The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I. / Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

by Unknown

I obeyed, therefore, and went to the house; but when I approached it, I shrieked out, and shed tears; whereupon the people of the quarter assembled together, old and young; and my master's wife and daughters, hearing my cry, opened the door, and asked me what was the matter. I answered them, My master was sitting beneath an old wall, he and his friends, and it fell upon them; and when I beheld what happened to them, I mounted the mule, and came in haste to inform you. And when his children and wife heard these words, they shrieked, and tore their clothes, and slapped their faces, and the neighbours came to them. Then my master's wife overturned the furniture of the house, one thing upon another, and pulled down its shelves, and broke its shutters and its windows, and smeared its walls with mud and indigo, and said to me. Wo to thee, O Káfoor! Come hither and help me, and demolish these cupboards, and smash these vessels and this China-ware.—So I went to her, and destroyed with her the shelves of the house and all that was upon them, and its cupboards and what they contained, and went about over the terraces and through every place until I had laid waste the whole, crying all the while, Oh my master! My mistress then went forth, with her face uncovered, and only with her head-veil, and the girls and boys went with her, saying to me, O Káfoor, walk on before us, and shew us the place where thy master lieth dead beneath the wall, that we may take him forth from under the ruins, and carry him in a bier, and bring him to the house, and convey his corpse in a handsome manner to the burial. So I walked before them, crying, Oh my master!—and they followed me with their faces and heads uncovered,[14] crying, Oh our misfortune! Oh our calamity!—and there was none among the men, nor among the women, nor among the children, nor a maiden, nor an old woman, [in the quarter,] who did not accompany us; and all of them slapped themselves in the excess of their lamentation. Thus I went with them through the city; and the people asking the news, they informed them of that which they had heard from me; and the people exclaimed, There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! We will go to the Wálee, and acquaint him.—And when they arrived before the Wálee, they informed him; and he mounted, and took with him labourers with axes and baskets, and they followed my footsteps, accompanied by a crowd of people.

I preceded them, weeping and crying out, and throwing dust upon my head, and slapping my face; and when I came to the party in the garden, and my master beheld me, I slapped my face, and exclaimed, Oh my mistress! who will have pity upon me after my mistress? Would that I had been her sacrifice!—When my master, therefore, saw me, he was confounded, his countenance became pale, and he said, What aileth thee, O Káfoor, and what is this predicament, and what is the news? I answered him, When thou sentest me to the house to bring thee what thou wantedst, I went thither and entered the house, and found that the wall of the saloon had fallen, and that the whole saloon had tumbled down upon my mistress and her children.—And did not thy mistress, said he, escape? I answered, No: not one of them escaped; and the first of them that died was my mistress the elder.—But did my youngest daughter escape? he asked. I answered, No.—And what, said he, hath become of the mule that I ride: is she safe?—No, O my master, I answered: for the walls of the house and the walls of the stable tumbled down upon all that was in the house; even upon the sheep and the geese and the hens, and all of them became a mass of flesh beneath the ruins; not one of them escaped. He then said to me, And thy master the elder? I answered, No: not one escaped; and now there remains neither house nor inhabitant, nor any trace of them; and as to the sheep and the geese and the hens, the cats and dogs have now eaten them.—And when my master heard my words, the light became darkness before his face, and he was no longer master of his senses nor of his reason, and was unable to stand upon his feet: he was paralyzed, and the strength of his back failed him, and he rent his clothes and plucked his beard and slapped his face and threw his turban from his head, and ceased not to slap his face until the blood flowed from it: and he began to cry, Ah! Oh my children! Ah! Oh my wife! Ah! Oh my misfortune! Unto whom hath happened the like of that which hath happened to me?—The merchants, also, his companions, joined with him in cries and lamentations, and were moved with pity for his case, and rent their clothes; and my master went forth from the garden, beating himself for the calamity that had [as he supposed] befallen him, and redoubled the blows upon his face, seeming as though he were drunk.

