Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights) Volume 09 — Night 949 - 950

When it was the Nine Hundred and Forty-ninth Night, She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young merchant cried, "'By Allah this long while I have gone about in search of something like this!'

So I went up to the Shaykh, O Commander of the Faithful, and saluting him said to him, 'O my lord, I need somewhat of thee!'

He replied, 'What is thy need?'

and I rejoined, ''Tis my desire to be thy guest to-night.'

He said, 'With all my heart; but, O my son, with me are many damsels, some whose night is ten dinars, some forty and others more.

Choose which thou wilt have.'

Quoth I, 'I choose her whose night is ten dinars.'

And I weighed out to him three hundred dinars, the price of a month; whereupon he committed me to a page, who carried me to a Hammam within the house and served me with goodly service.

When I came out of the Bath he brought me to a chamber and knocked at the door, whereupon out came a handmaid, to whom said he, 'Take thy guest!'

She met me with welcome and cordiality, laughing and rejoicing, and brought me into a mighty fine room decorated with gold.

I considered her and saw her like the moon on the night of its fulness having in attendance on her two damsels as they were constellations.

She made me sit and seating herself by my side, signed to her slave-girls who set before us a tray covered with dishes of various kinds of meats, pullets and quails and sand-grouse and pigeons.

So we ate our sufficiency, and never in my life ate I aught more delicious than this food.

When we had eaten she bade remove the tray and set on the service of wine and flowers, sweetmeats and fruits; and I abode with her a month in such case.

At the end of that time, I repaired to the Bath; then, going to the old man, I said to him, 'O my lord, I want her whose night is twenty dinars.'

'Weigh down the gold,' said he.

So I fetched money and weighed out to him six hundred dinars for a month's hire, whereupon he called a page and said to him, 'Take thy lord here.'

Accordingly he carried me to the Hammam and thence to the door of a chamber, whereat he knocked and there came out a handmaid, to whom quoth he, 'Take thy guest!'

She received me with the goodliest reception and I found in attendance on her four slave-girls, whom she commanded to bring food.

So they fetched a tray spread with all manner meats, and I ate.

When I had made an end of eating and the tray had been re- moved, she took the lute and sang thereto these couplets, 'O waftings of musk from the Babel-land!

* Bear a message from me which my longings have planned: My troth is pledged to that place of yours, * And to friends there 'biding--a noble band;

And wherein dwells she whom all lovers love * And would hend, but she cometh to no man's hand.'

I abode with her a month, after which I returned to the Shaykh and said to him, 'I want the forty dinar one.'

'Weigh out the money,' said he.

So I weighed out to him twelve hundred dinars, the mensual hire, and abode with her one month as it were one day, for what I saw of the comeliness of her semblance and the goodliness of her converse.

After this I went to the Shaykh one evening and heard a great noise and loud voices; so I asked him, 'What is to do?'

; and he answered, saying, 'This is the night of our remarkablest nights, when all souls embark on the river and divert themselves by gazing one upon other.

Hast thou a mind to go up to the roof and solace thyself by looking at the folk?'

'Yes,' answered I, and went up to the terrace roof,[FN#284] whence I could see a gathering of people with flambeaux and cressets, and great mirth and merriment.

Then I went up to the end of the roof and beheld there, behind a goodly curtain, a little chamber in whose midst stood a couch of juniper-wood[FN#285] plated with shimmering gold and covered with a handsome carpet.

On this sat a lovely young lady, confounding all beholders with her beauty and comeliness and symmetry and perfect grace, and by her side a youth, whose hand was on her neck; and he was kissing her and she kissing him.

When I saw them, O Prince of True Believers, I could not contain myself nor knew where I was, so dazed and dazzled was I by her beauty: but, when I came down, I questioned the damsel with whom I was and described the young lady to her.

'What wilt thou with her?'

asked she; and I, 'She hath taken my wit.'

'O Abu al-Hasan, hast thou a mind to her?'

'Ay, by Allah!

for she hath captivated my heart and soul.'

'This is the daughter of Tahir ibn al-Alaa; she is our mistress and we are all her handmaids;

but knowest thou, O Abu al-Hasan, what be the price of her night and her day?'

'No!'

