A Group of Eastern Romances and Stories from the Persian, Tamil and Urdu

by Unknown

APPENDIX.

Hatim Taï and the Benevolent Lady—p. [46].

This story seems to have been written down from recollection of some of the incidents in the Persian Romance which purports to recount the adventures of the renowned Hatim et-Ta’í, the generous Arab chief—a work of uncertain authorship or date. It was probably written about the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century, as the MS. copy used by Dr. Duncan Forbes for his English translation, published in 1830, which he procured in 1824, he considered to be at least a hundred years old. The opening of our version—if indeed such it may be styled—is absurdly inconsistent with all that is traditionally recorded of Hatim. This is how the incident of Hatim and the Darvesh is related in a Persian story-book, according to Dr. Jonathan Scott’s rendering in his Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters from the Arabic and Persian, published in 1800, p. 251:

Hatim had a large storehouse having 70 entrances, at each of which he used to bestow alms on the poor. After his death his brother, who succeeded him, wished to imitate his great example, but his mother dissuaded him from such an attempt, saying: “My son, it is not in thy nature.” He would not attend to her advice, upon which she one day, having disguised herself as a mendicant, came to one of the doors, where her son relieved her; she went to another door and was relieved once more; she then went to a third door, when her son said: “I have given thee twice already, and yet thou importunest me again.” “Did I not tell thee, my son,” said the mother, discovering herself, “that thou couldst not equal the liberality of thy brother? I tried him as I have tried thee, and he relieved me at each of the 70 doors without asking me a question; but I knew thy nature and his. When I suckled thee, and one nipple was in thy mouth, thou didst always hold thy hand upon the other, but thy brother the contrary.”

It is quite ludicrous to represent Hatim as setting out for China to see a lady who was declared by a wandering darvesh to be far more liberal than himself. From the following abstract of the Romance—which begins where our story ends—it will be seen that Hatim was actuated by nobler motives in undertaking his several adventures. The opening of the romance is reproduced almost in full from Forbes’ translation.

Abstract of the Romance of Hatim Taï.

In the kingdom of Khurasan, during the reign of Kardán Sháh, there lived a worthy merchant, of great dignity, named Burzakh, who was on intimate terms with the king. He died, leaving an only daughter as his heir, twelve years of age, and the king took her under his protection, saying: “She is my daughter.” Husn Bánú esteemed her wealth as no better than sand, and she began to distribute it in charity. One day a darvesh, attended by forty slaves[261] passed her house while she was seated in her balcony. He was the king’s spiritual guide. Husn Bánú sent a servant to invite him to an entertainment at her house, and he promised to come the next day. She prepared for an offering to him nine suits of silken garments, embroidered with gold, and seven trays of pure solid gold and baskets of fruit. The pride of this darvesh was such that he would not touch the earth when he walked, but had his path paved with bricks of gold and silver, and on these alone he placed his feet. On entering the house of Husn Bánú he was presented with trays full of gold and silver. He was amazed at the display of wealth, and resolved that very night to seize the treasure. Accordingly he and his forty slaves broke into the house, killed such as resisted them, and carried off all the treasure. Husn Bánú and her nurse, concealed in the lattice, saw the thieves and knew them. Next day, she complained to the king that the darvesh had robbed her house. This the king refused to believe, calling the darvesh the most holy man of the age; but she declared that he was the fiend of the age. Upon this the king in a rage ordered Husn Bánú and her attendants to be stoned to death, as a warning to others. But the chief minister reminded him that she was the daughter of Burzakh the merchant, and that by putting her to death he would estrange the hearts of his subjects. So the king spared her life, but caused her to be expelled from the city.

In the desert, under a shady tree, Husn Bánú and her old nurse fell asleep; and in a dream a man appeared to Husn Bánú, and told her that beneath that tree was buried the treasure of the seven regions, hidden there by the King of Truth, for her sake, and she was to arise and take possession thereof. “I am a woman,” she replied, “and how can I bring it out of the earth?” The apparition said: “Dig the earth with a little spade: let the means be applied by thee, and God will grant success. Moreover, no one is able forcibly to deprive thee of the treasure. Arise and build a city on this spot.” Husn Bánú having told of her dream to her nurse, they both set to work and dug with a piece of wood, when instantly they saw a pit full of yellow gold, chests full of jewels, cups full of rubies, and costly pearls the size of ducks’ eggs. Husn Bánú rendered thanks to the Most High, then giving some gold to her nurse desired her to return to the city and fetch food and raiment, architects and labourers. Just then her foster-brother, in a mendicant’s garb, passed by, and he recognised her. Telling him how God had given her wealth again, she requested him to bring thither his relations.

