Arabic Authors / A Manual of Arabian History and Literature

by F. F. Arbuthnot

On his return Hasan is broken-hearted to find her gone, and determines to set out and try and recover her. Then follows the description of his journeys, which fill pages describing the white country, and the black mountain, the land of camphor, and the castle of crystal. The islands of Wac were seven in number, peopled by Satans and Marids, and warlocks and tribesmen of the Jinn. To reach them Hasan has to traverse the island of birds, the land of beasts, and the valley of Jinn. Without the aid of the princesses, their uncle Abdul-cuddous, Abourruweish, Dehnesh ben Fectesh, Hassoun, king of the land of Camphor, and the old woman Shawahi, he never would have reached his destination. This, however, he finally does, and with the aid of a magic cup and wand recovers his wife and children, and returns with them to Baghdad, where they live happily ever afterwards, till there came to them the Creditor whose debt must always be paid sooner or later, the Destroyer of delights, and the Severer of societies.

Ali Nur Al-din and Miriam the Girdle-Girl (called by Payne, the Frank King's Daughter).—The adventures of Ali with Miriam, whom he first buys as a slave-girl in Alexandria, and from whom he is separated and re-united, again separated and again united, are told at some length. But the principal features in this tale are the innumerable verses in praise of various fruits, flowers, wine, women, musical instruments, the beauty of the hero, etc., and on the subjects of love, union, separation, etc. Miriam herself is a charming character of self-reliance and independence. On her first appearance in the slave market, at the time of her sale, she declines to be purchased by the old men, and abuses their age and their infirmities. Indeed, she seemed to be of the same opinion as our great national poet, who wrote:

'Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together;
Youth is full of plaisance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport,
Age's breath is short,
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold,
Youth is wild and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee;
O my love, my love is young;
Age, I do defy thee,
O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long'.

However, she finally consents to be bought by the young and good-looking Ali, who spends his last thousand dinars in her purchase, and then has nothing to live upon. Miriam remedies this by making every night a beautiful girdle, which Ali sells for a good price in the bazaar next day. This goes on for upwards of a year, when the first separation is brought about by the crafty old Wazir of her father, the King of France, who had sent him especially to look for his daughter. In the course of the adventures that follow, Miriam shows her capacity in sailing ships and in killing various men, among others her three brothers, who pursued her in her last flight from her father's city. Eventually she and Ali get to Baghdad, where the Khalif makes things smooth for them, and they are married, and finally return to Cairo to rejoin Ali's parents, from whom he had run away in his youth.

Kamar Al-Zaman and the Jeweller's Wife is one of the modern tales of the 'Nights,' and a very good one, containing a good plot and plenty of interesting incidents. The jeweller's wife, Halimah by name, is one of the wickedest and craftiest of women in Busra, and her plots and intrigues are well described; some of them are to be found in Persian story-books. After playing all sorts of tricks, she leaves her husband, and elopes with the youth Kamar to Cairo, where his parents reside. There his father will not let him marry her, but confines her and her slave-girl in a room, and arranges a marriage for his son with another woman. After a time Halimah's husband, Obayd, the jeweller, turns up in Cairo in the most beggarly plight, having been plundered by Bedouins en route. After explanations, Obayd ends by killing his wife and her slave-girl, who had assisted her in all her devilries, and Kanar's father marries him to his daughter, who turns out the most virtuous of women. The moral of the tale is pointed out at the end, that there are both bad women and good women in the world, and is closed with the remark: 'So he who deemeth all women to be alike, there is no remedy for the disease of his insanity.'

Ma'aruf the Cobbler and his wife Fatimah commences with a domestic scene between the two, from which it appears that the poor husband had been shamefully sat upon from the day of his marriage, and that his wife was a dreadful woman. Affairs, however, at last reach a climax, and Ma'aruf seeks peace and safety in flight. Balzac, in his clever novel of 'Le Contrat de Mariage,' makes his hero Manerville fly from the machinations of his wife and mother-in-law, but Henri de Marsay, writing to his friend pages on the subject, contends that he is wrong, and points out to him the course that he should have followed. Anyhow, in Ma'aruf the Cobbler's case, the result is satisfactory. Arriving by the aid of a Jinn at a far-away city, he found a friend, who directed him how to behave, and to tell everybody that he was a great and wealthy merchant, but that his merchandise was still on the way, and expected daily. Pending the arrival of his baggage-train, Ma'aruf borrowed from everybody, gave it all away in largesse to the poor, and behaved generally as if he were very well-to-do. By these means he made such an impression on the King of the place that the latter married him to his daughter, and made large advances from the treasury in anticipation of the arrival of the merchandise.

Time goes on, but still the baggage does not turn up. The King, instigated by his Wazir, becomes suspicious, and persuades his daughter to worm out the real story from her husband. This she does in a clever way, and Ma'aruf tells her his true history. The woman behaves admirably, refuses to expose his vagaries, and, giving him fifty thousand dinars, advises him to fly to a foreign country, to begin to trade there, and to keep her informed of his whereabouts and the turn of his fortunes. The Cobbler departs during the night, while his wife the next morning tells the King and the Wazir a long rigmarole story of how her husband had been summoned by his servants, who had informed him that his baggage-train and merchandise had been attacked by the Arabs, and that he had gone himself to look after his affairs.

Meanwhile Ma'aruf departs sore at heart, weeping bitterly, and, like all 'Arabian Nights' heroes in adversity, repeating countless verses. After various adventures he falls in with a vast treasure, and a casket containing a seal ring of gold, which, when rubbed, causes the slave of the seal ring, naturally a Jinn, to appear and carry out every wish and order that Ma'aruf might give him. With the aid, then, of the Jinn, Abu Al-Saddat by name, the Cobbler returns to his wife laden with treasure and merchandise, and thus proves to all the doubters that he is a true man. He pays all his debts, gives a great deal to the poor, and bestows presents of an enormous value on his wife, her attendants, and all the people of the Court.

As a matter of course, all this prosperity is followed by adversity. The King and his Wazir combine together, and ask Ma'aruf to a garden-party, make him drunk, and get him to relate the story of his success. Recklessly he shows the ring to the Wazir, who gets hold of it, rubs it, and on the appearance of the slave of the ring, orders him to carry off the Cobbler and cast him down in the desert. The Wazir then orders the King to be treated in the same way, while he himself seizes the Sultanate, and aspires to marry Ma'aruf's wife, the King's daughter.

With much interesting detail the story relates how the Princess Dunya gets the ring into her possession, sends the Wazir to prison, and rescues her father and her husband from the desert. The Wazir is then put to death, and the ring is kept by the lady, as she thinks it would be safer in her keeping than in that of her relations. After this a son is born, the King dies, Ma'aruf succeeds to the throne, and shortly after loses his wife, who before her death gives him back the ring, and urges him to take good care of it for his own sake and for the sake of his boy.