'My best salam to what that robe enrobes of symmetry, * And what
that blooming garth of cheek enguards of rosy blee:
It seems as though the Pleiades depend upon her brow; * And other
lights of Night in knots upon her breast we see:
Did she but don a garment weft of Rose's softest leaf, * The leaf
of Rose would draw her blood[FN#512] when pluckt that fruit
from tree:
And did she crache in Ocean's face, next Morn would see a change
* To sweeter than the honeycomb of what was briny sea:
And did she deign her favours grant to grey-beard staff-enpropped
* He'd wake and rend the lion's limbs for might and
valiancy.'"
Then Abdullah continued, "O Prince of True Believers, as soon as I saw that girl I fell passionately in love with her and going straight up to her, found her seated on a high couch, reciting by heart and in grateful memory the Book of Allah, to whom belong honour and glory! Her voice was like the harmony of the gates of Heaven, when Rizwan openeth them, and the words came from her lips like a shower of gems; whilst her face was with beauty dight, bright and blossom-white, even as saith the poet of a similar sight,
'O thou who gladdenest man by speech and rarest quality; * Grow
longing and repine for thee and grow beyond degree!
In thee two things consume and melt the votaries of Love; * The
dulcet song of David joined with Joseph's brilliancy.'
When I heard her voice of melody reciting the sublime Koran, my heart quoted from her killing glances, 'Peace, a word from a compassionating Lord;'[FN#513] but I stammered[FN#514] in my speech and could not say the salam-salutation aright, for my mind and sight were confounded and I was become as saith the bard,
'Love-longing urged me not except to trip in speech o'er free; *
Nor, save to shed my blood I passed the campment's boundary:
I ne'er will hear a word from those who love to rail, but I *
Will testify to love of him with every word of me.'
Then I hardened myself against the horrors of repine and said to her, 'Peace be with thee, O noble Lady, and treasured jewel! Allah grant endurance to the foundation of thy fortune fair and upraise the pillars of thy glory rare!' Said she, 'And on thee from me be peace and salutation and high honour, O Abdullah, O son of Fazil! Well come and welcome and fair welcome to thee, O dearling mine and coolth of mine eyne!' Rejoined I, 'O my lady, whence wottest thou my name and who art thou and what case befel the people of this city, that they are become stones? I would have thee tell me the truth of the matter, for indeed I am admiring at this city and its citizens and that I have found none alive therein save thyself. So, Allah upon thee, tell me the cause of all this, according to the truth!' Quoth she, 'Sit, O Abdullah, and Inshallah, I will talk with thee and acquaint thee in full with the facts of my case and of this place and its people; and there is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!' So I sat me down by her side and she said to me, 'Know, O Abdullah, (may Allah have mercy on thee!) that I am the daughter of the King of this city and that it is my sire whom thou sawest seated on the high stead in the Divan, and those who are round about him were the Lords of his land and the Guards of his empery. He was a King of exceeding prowess and had under his hand a thousand thousand and sixty thousand troopers. The number of the Emirs of his Empire was four-and-twenty thousand, all of them Governors and Dignitaries. He was obeyed by a thousand cities, besides towns, hamlets and villages; and sconces and citadels, and the Emirs[FN#515] of the wild Arabs under his hand were a thousand in number, each commanding twenty thousand horse. Moreover, he had monies and treasures and precious stones and jewels and things of price, such as eye never saw nor of which ear ever heard.'"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Nine Hundred and Eight-third Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Princess, daughter to the King of the Stone-city, thus continued, "Verily, O Abdullah my father had monies and hoards, such as eye never saw and of which ear never heard. He used to debel Kings and do to death champions and braves in battle and in the field of fight, so that the Conquerors feared him and the Chosroлs[FN#516] humbled themselves to him. For all this, he was a miscreant in creed ascribing to Allah partnership and adoring idols, instead of the Lord of worship; and all his troops were of images fain in lieu of the All-knowing Sovereign. One day of the days as he sat on the throne of his Kingship, compassed about with the Grandees of his realm, suddenly there came in to him a Personage, whose