The foster-brother soon returned with a builder named Mu’amír. She bids him begin to build a city, but he explains that the king’s permission must be first obtained. So Husn Bánú dresses herself in man’s apparel, and takes for a present a cup full of rubies and a casket full of brilliant jewels. She gives valuable gifts to the king’s officers, representing herself as a merchant newly arrived from abroad and desirous of offering presents to the king. His majesty is astonished to see the priceless gifts and asks: “Sir, whence art thou?” She replies that her father was a merchant of Irán, who died at sea; that she was an orphan and without kindred; had heard of his good qualities; had pitched tents in a tract of desert, and desired leave to build a city there. The king presents her with a dress of honour and adopts her as his son; and suggests that she should rather build her city near the capital and call it Sháhábád (i.e. king’s city). But Husn Bánú prefers the desert, so the king gives her the required permission.

The city was built in about two years, and Husn Bánú visited the king once every month. One day he tells her that he is about to visit his darvesh and prevails on her to accompany him. She invites the darvesh to her house, and on his consenting she observes: “But my house is far distant, and in the capital there is the unoccupied house of Burzakh the merchant.” The king makes it over to her as a free gift. Finding her father’s house has fallen to decay, she has it repaired and furnished splendidly. On the day appointed the darvesh came, and he declined the jewels offered to him by Husn Bánú, who had also displayed vast wealth throughout the apartment; and even at the banquet he pretended that he could not partake of dainty dishes. When the darvesh and his attendants had taken their leave, Husn Bánú caused all the golden dishes, etc. to be left as at the banquet, and warned the captain of the watch that she had reason to fear being robbed. At night the darvesh and his forty slaves entered the house, and having tied up the valuables in bundles were about to be off with their plunder—the darvesh himself carrying a cup full of rubies in his hand—when the night watch rushed in, seized and secured the robbers, and laid them in prison. Next day when the king opened his court Husn Bánú appeared,[262] and the kutwál brought the prisoners, each with his bundle of booty hanging from his neck, and made his report. The king thought the leader of the gang resembled a certain darvesh. Thereupon Husn Bánú told her story, and the king ordered all the robbers to be instantly put to death. Her father’s property, of which she had been formerly robbed, was found in the house of the darvesh, and she presented it all to the king. Soon after this occurrence the king visited Husn Bánú at Sháhábád, and she gave him much gold; then pointing out the source of her wealth desired him to cause his attendants to convey it to his own treasury. But when they began to handle the gold, it turned into serpents and dragons, which convinced the king that it was devoted to her sole use. She built a house for the entertainment of travellers, each of whom received a handsome present on leaving, and the fame of her generosity was noised abroad.

Husn Bánú, being young, beautiful, and passing rich, had of course many suitors for her hand in marriage, and she one day consulted with her nurse as to the best means of securing herself from the importunity of worldly men. The nurse said she had seven questions (or tasks), which Husn Bánú should propose to every suitor, and he who complied with the terms which they embraced should be her husband, to which she agreed. Her fame being spread far and wide, Prince Munir, the son of the king of Kharizm, sent a painter to draw her portrait, which he did from the reflection of her face in a vessel full of water[263] and brought it to the prince, who on seeing it became quite frantic from love, and that same night he set out privily for Sháhábád. Obtaining an interview with Husn Bánú and declaring his passion, she replied: “You must first answer me seven questions. There is a man who constantly exclaims: ‘What I once saw I long to see a second time.’ Inform me where he lives and what he saw, and then I will put the second question.” The prince takes his leave and wanders about all sad at heart. He is met by Hatim Taï, who learns from him the cause of his evident sorrow, and undertakes to perform the task for him. Having entertained the prince for three days, Hatim takes him back to Sháhábád, and they go into the caravanserai there; but Hatim refusing both the food and the gold always presented to travellers, he is taken before Husn Bánú, who asks him the reason of this strange conduct. Hatim only desires to look at her face. She tells him that he must first bring her the solution of seven questions, to which Hatim agrees, on the condition that she would become at his disposal in the event of his succeeding, which condition was at once written and signed and confirmed by witnesses. Then Hatim, leaving the love-struck prince at the caravanserai, sets out to obtain an answer to Husn Bánú’s First Question.

After many surprising adventures, Hatim at length reaches a desert where an old man is crying: “What I once saw I long to see a second time,” and learns from him that once he was walking on the border of a lake, when he saw a damsel who took him by the hand and leaped with him into the water, whereupon he found himself in a magnificent garden and beheld a lovely female form closely veiled; and on venturing to raise the veil he was instantly struck to the ground, and opening his eyes found himself in that desert, where he had ever since wandered about, restless and forlorn, wishing to see that beauteous fairy once more. Hatim—for whom nothing was too difficult, for he had all sorts of talismans—conducts the old man to the fairy, after which he returns with the required information to Husn Bánú.

