The velvet of our eyes

To a red and black carpet.

For your couch,

If we had known of your coming,

We would have been spreading

Our cool cheeks,

The young silk of our thighs,

Dear stranger in the night.

Hand on heart I thanked her for her song, my love for her increased

in me and all my sorrows fell away. We drank together from the same

cup till nightfall, and all night I lay with her in a heaven of bliss.

Never was such a night; and, when morning came, we rose in love

with each other and with happiness.

I was still all passion and, thinking to prolong my rapture, I said:

‘Shall I not take you from this underground place and free you from

the Jinn(?’ ‘Be quiet,’ she answered, laughing, ‘and be content with

what you have. The poor Ifr(t has only one night in ten; I promise

you all the other nine. But I, lifted by passion and by wine, spoke thus

extravagantly: ‘Not so! I am going to destroy that alcove with its

magic inscription, and then the Ifr(t will come and I shall kill him.

For a long time it has been my custom to amuse myself by killing

Ifr(t.’

To calm my frenzy she recited these lines:

You who would bind love

Thinking to make us

Yours by the binding

Soon shall discover

Ever a lover

Finishes finding

Love will forsake us,

The bound and unkind love;

But if you unbind love

He’ll wrap us and take us

In nets of his winding

And never be over.

But, paying no attention to the lines, I gave a violent kick with my

foot at the wall of the alcove.

At this point Shahrazad saw the approach of morning and discreetly

fell silent.

And when the thirteenth night had come

SHE SAID:

It is related, O auspicious King, that the second kalandar continued

telling his story to the young mistress of the house in these words:

Mistress, when I kicked down the alcove, the woman cried: ‘The

Ifr(t is upon us! Did I not warn you? As Allah lives, you have destroyed

me! Flee by the way you came and save yourself!’

I rushed to the staircase, forgetting my sandals and my axe in the

hurry of my terror. When I had climbed a few steps, I remembered

them and went back to look for them; but the earth opened and an

Ifr(t of terrible size and ugliness sprang from it, crying to the

woman: ‘What does all this violence mean? It frightened me. What

harm has befallen you?’ ‘No harm,’ she answered, ‘save that, just

now, I felt my heart heavy with solitude and, rising to get some

drink to lighten it, I fell against the alcove.’ But the Ifr(t, who had

looked about the hall and seen my sandals and my axe, cried: ‘Oh,

and what are these things, you lying whore? Tell me, what man do

they belong to?’ ‘I never saw them before you showed them to me,’

she answered, ‘probably they were hanging to the back of your

clothes and you brought them here yourself.’ ‘Weak and tortuous

and foolish words!’ exclaimed the furious Jinn( ‘They will not take

me in, you wanton.’

On this, he stripped her naked, crucified her between four pegs

fastened in the earth, and, putting her to the torture, began to question

her. I could not bear to see this or to hear her sobs, so I ran trembling

up the stairs and, reaching the outer air, put back the cover and

removed all traces of the entrance. I repented bitterly of the foolish

thing I had done, thinking of the girl’s beauty and of all the torture

which the wretch who had kept her there for twenty years had

inflicted on her for my sake. From this I fell to lamenting my father,

my own lost kingdom, and the miserable descent I had made to be a

woodcutter. So I wept and recited a suitable verse. Making my way

to the city, I found that my friend the tailor had been, as the saying is,

on coals of fire at my absence. In his anxiety, he called to me: ‘When

you did not come yesterday, my heart lay awake all night because of

you. I feared that a savage beast or other mischance had destroyed

you in the forest. Praise be to Allah that you are safe!’ Thanking him

and sitting down in my accustomed corner, I began to brood on

what had happened and to curse myself for the unlucky kick that I

had given the alcove. All of a sudden my good friend the tailor came

to me, saying: ‘There is a man at the shop door, a Persian, who has

your axe and your sandals and is asking for you. He has been going

round all the woodcutters in the street, saying that he found them in

the road when he went out to pray at dawn at the call of the muezzin.