'Five hundred dinars, for she is a regret to the heart of Kings!'

[FN#286] 'By Allah, I will spend all I have on this damsel!'

So saying I lay, heartsore for desire, through the livelong night till the morning, when I repaired to the Hammam and presently donned a suit of the richest royal raiment and betaking myself to Ibn al-Alaa, said to him, 'O my lord, I want her whose night is five hundred dinars.'

Quoth he, 'Weigh down the money.'

So I weighed out to him fifteen thousand dinars for a month's hire and he took them and said to the page, 'Carry him to thy mistress such an one!'

Accordingly he took me and carried me to an apartment, than which my eyes never saw a goodlier on the earth's face and there I found the young lady seated.

When I saw her, O Commander of the Faithful, my reason was confounded with her beauty, for she was like the full moon on its fourteenth night,"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Fiftieth Night, She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young man continued to describe before the Prince of True Believers the young lady's characteristics, saying, "She was like the full moon on her fourteenth night, a model of grace and symmetry and loveliness.

Her speech shamed the tones of the lute, and it was as it were she whom the poet meant in these verses, 'She cried while played in her side Desire, * And Night o'er hung her with blackest blee:-- 'O Night shall thy murk bring me ne'er a chum * To tumble and futter this coynte of me?'

And she smote that part with her palm and sighed * Sore sighs and a-weeping continued she, 'As the toothstick beautifies teeth e'en so * Must prickle to coynte as a toothstick be.

O Moslems, is never a stand to your tools, * To assist a woman's necessity?'

Thereat rose upstanding beneath its clothes * My yard, as crying, 'At thee!

at thee!'

And I loosed her trouser-string, startling her: * 'Who art thou?'

and I said, 'A reply to thy plea!'

And began to stroke her with wrist-thick yard, * Hurting hinder cheeks by its potency: And she cried as I rose after courses three * 'Suit thy gree the stroke!'

and I--'suit thy gree!'

And how excellent is the saying of another!

[FN#287],

'A fair one, to idolaters if she her face should show, They'd leave their idols and her face for only Lord would know.

If in the Eastward she appeared unto a monk, for sure, He'd cease from turning to the West and to the East bend low;

And if into the briny sea one day she chanced to spit, Assuredly the salt sea's floods straight fresh and sweet would grow.'

And that of another, 'I looked at her one look and that dazed me * Such rarest gifts of mind and form to see, When doubt inspired her that I loved her, and * Upon her cheeks the doubt showed showily.'

I saluted her and she said to me, 'Well come and welcome, and fair welcome!'

; and taking me by the hand, O Prince of True Believers, made me sit down by her side; whereupon, of the excess of my desire, I fell a-weeping for fear of severance and pouring forth the tears of the eye, recited these two couplets, 'I love the nights of parting though I joy not in the same * Time haply may exchange them for the boons of Union-day: And the days that bring Union I unlove for single thought, * Seeing everything in life lacking steadfastness of stay.'

Then she strave to solace me with soft sweet speech, but I was drowned in the deeps of passion, fearing even in union the pangs of disunion, for excess of longing and ecstasy of passion; and I bethought me of the lowe of absence and estrangement and repeated these two couplets, 'I thought of estrangement in her embrace * And my eyes rained tears red as 'Andam-wood.

So I wiped the drops on that long white neck; * For camphor[FN#288] is wont to stay flow of blood.'

Then she bade bring food and there came four damsels, high-bosomed girls and virginal, who set before us food and fruits and confections and flowers and wine, such as befit none save kings.

So, O Commander of the Faithful, we ate, and sat over our wine, compassed about with blooms and herbs of sweet savour, in a chamber suitable only for kings.

Presently, one of her maids brought her a silken bag, which she opened and taking thereout a lute, laid it in her lap and smote its strings, whereat it complained as child complaineth to mother, and she sang these two couplets, 'Drink not pure wine except from hand of slender youth * Like wine for daintiness and like him eke the wine: For wine no joyance brings to him who drains the cup * Save bring the cup-boy cheek as fair and fain and fine.'

So, I abode with her, O Commander of the Faithful, month after month in similar guise, till all my money was spent; wherefore I began to bethink me of separation as I sat with her one day and my tears railed down upon my cheeks like rills, and I became not knowing night from light.