His Second Adventure is to ascertain why a man has above his door these words: “Do good, and cast it on the water;” who he is, and where his house is situated. In the course of this expedition he performs three additional tasks in order to obtain for another distracted lover the daughter of a merchant for his wife, the second of which is: Who is the man that cries every Friday and why does he cry: “I have done nothing that will benefit me this night”? Hatim comes to a sand-hill (having been directed to the spot by the grateful inhabitants of a town, whose lives he had saved by slaying a man-eating monster), and hears the voice. As he advances he discovers a number of the dead rising out of their graves, with angelic countenances and apparelled in splendid robes—all save one, who was covered with dust and ashes and sat on the cold ground, while the others sat on thrones drinking nectar, and never gave him to drink thereof. This wight sighed heavily and exclaimed: “Alas, I have not done that which might benefit me this night!” He tells Hatim that he was a merchant and those around him had been his servants. He was a great miser, but his servants fed the hungry and clothed the naked. On a journey a gang of robbers attacked and murdered him and all his followers. “Here they rest as martyrs—they are crowned with glory, while I am plunged in misery. In the capital of China, my native country, are my grandchildren living in abject poverty. In a certain chamber of my house is buried an immense treasure, of which no living man has knowledge.” Hatim inquires whether it was possible for him to minister to his relief. “Proceed to the capital of China,” says the miser’s shade, “and find out my house. My name is Yúsuf, and in my day I was well known in all parts of the city. Seek my descendants; tell them of the treasure; divide it into four equal portions; bestow one portion on my grandchildren, and the other three on the poor of the city; then perhaps my case may be ameliorated.” Hatim goes at once to the capital of China, but before he is allowed to enter he must answer three questions put to every stranger by the governor’s daughter. Of course Hatim gives correct solutions of the enigmas, and then complies with the directions of the miser’s ghost.

He now addresses himself seriously to the solution of the Second Question of Husn Bánú, but he has many wondrous experiences before he comes at length to the bank of a large river, on which is a lofty mansion of stone, and over the door is written the motto: “Do good, and cast it on the water.” Ushered by attendants into the house, Hatim sees a venerable man of a hundred years seated upon a throne, who receives him with great courtesy and causes him to be supplied with refreshments. When Hatim asks the meaning of the motto over the door, the old man relates his history: In his youth he was a great robber, yet every day he made two large loaves mixed with sweet oil and sugar, which he threw into the river, saying: “This I give away, to propitiate Heaven.” One day, continues the old robber, “I was seized with a sickness and I thought a man grasped me by the hand and pointing to the infernal regions said: ‘There is the place destined for thee.’ But two youths, divinely fair, came up and laid hold of me, saying: ‘We will not permit this man to be cast into hell, sinful though he has been. His future state is in Paradise, and thither let us carry him.’” They conveyed him accordingly to the regions of bliss, and an angel of exalted rank telling them that he had a hundred years yet to live, they brought him back to his house, and explained that they were the two loaves he was wont to cast into the water for fishes to feed on. His health was at once restored and he made two loaves as before. When he went to cast them into the water he found a hundred dínars, which he took up and carried to the village, where he caused it to be proclaimed that such a sum of money had been found, but no one came to claim it. Next day when he went to the river with the two loaves he found another hundred dínars, and this continued till the eve of the eleventh day, when a man appeared to him in the visions of the night and said: “Servant of the Almighty, thy two loaves have pleaded thy cause in heaven: the merciful Creator has forgiven thy sins. The dínars which thou receivest are for thy subsistence, and what is superfluous do thou bestow in charity.” Since then the old robber had built that mansion and written the motto over the door, and every day when he went to throw the loaves into the river he found a hundred dínars.[264]

Hatim returns with this story to Husn Bánú, and she forthwith despatches him on his Third Adventure: “There is a man who constantly cries: ‘Injure no one; if you do, evil will overtake you.’ Find out where that man lives, what injury he has done, and what evil has overtaken him.” After having performed a difficult task on behalf of a despairing lover whom he met on his way, Hatim at length, aided by a band of fairy troops, arrives at the outskirts of Himyar, where he hears a voice crying these words, and discovers a blind man confined in a cage, which is suspended from a branch of a tree. Hatim having promised to mend his condition and relieve him, the blind man related his history, as follows:

“I am by occupation a merchant, and my name is Hamír. When I became of age, my father had finished the building of this city, and he called the same after my name. Shortly after my father departed on a sea voyage and left me in charge of the city. I was a free-hearted and social young man, and so in a short time expended all the property left under my care by my father. Thus I became surrounded with poverty and want; and as I knew that my father had hidden treasures somewhere in his house I resolved to discover them if possible. I searched everywhere, but found nothing; and, to complete my woe, I received the news of my father’s death, the ship in which he sailed being wrecked.