Some of the woodcutters recognised them and directed the Persian

to come here. He is outside the door; go and thank him for his

trouble, and take your sandals and your axe again.’ I paled and nearly

fainted at his words and, while I stayed prostrate where I was, the

ground in front of my corner opened and the Persian leapt from it,

showing himself to be the Ifr(t.

You must know that he had put the young woman to terrible

tortures without getting her to admit anything, and so, taking up my

axe and sandals, had said: ‘I will show you that I am indeed Jurj(s of

the true seed of the Evil One. You shall see whether or no I can find

the owner of these things.’ And, as I have told you, he tracked me

among the woodcutters by a trick.

Swiftly he came to me, swiftly lifted me, and flew with me high

into the air. When I had lost consciousness, he plunged with me

down through the earth to the palace where I had tasted so much

lustful bliss. When I saw the girl, naked and with blood flowing from

her flanks, I wept bitterly. But the Ifr(t, going to her and seizing her

arm, said: ‘Here is your lover, you licentious bitch.’ The girl looked

me straight in the face, saying: ‘I do not know him; I have never seen

him before.’ ‘What,’ shrieked the Ifr(t, ‘here is the very body that

you sinned with and you deny it!’ But she continued, saying: ‘I do

not know him. I have never seen him in my life, nor would it be

right for me to lie in the face of God.’ ‘If that is so,’ said the Ifr(t,

‘take this sword and cut off his head.’ She took the sword and stopped

before me. Yellow with fear and weeping copiously, I signed to her

with my eyebrows to spare me. She winked at me, saying at the same

time in a loud voice: ‘You are the cause of all our troubles.’ I signed

to her again with my eyebrows, at the same time reciting these ordinary

lines, whose inner significance the Ifr(t could not understand:

I could not say I had a secret for your ears,

But my eyes said so.

I could not say that you had caused my tears,

But my eyes said so.

I could not say my fingers mean I love you,

I could not say my brows are meant to move you,

I could not say my heart is here to prove you,

But my eyes said so.

The poor girl understood my signs and my verses, and therefore

threw the sword at the feet of the Ifr(t, who picked it up and handed

it to me. ‘Cut off her head,’ he said, ‘and you shall depart free and

unharmed.’ ‘Certainly,’ I answered, grasping the sword, stepping

forward and raising my arm; but she said with her brows: ‘Did I

betray you?’ So I wept and threw away the sword, saying to the Ifr(t:

‘Great Jinn(, robust unconquerable hero, if she, who being a woman

has neither faith nor reason, found it unlawful to cut off my head and

threw away the sword, how can I, who am a man, find it lawful to cut

off her head, especially as I have never seen her before? Even if you

make me drink the bitterest cup of death I shall not do so.’ ‘Ah, now

I know that there is love between you,’ said the Ifr(t.

Then, mistress, that devil cut off both the hands and both the feet

of the poor girl with four strokes of the sword, so that I thought I

should die of grief at the sight.

But even so she looked at me sideways and winked at me and,

alas, the Ifr(t saw the wink. ‘O harlot’s daughter,’ he cried, ‘would

you commit adultery with your eyes?’ So saying, he cut off her head

with the sword and, turning to me, addressed me in these words:

‘Learn, O human, that among us Jinn it is allowed, and even

praiseworthy, to kill an adulteress. I bore away this girl on her wedding

night, when she was but twelve years old and still unknown of man.

I brought her here and visited her every tenth day, coupling with her

in the form of a Persian. Finding her unfaithful, I have killed her. For

she was unfaithful, even if it was only with her eye. As for you, since

I am not sure that you have fornicated with her, I will not kill you.

But, so that you may not laugh at me behind my back, I shall inflict

some evil upon you to bring down your pride. Now choose what

evil you would prefer.’