Quoth she, 'Why dost thou weep?'

; and quoth I, 'O light of mine eyes, I weep because of our parting.'

She asked, 'And what shall part me and thee, O my lord?'

; and I answered, 'By Allah, O my lady, from the day I came to thee, thy father hath taken of me, for every night, five hundred dinars, and now I have nothing left.

Right soothfast is the saw, 'Penury maketh strangerhood at home and money maketh a home in strangerhood'; and indeed the poet speaks truth when he saith, 'Lack of good is exile to man at home; * And money shall house him where'er he roam.'

She replied, 'Know that it is my father's custom, whenever a merchant abideth with him and hath spent all his capital, to entertain him three days; then doth he put him out and he may return to us nevermore.

But keep thou thy secret and conceal thy case and I will so contrive that thou shalt abide with me till such time as Allah will;[FN#289] for, indeed, there is in my heart a great love for thee.

Thou must know that all my father's money is under my hand and he wotteth not its full tale; so, every morning, I will give thee a purse of five hundred dinars which do thou offer to my sire, saying, 'Henceforth, I will pay thee only day by day.'

He will hand the sum to me, and I will give it to thee again, and we will abide thus till such time as may please Allah.'

Thereupon I thanked her and kissed her hand;

and on this wise, O Prince of True Believers, I abode with her a whole year, till it chanced on a certain day that she beat one of her handmaids grievously and the slave-girl said, 'By Allah, I will assuredly torture thy heart, even as thou hast tortured me!'

So she went to the girl's father and exposed to him all that had passed, first and last, which when Tahir ibn Alaa heard he arose forthright and coming in to me, as I sat with his daughter, said, 'Ho, such an one!'

; and I said, 'At thy service.'

Quoth he, ''Tis our wont, when a merchant grow poor with us, to give him hospitality three days; but thou hast had a year with us, eating and drinking and doing what thou wouldst.'

Then he turned to his pages and cried to them, 'Pull off his clothes.'

They did as he bade them and gave me ten dirhams and an old suit worth five silvers; after which he said to me, 'Go forth; I will not beat thee nor abuse thee; but wend thy ways and if thou tarry in this town, thy blood be upon thine own head.'

So I went forth, O Commander of the Faithful, in my own despite, knowing not whither to hie, for had fallen on my heart all the trouble in the world and I was occupied with sad thought and doubt.

Then I bethought me of the wealth which I had brought from Oman and said in myself, 'I came hither with a thousand thousand dinars, part price of thirty ships, and have made away with it all in the house of yonder ill-omened man, and now I go forth from him, bare and broken-hearted!

But there is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!'

Then I abode three days in Baghdad, without tasting meat or drink, and on the fourth day seeing a ship bound for Bassorah, I took passage in her of the owner, and when we reached our port, I landed and went into the bazar, being sore anhungered.

Presently, a man saw me, a grocer, whom I had known aforetime, and coming up to me, embraced me, for he had been my friend and my father's friend before me.

Then he questioned me of my case, seeing me clad in those tattered clothes; so I told him all that had befallen me, and he said, 'By Allah, this is not the act of a sensible man!

But after this that hath befallen thee what dost thou purpose to do?'

Quoth I, 'I know not what I shall do,' and quoth he, 'Wilt thou abide with me and write my outgo and income and thou shalt have two dirhams a day, over and above thy food and drink?'

I agreed to this and abode with him, O Prince of True Believers, selling and buying, till I had gotten an hundred dinars; when I hired me an upper chamber by the river-side, so haply a ship should come up with merchandise, that I might buy goods with the dinars and go back with them to Baghdad.

Now it fortuned that one day, there came ships with merchandise, and all the merchants resorted to them to buy, and I went with them on board, when behold, there came two men out of the hold and setting themselves chairs on the deck, sat down thereon.

The merchants addressed themselves to the twain with intent to buy, and the man said to one of the crew, 'Bring the carpet.'

Accordingly he brought the carpet and spread it, and another came with a pair of saddle-bags, whence he took a budget and emptied it on the carpet; and our sights were dazzled with that which issued therefrom of pearls and corals and jacinths and carnelians and other jewels of all sorts and colours."

--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.