“One day as I was sauntering, mournful and dejected, through the bazár, I espied a learned man who cried out: ‘If any one has lost his money by theft or otherwise, my knowledge of the occult sciences enables me to recover the same, but on condition that I receive one fourth of the amount.’ When I heard this seasonable proclamation, I immediately approached the man of science, and stated to him my sad condition and how I had been reduced from affluence to poverty. The sage undertook to restore my wealth, and above all to discover the treasures concealed in my father’s house. I conducted him to the house and showed him every apartment, which he carefully examined one after another. At length by his art he discovered the stores we were in search of; and when I saw the gold and silver and other valuables, which exceeded calculation, the demon of fraud entered my heart, and I refused to fulfil my promise of giving a fourth of the property to the man of wisdom. I offered him only a few small pieces of silver; instead of accepting which, he stood for a few moments in silent meditation, and with a look of scorn said: ‘Do I thus receive the fourth part of your treasure, which you agreed to give me? Base man, of what perjury are you guilty!’ On hearing this I became enraged, and having struck him several blows on the face I expelled him from my house. In a few days, however, he returned, and so far ingratiated himself into my confidence, that we became intimate friends; and night and day he displayed before my sight the various hidden treasures contained within the bowels of the earth. One day I asked him to instruct me in this wonderful science, to which he answered that no instruction was requisite. ‘Here,’ said he, ‘is a composition of surma, and whoever applies the same to his eyes, to him will all the wealth of this world become visible.’[265] ‘Most learned sir,’ I replied, ‘if you will anoint my eyes with this substance, I promise to share with you the half of all such treasures as I may discover.’ ‘I agree,’ said my friend: ‘meanwhile let us retire to the desert, where we shall be free from interruption.’

“We immediately set out, and when we arrived here I was surprised at seeing this cage, and asked my companion whose it was. I received for answer, that it belonged to no one. In short, we both sat down at the foot of this tree, and the sage, having produced the surma from his pocket, began to apply it to my eyes. But, alas! no sooner had he applied this composition than I became totally deprived of sight. In a voice of sorrow I asked him why he had thus treated me, and he replied: ‘Such is the reward of treachery; and if you wish to recover your sight, you must for some time undergo penance in this cage. You must utter no complaint and you shall exclaim from time to time: “Do no evil to any one; if you do, evil will befall you.”’ I entreated the sage to relieve me, saying: ‘You are a mere mortal like myself, and dare you thus torment a fellow-creature? How will you account for your deeds to the Supreme Judge?’ He answered: ‘This is the reward of your treachery.’ Seeing him inexorable, I begged of him to inform me when and how my sight was to be restored; and he told me, that a noble youth should one day visit me, and to him I was to make known my condition, and farther state that in the desert of Himyar there is a certain herb called the Flower of Light, which the youth was to procure and apply to my eyes, by means of which my sight should be restored.

“It is now three years since he left me in this prison, which, though quite open, I cannot quit. Were I to attempt to leave my confinement, I should feel the most excruciating pain in my limbs, so as not to have the power of moving, and thus I am compelled to remain. One day, shortly after my companion left me, I reflected that I could do nothing for myself while I continued like a bird in this cage, and accordingly resolved to quit it at all hazards; but the moment I was outside of it the pain that seized my whole body almost killed me. I immediately returned to my prison, and have since that time resigned myself to my fate, exclaiming at stated times the words which have attracted your attention. Many people have passed by me, but on learning my condition they left me as they found me.”

When the man in the cage had ended his story, Hatim bade him be of good cheer, for he would at once endeavour to relieve him. By the aid of the fairies who had conducted him thither and now carry him through the air for the space of seven days, he arrives in the desert where the Flowers of Light shine brilliant as lamps on a festival night, diffusing the sweetest perfume far and wide; and, recking naught for the serpents, scorpions, and other beasts of prey which infest the place (for he was guarded by a powerful talisman), he advances and plucks three of the largest and most brilliant flowers. Returning in the same manner as he had come, he reaches the spot where the blind man Hamír is imprisoned. Taking down the cage, he releases the wretched man, compresses the stalk of the flower so that the juice should drop upon his sightless eyeballs, and when this has been repeated three times Hamír opens his eyes, and, seeing Hatim, falls prostrate at his feet with a profusion of thanks.