Naturally, good lady, I rejoiced to the utmost when I saw that I

should escape with my life, and this encouraged me to take advantage

of the Ifrit’s clemency. Therefore I said: ‘I find it very hard to choose

one out of all the evils that there are. I think I would prefer none.’

The Ifr(t stamped in vexation and said: ‘I told you to choose;

choose quickly, then, into what form I shall change you. What, an ass,

a dog, a mule, a crow, an ape?’ I answered still facetiously, hoping for

pardon: ‘As Allah lives, master Jurj(s of the great tribe of the Evil One,

if you spare me Allah will spare you. Well He knows how to reward

one who pardons a good Moslem that has done no harm.’ I went on

praying and humbling myself in vain, until he cut me short, saying:

‘No more words, or I shall kill you. Do not try to take advantage of

my goodness, for I am fully determined to bewitch you in some way.’

Straightway he caught me up, broke all the palace and the earth

about us, and flew so high with me up into the air that the earth

appeared below me in the likeness of a little dish of water. At last he

set me down on the top of a high mountain, and, taking a handful of

earth, mumbled some words over it; then he muttered: ‘Hum, hum,

hum,’ and threw it over me, crying: ‘Come out of that shape and be

an ape!’ On the instant I became an ape, at least a hundred years old

and as foul-faced as hell itself. Seeing myself in this form, I jumped

about in grief and found myself capable of prodigious leaps. But

these did me no good, so I sat down and wept; whereat the Ifr(t

laughed in a terrible fashion and disappeared.

After I had remained there for some time, thinking on the injustice

of fate and how it regards not any man, I leapt and gambolled from

the top of the mountain to its base; then I set out, walking by day and

sleeping by night in the trees, until after a month I came to the beach

of the salt sea. I had rested there for an hour when I saw a ship

coming up with a favourable breeze out of the sea. I hid behind a

rock and waited. After there had been much coming and going among

the men, I screwed up my courage and leapt into the ship. ‘Chase the

ill-omened beast out of that!’ cried one of the men. ‘No, kill it!’

cried another. ‘Yes, kill it with a sword!’ cried out a third. At this I

caught the sword with my paw and burst into bitter tears.

Because of my tears the captain had pity on me and said to those

about him: ‘This ape has asked for my protection and I give it him.

Let no one take hold of him or chase him or interfere with him.’

Then he called me to him and spoke kind words to me, all of which

I understood; finally he made me his servant on the boat, and in this

duty I did everything correctly for him throughout the voyage.

Favouring winds carried us, after fifty days, to a city so great and

so populous that Allah alone could count the people of it. As we cast

anchor, certain officers of the King of that place came and welcomed

the merchants we had aboard and gave them, with the kind greetings

of the King, a roll of parchment on which each man was commanded

to inscribe a line in his fairest writing. For the King’s waz(r, a great

calligraphist, had died and the King had sworn to appoint no one in

his place who could not write as well as he.

Ape that I was, I snatched the parchment from their hands and

fled away with it, so that they were afraid that I would tear it and

throw it into the water. Some were trying to coax me and some to

kill me, when I made a sign that I wished to write. Then said the

captain: ‘Let him write. If he only scribbles and messes we can stop

him, but if he writes with a fair writing I shall adopt him as my son,

for never in my life have I seen an ape so learned.’

I took the reed pen and, pressing it upon the pad of the inkpot,

carefully spread ink on both its faces, and began to write.

I improvised four stanzas, each in a different character and style:

the first in rika(.

The Giver has been sung since time was new

But Givers with a hand like yours are few,

So first and foremost we will, look to God

And when He fails us we will look to You.

The second in raihan(:

I’ll tell you of this Pen. It is of those

Pens that are mightier than cedar bows,

He holds it in five fingers of his hand

And from it pour five rivers of pure Prose.

The third in thuluth(:

I’ll tell you of his Immortality.