face illumined the whole Divan with its light. My father looked at him and saw him clad in a garb of green,[FN#517] tall of stature and with hands that reached beneath his knees. He was of reverend aspect and awesome and the light[FN#518] shone from his face. Said he to my sire, 'O rebel, O idolater, how long wilt thou take pride in worshipping idols and abandoning the service of the All-knowing King? Say, 'I testify that there is no god but the God and that Mohammed is His servant and His messenger.' And embrace Al-Islam, thou and thy tribe; and put away from you the worship of idols, for they neither suffice man's need nor intercede. None is worshipful save Allah alone, who raised up the heavens without columns and spread out the earths like carpets in mercy to His creatures.'[FN#519] Quoth my father, 'Who art thou, O man who rejectest the worship of idols, that thou sayst thus? Fearest thou not that the idols will be wroth with thee?' He replied, 'The idols are stones; their anger cannot prejudice me nor their favour profit me. So do thou set in my presence thine idol which thou adorest and bid all thy folk bring each his image: and when they are all present, do ye pray them to be wroth with me and I will pray my Lord to be wroth with them, and ye shall descry the difference between the anger of the creature and that of the Creator. For your idols, ye fashioned them yourselves and the Satans clad themselves therewith as with clothing, and they it is who spake to you from within the bellies of the images,[FN#520] for your idols are made and the maker is my God to whom naught is impossible. An the True appear to you, do ye follow it, and if the False appear to you do ye leave it.' Cried they, 'Give us a proof of thy god, that we may see it;' and quoth he, 'Give me proof of your gods.' So the King bade every one who worshipped his lord in image-form to bring it, and all the armies brought their idols to the Divan. Thus fared it with them; but as for me, I was sitting behind a curtain, whence I could look upon my father's Divan, and I had an idol of emerald whose bigness was as the bigness of a son of Adam. My father demanded it, so I sent it to the Divan, where they set it down beside that of my sire, which was of jacinth, whilst the Wazir's idol was of diamond.[FN#521] As for those of the Grandees and Notables, some were of balass-ruby and some of carnelian, others of coral or Comorin aloes-wood and yet others of ebony or silver or gold; and each had his own idol, after the measure of his competence; whilst the idols of the common soldiers and of the people were some of granite, some of wood, some of pottery and some of mud; and all were of various hues yellow and red; green, black and white. Then said the Personage to my sire, 'Pray your idol and these idols to be wroth with me.' So they aligned the idols in a Divan,[FN#522] setting my father's idol on a chair of gold at the upper end, with mine by its side, and ranking the others each according to the condition of him who owned it and worshipped it. Then my father arose and prostrating himself to his own idol, said to it, 'O my god, thou art the Bountiful Lord, nor is there among the idols a greater than thyself. Thou knowest that this person cometh to me, attacking thy divinity and making mock of thee; yea, he avoucheth that he hath a god stronger than thou and ordereth us leave adoring thee and adore his god. So be thou wrath with him, O my god!' And he went on to supplicate the idol; but the idol returned him no reply neither bespoke him with aught of speech; whereupon quoth he, 'O my god, this is not of thy wont, for thou usedst to answer me, when I addressed thee. How cometh it that I see thee silent and speaking not? Art thou unheeding or asleep?[FN#523] Awake; succour me and speak to me!' And he shook it with his hand; but it spake not neither stirred from its stead. Thereupon quoth the Personage, 'What aileth thine idol that it speaketh not?'; and quoth the King, 'Methinks he is absent-minded or asleep.' Exclaimed the other, 'O enemy of Allah, how canst thou worship a god that speaketh not nor availeth unto aught and not worship my God, who to prayers deigns assent and who is ever present and never absent, neither unheeding nor sleeping, whom conjecture may not ween, who seeth and is not seen and who over all things terrene is omnipotent? Thy god is powerless and cannot guard itself from harm; and indeed a stoned Satan had clothed himself therewith as with a coat that he might debauch thee and delude thee. But now hath its devil departed; so do thou worship Allah and testify that there is no god but He and that none is worshipful nor