The Fourth Adventure is: “Who is the man that has this motto over his door: ‘He who speaks the truth is always tranquil’; wherein has he spoken the truth, and what degree of tranquility does he enjoy in consequence?” Passing through regions of enchantment, Hatim then comes to a city, and discovers the motto written above the gate of a splendid mansion. He enters and is received graciously by an old man, who entertains him hospitably. Next day he relates his story: He is eight hundred years old. In youth he was a great gambler, and having lost all his substance he became a robber. One night he broke into the king’s palace, entered one of the chambers, where the daughter of the king was sleeping, and seizing all her jewels and a golden lamp that burned beside her he made his escape. He fled to a desert, where he found a gang of thieves dividing their plunder, to whom he showed his own booty, and their avarice was aroused so that they were proceeding to take it from him by force, when a tremendous voice was heard close by, at which they ran off in different directions. Presently a figure appeared before him and demanded: “Who art thou?” He told his story. “’Tis well for thee,” said the figure, “that thou hast related the whole truth; therefore I forgive thy crime, and leave the treasure to thy enjoyment. But swear never to gamble again.” He took the required oath. “Well, keep thy oath, and the years of thy life shall reach nine hundred.” Returning to the city with his plunder, his comrades envied his prosperity, and reported him to the chief of the police, who brought him before the king, to whom he told the whole truth as to the source of his wealth, and the king pardoned him and gave him more gold. Then he wrote that motto over his door.

Hatim’s Fifth Adventure is to bring an account of Mount Nida, whence a voice from time to time proceeds, crying: “Come quickly!” Whereupon one of the citizens in the neighbourhood is seized with an uncontrollable frenzy, rushes away to the mountain and is seen no more. This strange occurrence Hatim learns is the manner in which the inhabitants taste of death: when the doomed person approached a rock it split asunder, and as soon as he had entered the opening it closed behind him and his soul quitted his body.

The Sixth Adventure is to procure Husn Bánú a pearl similar to one she already possesses, which is as large as a duck’s egg. Hatim learns from the conversation of a pair of Nitka birds that their species used to “lay” such pearls once in thirty years, but this faculty had ceased since the days of Solomon; that only two were on the face of the earth now (all others being at the bottom of the sea), one being in the possession of Husn Bánú, the other in the treasury of a fairy, who has an only daughter: he who can tell the history of that pearl (which Hatim has heard from the well-informed birds) shall have her in marriage and the pearl for her dowry. Needless to add that Hatim is successful in his quest, bestows the young fairy on her lover, who had been unable to comply with her father’s condition, and returns with the pearl to Husn Bánú.

Hatim’s Seventh Adventure, and the last, is to bring the lady an account of the bath of Badgird—an enchanted palace erected for the preservation of a peerless and priceless diamond by its owner, a powerful magician. The stone is in the body of a parrot, Hatim is told by a bird of the same species before entering the hall, and whoever enters shall never return unless he obtain possession of the gem. He will find a bow and three arrows laid on a sofa in the hall, and must shoot the arrows at the parrot, and if he hit right through its head he will break the spell, but if not, he will, like all others before him, be turned to marble. Nothing daunted, Hatim shoots one arrow, and, missing, he becomes marble up to his knees; the second arrow also missing, he becomes marble up to his middle; but (placing his reliance in God) when he shoots the third arrow it pierces the head of the parrot and it falls lifeless to the ground. This achievement is immediately followed by a storm of wind, thunder, lightning—darkness. And Hatim can see no palace or parrot, but at his feet are the bow and arrow and a diamond of dazzling brilliance. No sooner had Hatim seized the diamond than all the marble statues started into life, being freed from the spell of the enchanter.

Returning to Sháhábád, Hatim presented the diamond to Husn Bánú, and, as he had now fulfilled all her conditions, she was straightway married to Prince Munir, who thus reached the summit of happiness. Hatim then returned to the capital of Yaman, where he was affectionately received by his father and mother, and his arrival was hailed with universal joy, while every house resounded with music and mirth. Shortly after this Hatim’s father resigned the reins of government into his hand and lived in retirement for the remainder of his life, which amounted to twelve years, seven months, and nine days. Hatim reigned long and happily in Yaman.[266]