He is so certain of eternity,

It is his aim to write such things of Him

As that last Critic shall not blush to see.

And the fourth in muhakkak:

Ink is the strongest drug that God has made,

If you can write of beauty unafraid

You will be praising Him who gave the ink

More than all prayers unlearned men have prayed.

When I had finished writing, I handed back the parchment and each

of the others, marvelling at what I had done, also wrote a line in the

fairest script that he could compass.

Slaves bore the parchment back to the King and of all the writings

he was only satisfied with mine, inscribed as they were in four different

styles for which, when I had been a prince, I had been famed

throughout the whole world.

So the King said to his friends and to his slaves: ‘Go all of you to

this master of fair writing, give him this robe of honour to put on,

mount him on the most magnificent of my mules, and bring him to

me in a triumph of musical instruments.’

They all smiled when he said this, so the King became angry and

cried: ‘How is this? I give you an order and you laugh at me?’ ‘King of all

time,’ they answered, ‘we would never dare to laugh at any word you

said, but we must tell you that the writer of these splendid characters is

no man at all but an ape belonging to a ship’s captain.’ The King was first

astonished at their words and then convulsed with spacious laughter. ‘I

shall buy that ape,’ he said, and he ordered all the people of his court to

go down to the boat and fetch the ape ashore, taking with them both the

mule and the robe of honour. ‘Yes, yes,’ he added, ‘certainly you must

clothe him in this robe and bring him to me mounted on the mule.’

All of them came down straightway to the boat and bought me at

a great price from the captain, who found it hard to let me go. Then

they dressed me in the robe of honour, after I had signed to the

captain all my grief at leaving him, set me upon the mule, and

conducted me through the city to the noise of harmonious

instruments. You may imagine that every soul in those streets was

stricken with wonder and admiration at such an unusual sight.

When I was brought before the King, I kissed the earth between

his hands three times and stood still in front of him. He invited me to

sit down and I did so with such grace that all who were there, but

especially the King, marvelled at my fine education and the politeness

of my behaviour. When I was seated, the King sent all away except

his chief eunuch, a certain young favourite slave, and myself.

Then, to my delight, he ordered food, and slaves brought a cloth

laid with all such meats and delicacies as the soul could possibly

desire. The King signed to me to eat. So, after rising and kissing the

earth between his hands according to seven different schools of

politeness, I sat down again in my best manner and began to eat,

diligently recalling the education of my youth at every point.

Finally, when the cloth was drawn, I rose, washed my hands and,

returning to the King, took up an inkpot, a reed and a sheet of

parchment. On the last I inscribed these few lines, celebrating the

excellence of Arabian pastries:

Sweet fine pastries

Rolled between white fingers,

Fried things whose fat scent lingers

On him who in his haste tries

To eat enough!

Pastries, my love!

Kunafah swimming in butter,

Bearded with right vermicelli,

God has not given my belly

Half of the words it would utter

Of Kunafah’s sweetness

And syrup’d completeness.

Kunafah lies on the table

Isled in a sweet brown oil,

Would I not wander and toil

Seventy years to be able

To eat in Paradise

Kunafah’s subtleties?

Finishing, I put down the reed and the sheet and, while the King

looked in astonishment at what I had written, sat respectfully at a

distance. ‘But how can an ape compass such a thing?’ asked the King.

‘As Allah lives, it surpasses all the marvels of history.’

Just then they brought the King his chess board, and, when he had

asked me by signs if I played and I had nodded my head to show him

that I did, I arranged the pieces and we settled down to play. Twice I

beat him, and he did not know what to think of it, saying: ‘If this was

a man, he would be the wisest man of all our time.’ And to his eunuch

he continued: ‘Go to our daughter and tell her to come quickly to us,

for I wish your mistress to enjoy the sight of this remarkable ape.’

