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.