Such is the substance of the wonderful Adventures of Hatim Taï, though I have necessarily omitted many details and some rather curious incidents: like a tale in the Arabian Nights, out of which spring several other tales, each of Hatim’s expeditions led him on to others, which had to be accomplished before he could attain the end for which he originally set out. He undergoes some extraordinary experiences, too, such as being swallowed alive and unhurt by a dragon of such monstrous dimensions that he kept tramping to and fro in its stomach till it was at last obliged, for its internal peace, to eject him and be off; dipping his hand into a lake in order to drink of the waters, and finding it instantly turned into pure silver—where, O where is that lake?—and coming to another, which had the property of restoring the argentine member to flesh and blood; not to speak of the scenes of enchantment, which indeed seem to have been begot of hashish or a like narcotic. With all its absurdities, however, the morale of the romance is excellent: the hero goes about constantly doing good; benevolent towards bird and beast as well as to mankind; feeding the hungry, relieving the distressed, and binding up the broken heart.—This work is still a first favourite among the Persians, who continue to entertain a firm belief in dívs, parís, and many other kinds of spirits, good and evil.

Of the three stories which are interwoven with our tale of Hatim and the Benevolent Lady but one is represented in the Romance, that of the Blind Man, namely, but the details are very different in the two versions.

The Painter’s Story (p. [53])

begins with an account of a fight which he witnessed in his garden between a white snake and a black snake, and seeing the former was about to succumb he slew the black snake. This incident also occurs in the Romance, when Hatim is returning from his second expedition, only the magnanimous hero does not kill—or even scotch—the black snake: he simply shouts, when it lets go its hold of the other and wriggles off. The white snake then becomes a handsome young man, and tells Hatim that he is the son of a king of the jinn, that the black snake is his father’s slave, and bears a most deadly enmity towards himself, and so forth—an incident found in many Asiatic story-books. The Painter’s subsequent experiences in the subaqueous palace of the king of the jinn do not occur in the romance, though the story is known to several collections, and, introduced by the incident of the two snakes, it is found, as follows, in Turkish Evening Entertainments, a translation,[267] by J. P. Brown, of a Turkish story-book entitled ’Ajá’ib el-ma’ásir wa ghara’ib en-nawádir (Wonders of Remarkable Incidents and Rarities of Anecdote), by Ahmed ibn Hemden, the Ketkhoda, surnamed Suhaylí (i.e. Canopus), who composed it for Murád, the fourth Ottoman sultan, who reigned between A.D. 1623 and A.D. 1640:

In ancient times the sovereign of the country of Sabá was a man called Yeshrah. One day, when this excellent prince was travelling, he came to an extensive plain where were two serpents resembling frightful dragons. One of these was white, the other black. They were entwined around each other in desperate conflict, and the white one had received a wound in a most tender part of its body. The black serpent being thus victorious, the strength of the white one was exhausted; it could move no more, and the black one wreaked its vengeance upon the helpless animal. King Yeshrah, touched with pity, went to the assistance of the white snake, and aided it in its conquered state. He placed a diamond-pointed arrow in his bow, and, taking aim at the black snake, he let fly and instantly killed it. The white snake, thus released, crawled away.

One day the king received a visit from a youth of a handsome exterior, who informed him that he belonged to the race of the jinn, and was the white serpent rescued by him. The youth then made proffers of service to the king, which he declined, upon which he offered the king his sister in marriage. The king, enchanted by her beauty, accepted her, and the marriage took place on the king undertaking to consent to everything which his wife did, were it good or evil. Soon after the birth of his first son, a dog approached the queen, who suddenly cast the child into the dog’s mouth, and the dog ran away with it, to the king’s great grief. Their next child, a girl, the queen cast into a brazier, where the infant was immediately consumed. The king was now exceedingly afflicted; but the birth of a second daughter, who was so delicately beautiful on account of her resembling the húrís of Paradise that she was called Bilkís, somewhat reconciled him to his loss. The king implored her not to treat this child as she had done the two others, for which she severely rebuked him.

Soon after this a powerful enemy attacked the king, and his own vazír, secretly allying himself with the enemy, poisoned the provisions designed for the king’s army. The queen destroyed the provisions, at which the king in wrath demanded her reason. The queen explained the affair to her husband, and gave the remaining bread to an animal which fell dead after eating it. She then said that the king having broken the condition made on his marriage with her, all intercourse must now cease between them, and informed him that the son thrown to the dog was still alive, and had been brought up by a nurse in that form, and that the daughter was also in perfect health, nursed by the fire. Beseeching him to be mindful of their daughter Bilkís, who should succeed to the throne and become a great and illustrious queen, and promising to send to his succour an army of jinn-soldiers, she disappeared from the king’s sight for ever. The troops of jinn came to his assistance as promised, routed the enemy’s forces, and restored the king to his throne. But still he was afflicted by the loss of his wife. At length the fatal moment arrived, and he died; and his daughter Bilkís succeeded him on the throne, and her history has been written elsewhere in a detailed manner.