The eunuch went out and soon returned with the princess, his

young mistress, who as soon as she set eyes on me covered her face

with her veil, saying: ‘Father, what has possessed you to send for me

into the presence and sight of a strange man?’ ‘Daughter,’ answered

the King, ‘here are only my young slave who is still a little boy, the

eunuch who brought you up, this ape, and your father. Why do you

cover your face?’ Then she said: ‘Know, my father, that this ape is a

prince, his father is the King Ifitamarus, ruler of a land far in the

interior. The ape is bewitched by the Ifr(t Jurj(s, of the line of Ibl(s,

who has also killed his own wife, daughter of King Ifïtam*s, master

of the Isle of Ebony. This which you think an ape is not only a man,

but a learned, wise, and educated man as well.’

‘Is it true, what my daughter says of you?’ asked the King, looking

at me fixedly in his astonishment. I nodded and began to weep; so

the king, turning to his daughter, asked her how she knew that I was

bewitched. ‘Father,’ she answered, ‘when I was little there was an old

woman in my mother’s house, a sorceress knowing all the shifts and

formulas of witchcraft, who taught me magic. Since then I have studied

even more deeply and now know nearly a hundred and seventy codes

of necromancy, by the least of which I could remove your palace,

with all its stones, even the whole city itself, to the other side of

Mount Kaf and turn your country to a sheet of water in which the

people should swim in the form of fishes.’

‘Then by the truth of the name of Allah,’ cried the King, ‘take

off the witchcraft from this poor young man and I will make him

my waz(r. It is strange indeed that you should have such art and I

did not know it. Take off the witchcraft quickly, for he is both

polite and wise.’

‘With all my heart and as in duty bound,’ answered the princess.

At this point Shahrazad saw the approach of morning and discreetly

fell silent.

But when the fourteenth night had come

SHE SAID:

It is related, O auspicious King, that the second kalandar thus

continued his say to the mistress of the house:

The princess took in her hands a knife on which were graved

words in the Hebrew tongue and with it traced a circle in the middle

of the palace which she filled with names of power and talismanic

lines. This preparation completed, she stood in the middle of the

circle murmuring words of magic import and reading from a book

so old that none might understand it. After a few minutes of this, the

palace became dark with shadows, so thick that we thought to be

buried alive under the ruins of the world. Suddenly the Ifr(t Jurj(s

stood before us in his most frightful and repellent guise, with hands

like hayforks, legs like masts, and eyes like crucibles of fire. We were

all driven to the confines of terror except the princess, who said: ‘I

have no welcome for you, I have no greeting.’ Then said the Ifr(t:

‘How can you break your word, O traitress? Did we not swear together

that neither would use power against the other, nor interfere with

the other’s doings? Perfidious one, well have you deserved the fate

which is about to overtake you—thus!’ On the instant he turned

into a savage lion which opened wide its throat and hurled itself

upon the princess. But as quick as light she plucked a hair from her

head and whispered magic words to it, so that it became a sharp

sword, with which she cut the lion in two. Then we saw the lion’s

head become a scorpion which scuttled towards the young girl’s

heel to bite it, but in the nick of time she changed to a mighty

serpent which threw itself upon the naughty scorpion and battled

with it for a long while. The scorpion, escaping, turned into a vulture,

and the snake became an eagle, which flew at the vulture and put it

to flight. The pursuit lasted for an hour, until the vulture became a

black cat and the girl turned suddenly to a wolf. Long and long in

the middle of the palace the cat and the wolf were locked in deadly

strife, till the cat, seeing that it was being vanquished, turned into a

very large red pomegranate, which leapt into the basin of the fountain

in the courtyard. The wolf jumped in after it and was about to seize

it when the pomegranate rose up into the air. But it was too heavy to

be sustained there, and so fell with a thump on to the marble and

broke in pieces, the seeds of it escaping one by one and covering the

whole floor of the courtyard. On this the wolf changed to a cock

who pecked at the seeds and swallowed them one by one, till only a

single seed remained. Just as the cock was about to swallow this last

one, it fell from his beak—in this you may perceive the hand of

Destiny and the will of Fate—and lodged in a crack of the marble

near the basin, so that the cock could not find it. Thereupon the cock

crowed, beat his wings, and signed to us with his beak; but we did

not understand what he would say to us. At last he gave so terrible a

cry that we, who could not understand what he wished, thought that

the palace was falling about us. Round and round, in the middle of

the courtyard, trotted the cock until it found the last seed in the

crack near the basin. But, when the cock had fetched it out and was

about to eat it, the seed fell into the water and became a fish which

swam to the bottom. So the cock turned to a whale of prodigious

size which leapt into the water and sank in pursuit of the fish, so that

we did not see it again for a whole hour. At the end of this time we

heard agonised cries coming from the water and trembled for fear.

Out of the basin appeared the Ifr(t in his own form, but all on fire, as

if he were a burning coal, with smoke leaping from his eyes and

mouth and nose. Behind him appeared the princess in her own form,

but she also was all on fire as if she were made of molten metal; and

she ran after the Ifr(t who was now bearing down on us. We were all

terrified of being burnt alive and were on the point of throwing

ourselves into the water, when the Ifr(t halted us with a terrible cry

and leaping upon us, in the midst of the hall which gave upon the

courtyard, blew fire in our faces. But the princess caught up with

him and blew fire in his face, so that flames fell on us from both of

them. Those coming from her were harmless to us, but a spark,

shooting off from him, destroyed my left eye for ever, another burnt

all the lower part of the King’s face, his beard and his mouth, making

his lower teeth fall out, while a third, falling upon the eunuch’s breast,

burnt him to death upon the instant.

All this time the young girl was pursuing the Ifr(t and blowing

fire at him. Suddenly we heard a voice calling: ‘Only Allah is great!

Only Allah is strong! He breaks and destroys the renegade who denies

Muhammad, master of the world!’ It was the princess who spoke,

pointing at the same time to the Ifr(t who had been reduced to a

mass of cinders. Coming to us, the princess said: ‘Quick, fetch me a

glass of water!’ When this was brought, she chanted certain

incomprehensible words over it, and sprinkled me with water, saying:

‘Be freed, in the name and by the truth of the only Truth! Yea, by the

truth of the name of Almighty Allah, return to your first shape!’

On this I became a man as I had been before, except that I was

still blind of one eye. ‘Poor youth,’ said the princess by way of

consolation, ‘fire will be fire.’ She said the same also to her father on

account of his burnt beard and lost teeth, and finally she said: ‘Father,

I must die; for it is written. Had the Ifr(t been but a man I could have

killed him at the first attempt. It was the spilling of the pomegranate

seed that was my undoing, for the grain I could not eat was that

which held the whole soul of the Jinn(. If only I could have found it

he would have been dead upon the instant, but, alas, I could not. It

was written. So I was obliged to fight terrible battles below the earth

and in the air and under the water, and each time he opened a door

of safety I opened a door of danger, until at last he opened the terrible

door of fire. When that door is opened there is death toward. Fate

allowed me to burn him before I was burnt myself. Before I killed

him I tried to make him embrace our Faith, the blessed Law of Islam;

but he would not and I burnt him. Now I die. May Allah fill my

place for you.’

After this she wrestled with the fire till black sparks sprang up and

mounted to her breast and to her face. When they reached her face,

she cried out weeping: ‘I bear witness that there is no God but Allah!

I bear witness that Muhammad is His messenger!’ and fell, a heap of

cinders, by the side of the Ifr(t.

We mourned for her, and I wished that I could have died in her

place rather than see her radiant form go down in ashes, this little

princess who had freed me; but the word of Allah may not be gainsaid.