worshipworth but Himself; neither is there any good but His good. As for this thy god, it cannot ward off hurt from it; so how shall it ward off harm from thee? See with thine own eyes its impotence.' So saying, he went up to the idol and dealt it a cuff on the neck, that it fell to the ground; whereupon the King waxed wroth and cried to the bystanders, 'This froward atheist hath smitten my god. Slay him!' So they would have arisen to smite him, but none of them could stir from his place. Then he propounded to them Al-Islam; but they refused to become Moslems and he said, 'I will show you the wroth of my Lord.' Quoth they, 'Let us see it!' So he spread out his hands and said, 'O my God and my Lord, Thou art my stay and my hope; answer Thou my prayer against these lewd folk, who eat of Thy good and worship other gods. O Thou the Truth, O Thou of All- might, O Creator of Day and Night, I beseech Thee to turn these people into stones, for Thou art the Puissant nor is aught impossible to Thee, and Thou over all things are omnipotent!' And Allah transformed the people of this city into stones; but, as for me, when I saw the manifest proof of His deity, I submitted myself to Him and was saved from that which befel the rest. Then the Personage drew near me and said 'Felicity[FN#524] was fore- ordained of Allah to thee and in this a purpose had He.' And he went on to instruct me and I took unto him the oath and covenant.[FN#525] I was then seven years of age and am now thirty years old. Then said I to him, 'O my lord, all that is in the city and all its citizens are become stones by thine effectual prayer, and I am saved, for that I embraced Al-Islam at thy hands. Wherefore thou art become my Shaykh; so do thou tell me thy name and succour me with thy security and provide me with provision whereon I may subsist.' Quoth he, 'My name is Abu al- 'Abbбs al-Khizr'; and he planted me a pomegranate-tree, which forthright grew up and foliaged, flowered and fruited, and bare one pomegranate; whereupon quoth he, 'Eat of that wherewith Allah the Almighty provideth thee and worship Him with the worship which is His due.' Then he taught me the tenets of Al-Islam and the canons of prayer and the way of worship, together with the recital of the Koran, and I have now worshipped Allah in this place three-and-twenty years. Each day the tree yieldeth me a pomegranate which I eat and it sustaineth me from tide to tide; and every Friday, Al-Khizr (on whom be peace!) cometh to me and 'tis he who acquainted me with thy name and gave me the glad tidings of thy soon coming hither, saying to me, 'When he shall come to thee, entreat him with honour and obey his bidding and gainsay him not; but be thou to him wife and he shall be to thee man, and wend with him whitherso he will.' So, when I saw thee, I knew thee and such is the story of this city and of its people, and the Peace!'" Then she showed me the pomegranate-tree, whereon was one granado, which she took and eating one-half thereof herself, gave me the other to eat, and never did I taste aught sweeter or more savoury or more satisfying than that pomegranate. After this, I said to her, 'Art thou content, even as the Shaykh Al-Khizr charged thee, to be my wife and take me to mate; and art thou ready to go with me to my own country and abide with me in the city of Bassorah?' She replied, 'Yes, Inshallah: an it please Almighty Allah. I hearken to thy word and obey thy hest without gainsaying.' Then I made a binding covenant with her and she carried me into her father's treasury, whence we took what we could carry and going forth that city, walked on till we came to my brothers, whom I found searching for me. They asked, 'Where hast thou been? Indeed thou hast tarried long from us, and our hearts were troubled for thee.' And the captain of the ship said to me, 'O merchant Abdullah, the wind hath been fair for us this great while, and thou hast hindered us from setting sail.' And I answered, 'There is no harm in that: ofttimes slow[FN#526] is sure and my absence hath wrought us naught but advantage, for indeed, there hath betided me therein the attainment of our hopes and God-gifted is he who said,
'I weet not, whenas to a land I fare * In quest of good, what I
shall there obtain;
Or gain I fare with sole desire to seek; * Or loss that seeketh
me when seek I gain.'
Then said I to them, 'See what hath fallen to me in this mine absence;' and displayed to them all that was with me of treasures and told them what I had beheld in the City of Stone, adding, 'Had ye hearkened to me and gone with me, ye had gotten of these things great gain.'"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.