Thus, if we may place any credit in the foregoing story, the thrice-renowned Queen of Sheba was jinn-born: no wonder, therefore, if she was a miracle of beauty and wisdom! It does not appear, however, why her fairy-mother did not dispose of her soon after she was born, in the same extraordinary manner as she “made away” with her previous babes.—Regarding the notion that when a human being unites with one of a supernatural order there are certain conditions always imposed by the latter, the breaking of which must result in their separation, generally temporary, I take leave to refer the reader to my Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. i, p. 212 ff.

In more or less different forms the same story is found in the following works: in Les Mille et un Jours, which purports to have been translated, by Petis de la Croix, from a Persian collection entitled Hazár ú Yek Rúz, the Thousand and one Days, by a darvesh named Mukhlis, of Isfahán, from whom M. Petis obtained a copy in 1675, where it is entitled “Histoire du Roi Ruzvanschad et de la Princesse Cheheristani,” but in this version the king’s fairy-wife leaves him only for a time; in a Turkish story-book, entitled Al-Faraj ba’d al-Shiddah, Joy after Distress, a work written not later than the 15th century;[268] and in a collection described by Dr. Chas. Rieu in his Catalogue of Persian MSS. in the British Museum, vol. ii, p. 759, Or. 237, which has no specific title, the compiler, whose poetical name was Hubbí, merely calling his work, Hikáyát-i’Agíb ú Gharíb, Wonderful and Strange Tales. In this last work, the MS. of which is unfortunately imperfect, the final story, No. 34, relates how a king of Yaman, while hunting, saw two snakes, a white one and a black one, engaged in deadly combat. He sends an attendant to kill the black snake and rescue the white one, which was half dead; which being done, he causes the rescued snake to be laid down beside a spring of water, under the shade of a tree. The snake rallies, and after a while crawls away. When the king is asleep at night, the wall of his chamber suddenly opens and a fair youth appears. “I am,” says he, “the king of the parís (fairies). You rescued me from the black snake. I am now come to requite your kind act. If you wish it, I will make you rich with many treasures.” No more of the MS. remains,[269] but it is not unlikely that the sequel was similar to that of the Turkish story cited above.

The battle between the two snakes, which is found so often reproduced in Arabian and Persian story-books—though I cannot recollect having met with it in any Indian collection—seems reflected in two incidents in the Voyage of Saint Brandan. One day the saint and his companions discover a monstrous sea-serpent on the surface of the water, exhaling fire from its nostrils, as it were the roaring flame of a furnace; and while the pious voyagers could not measure its length they were more successful with its breadth, which was “full fifteen feet, I trow”; presently a monster of the same species appears, and a terrific combat takes place between the two, until one is torn by his antagonist into three pieces, when the victor sinks down into the sea. After this they see a deadly conflict in the air between a griffin and a dragon.—It is well known to students of the history of popular fictions that many Eastern tales and incidents had found their way into Western literature long before the collection commonly but incorrectly called the Arabian Nights, in its existing form, was compiled.

Among the countless absurdities abounding in the Toldoth Jeshu, a scurrilous “life” of Jesus Christ of Jewish invention—the text of which, with a Latin translation, is given at the end of the second volume of Wagenseil’s Tela Ignea Satanæ, 1681—is an aërial conflict between Jeshu and Rabbi Judas before Queen Helena: “And when Jeshu had spoken the incommunicable Name,[270] there came a wind and raised him between heaven and earth. Thereupon Judas spake the same Name, and the wind raised him also between heaven and earth. And they flew, both of them, around in the regions of the air, and all who saw it marvelled. Judas then spake again the Name, and seized Jeshu and sought to cast him to the earth. But Jeshu also spake the Name, and sought to cast Judas down, and they strove one with the other.” Ultimately Judas prevails and casts Jeshu to the ground, and the elders seize him; his power leaves him; and he is subjected to the tauntings of his captors. Being rescued by his disciples, he hastened to the Jordan; and when he had washed therein his power returned, and with the Name he again wrought his former miracles.[271] This “story”—to employ the term in its nursery sense—strongly resembles the equally apocryphal legend of the aërial contest at Rome between St. Peter and Simon Magus, in which the apostle overthrew the magician.