When the King saw his daughter fall down in cinders, he tore

away the little remnant of his beard, beat his cheeks, and rent his

garments. I did the same and we both wept over her, until the

chamberlains and the chief men of the court came and found their

Sultan fainting and weeping beside two piles of ashes. For an hour, in

great stupefaction, they walked round and round the King not daring

to speak, until at last he recovered himself a little and told them all

that had happened to his daughter. Then they cried: ‘Allah, Allah, the

great grief! The great calamity!’

Lastly came the women and the women slaves, who mourned for

seven days and lamented over her in due form.

When the week was past, the King ordered a mighty tomb to be

built over the ashes of his child, and this was done by forced labour at

the same hour, and candles and lanterns were lighted by it both day

and night. But the ashes of the Ifr(t were committed to the air, under

the curse of Allah.

Worn out by these griefs and duties, the Sultan fell into a sickness

which looked to be mortal and lasted for a whole month. When his

strength had come back to him a little, he called me to him and said:

‘Young man, before you came we lived here in eternal happiness, safe

harboured from the assaults of fortune, but with your coming came

also the bitterest of all afflictions. Would we had never seen your illomened

face, your face which brought down desolation on us. First,

you have caused the death of my daughter whose life was worth the

lives of a hundred men; second, you were the reason of my being

burnt and of the loss and spoiling of my teeth; third, through you my

poor eunuch, that faithful servant who had reared my daughter, was

killed outright. And yet it is not your fault, nor is the remedy yours;

what came to us and to you, came from Allah. Praise be to Him,

then, who allowed my daughter to free you even at the price of her

own life. Yes, it is Destiny, it is Destiny. Leave our country, my child,

for we have suffered enough because of you. Yet it was all written

before by Allah, so go your way in peace.’

Mistress, I went out from before the King, hardly believing that I

was still alive and not knowing at all where to go. In my heart I pondered

all that had happened to me from beginning to end: how I had escaped

safe from the desert robbers, how I had entered as a stranger into a city

and met the tailor there, my sweet amour with the young girl below

the earth, my deliverance from the hands of the Ifr(t, my life as an ape,

servant to a ship’s captain, my purchase at a great price by the King

because of my excellent handwriting, my freeing from the spell, and,

last and most piteous, the adventure that had lost me my eye.

Nevertheless I thanked Allah, saying: ‘Better an eye than a life,’ and went

down to the hammam to bathe before leaving the city. It was there, my

lady, that I shaved my beard so that I might travel in safety in the guise

of a kalandar. Each day since then I have not ceased to weep and think

of my wrongs, especially the loss of my left eye, and so thinking I have

felt my right eye blinded by tears so that I could not see, and have not

been able to resist saying over the following stanzas of the poet:

It was only after the blow

I knew my sorrow could hurt me so,

How then could Allah know?

I will abide those whips of His

That the world may know iniquities

More bitter than patience is.

Patience has beauty, I’ve understood,

When it is practised by one of the Good;

But Fate is a thing more rude.

For Fate was probably setting a snare

When you were born, wherever you were,

To take your old feet there.

She knew the secrets of my bed

And more than so, but she lay dead,

The Jinn( cut off her head.

To him who prates of joy down here

Say: soon you’ll taste a day bitter

As the quick sap of the myrrh.

I left that city and journeyed through many lands, aiming ever for

Baghdad, the city of Peace, where I hoped to tell all my tale to the

Prince of Believers. To-night I reached Baghdad after many long and

weary days. By chance I met this other kalandar, and while we were

talking together we were joined by our third companion, also a

kalandar. Recognising each other as strangers, we wended our way in

the darkness together till the kind hand of Destiny led us to your

house, my mistress.

That is the story of my shaved beard and lost eye.

When she had heard the tale of the second kalandar, the mistress

of the house said to him: ‘Your tale is truly strange; make your bow

and depart with all speed.’

But he answered: ‘Indeed, I shall not stir from here until I have

heard the tale of my third companion.’

So the third kalandar advanced and said:

 

Thanks for reading, to be continued.