The Washerman’s Story (p. [58])

calls for but slight remark. The fairies who alighted in succession on the tree in the form of doves, and putting off their feather-dress appeared as the most beautiful damsels, belong, of course, to the Bird-Maiden class, and the Washerman, by his own showing, did not deserve to possess any one of them. Could he have decided—but perhaps the trial was too much for him—he might have secured even the last and most bewitching of the three, by taking possession of her feather-robe, when she would have no alternative but to follow him wheresoever he might go: but evidently he did not know this. (See the chapter on “Bird-Maidens” in my Popular Tales and Fictions, vol. i. p. 182 ff.)

The Blind Man’s Story (p. [60])

differs considerably from its representative in the Romance, the story of the blind man Hamír in the cage (ante p. [464]ff.); and it is also observable that in our story Hatim does nothing to mitigate the poor man’s wretchedness. Both versions agree in treasure being found in a dwelling house; but in our story it is the geomancer who is the blind man, and his eyes are blinded in mistake by a vindictive neighbour of the friend whom he thought to entrap;—while in the other story it is the man in whose house the treasure was discovered who is blinded by the geomancer, in revenge of the ill-treatment he had received at his hands; and it is by the application of surma to his eyes, by means of which he expected to behold all the hidden treasure of the world, that he is deprived of sight. The analogous tale in our common version of the Arabian Nights, of the Blind Man Baba Abdullah (it has not yet been found in any Arabic text of the collection), is wholly different in all its details until it reaches the catastrophe, when the greedy cameleer, after getting back from the darvesh all his share of the treasure, returns to request the box of salve, which, after having had applied to his left eye and thereby been enabled to see all concealed treasure, he insists—in spite of the repeated warning of the darvesh—on being also applied to his right eye, whereupon he instantly becomes stone-blind. Widely as the three stories differ one from the other, in details, however, it is very evident, I think, that they have been independently adapted from a common source.

The very climax of absurdity is surely reached by the author of our version of the story of Hatim when he represents the benevolent Lady as saying (p. [50]) that she is so jealous of the wide-spread fame of Hatim for liberality that she wishes him to be killed; and when, on his return, she reproaches him for not having brought her Hatim’s head, he replies that he is himself Hatim and that his head is at her disposal, whereupon the lady, struck with such magnanimity, at once consents to marry him.

According to tradition, an enemy of Hatim despatched one of his officers to slay him and bring his head. When he reached the encampments of the tribe of Ta’í, he was courteously greeted by an Arab, and invited into his tent, where he was treated most hospitably; and in the morning he told his host that he had been sent thither by his master to slay Hatim and bring back his head. The host smilingly replied: “I am Hatim; and if my head will gratify your master, smite it off without delay.” The man hastened away in confusion; and returning to his master told him of his adventure, and the enemy of Hatim ever afterwards loved and esteemed him.—This seems to be the tradition adapted so incongruously by our author.

The idea of our tale of Hatim and the Benevolent Lady may have been partly taken from the Story of the Third Darvesh in the Persian work, Kissa-i Chehár Darvesh (Romance of the Four Darveshes), an anonymous book, of uncertain date,[272] where the narrator, a Persian prince, tells how he tried to imitate the generosity of Hatim, by causing a great palace to be erected with four gates, at each of which he distributed gold and silver to all comers. One day a wandering darvesh receives money at each of the gates in succession, and then begins to beg again at the first gate, upon which the prince upbraids him for his greediness, and the darvesh retorts, as in our story, that there is a lady to whose liberality there is absolutely no bound. The prince learns that this generous lady is the princess of Basra, and donning the robe of a darvesh he sets out for that city, where he is sumptuously entertained for several days by the servants of the princess, after which he writes her a letter, declaring his rank and offering her marriage. He is told that the princess has resolved to marry only him who should bring her the explanation of the singular conduct of a youth in the city of Namrúz who appeared once a month riding on a bull, carrying a vase of gold and jewels in his hand, which he smashed in the market-place, and then smote off the head of one of his slaves, immediately afterwards riding away again, foaming at the mouth. The royal mendicant undertakes to ascertain the cause of the youth’s madness (he proves to be in love with a fairy, like the Painter in our tale), and before setting out for Namrúz is admitted into the private chamber of the princess, who is concealed behind a curtain, where a slave-girl relates the history of her mistress: how she was one of seven daughters of a king, and was driven out of the palace because she would not acknowledge that she derived her good fortune from her father, but maintained that it was from God. In the wilderness she meets a darvesh, and discovers underground immense treasures, and so forth.—This story of the princess of Basra is one of the numerous parallels or analogous tales cited by my friend Mr. E. Sidney Hartland in a very able and interesting paper on the “Outcast Child” cycle, in the Folk-Lore Journal, 1886, vol. iv, p. 308 ff.