And as the party thus went out from the gate of the garden, they beheld a great dust, and heard tumultuous cries, and, looking in that direction, saw the crowd approaching them. This crowd was the Wálee and his attendants, and a concourse of people who had come to gratify their curiosity, with the merchant's family behind them, shrieking and crying with violent lamentation and excessive grief; and the first who accosted my master were his wife and children. On beholding these, he was confounded, and laughed, and said to them, How are ye; and what hath happened to you in the house, and what hath befallen you? And when they saw him, they exclaimed, Praise be to God for thy safety! And they threw themselves upon him, and his children clung to him, crying out, Oh our father! Praise be to God for thy safety, O our father!—and his wife said to him, Praise be to God who hath shewn us thy face in safety!—and she was stupified, and her reason fled from her at that which she beheld. She then said to him, How didst thou escape with thy friends?—And how, said he, were ye in the house?—We were all well, they answered, in prosperity and health, and no evil hath befallen our house, save that thy slave Káfoor came to us with his head uncovered and his clothes rent, crying out, Oh my master! Oh my master!—and we said to him, What is the matter, O Káfoor?—and he answered, My master was sitting under a wall in the garden, and it fell upon him, and he died.—By Allah, replied my master, he came to me just now, crying, Oh my mistress! Oh the children of my mistress!—and said, My mistress and her children are all dead!

He then looked aside, and, seeing me with my turban falling from my head, while I still cried out and wept violently and threw dust upon my head, he called out to me: so I approached him, and he said to me, Wo to thee! O malevolent slave! O misbegotten wretch! O thou of accursed race! What events hast thou brought about! But, by Allah, I will strip off thy skin from thy flesh, and cut thy flesh from thy bones!—By Allah, replied I, thou canst not do to me anything; for thou boughtest me with my fault, on this condition, the witnesses testifying that thou boughtest me with my fault, thou knowing it, and it was, that I was accustomed to tell one lie every year; and this is but half a lie, and when the year is complete I will tell the other half of it; so it will be an entire lie. But upon this, he cried out at me, O most accursed of slaves! is this but half a lie? Nay, it is an exceeding calamity! Depart from me; for thou art free![15]—By Allah, I replied, if thou liberate me, I will not liberate thee until the year be complete, and I tell the remaining half of the lie; and when I have completed it, then take me to the market, and sell me as thou boughtest me with my fault, and liberate me not; for I have no trade by means of which to procure my subsistence: this is a legal proposition that I have stated to thee, laid down by the lawyers in the Chapter of Emancipation.[16]—While we were thus talking, the crowd approached, with the people of the quarter, women and men, come to mourn, and the Wálee with his attendants: and my master and the other merchants went to the Wálee, and acquainted him with the case, and that this was but half a lie; and when the people who were present heard this, they were astonished at this lie, and struck with the utmost wonder; and they cursed and reviled me; while I stood laughing, and saying, How can my master kill me when he bought me with this fault?

So when my master went to the house, he found it in a state of ruin (and it was I who destroyed the greater part, and broke in it things worth a large sum of money); and his wife said to him, It was Káfoor who broke the vessels and the China-ware. Upon this, his rage increased, and he exclaimed, By Allah! in my life I have never seen such a misbegotten wretch as this slave; yet he calleth it half a lie! What then would have been the result had it been a whole lie! In that case he had destroyed a city, or two cities!—Then, in the excess of his rage, he went to the Wálee, who inflicted upon me a severe beating, so that I became insensible, and swooned away; after which, my master contrived means of obtaining for me a high price, and I ceased not to excite disturbances in the places into which I was sold, and was transferred from Emeer to Emeer and from Grandee to Grandee, by sale and purchase, until I entered the palace of the Prince of the Faithful, and now my spirit is broken, and my strength hath failed.

CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF GHÁNIM THE SON OF EIYOOB, THE DISTRACTED SLAVE OF LOVE.

When the other slaves had heard his story, they laughed at it, and said to him, Verily thou art a villain, the son of a villain: thou hast told an abominable lie. The first and second then said to the third slave, Relate to us thy story.—O sons of my uncle, he replied, all that hath just been related is nonsense: but my story is long, and this is not a time to tell it; for the morning, O sons of my uncle, is near, and perhaps it may overtake us with this chest still before us, and we shall be disgraced among the public, and our lives will be lost; haste then to work, and when we have finished, and returned home, I will relate to you my story. So they put down the light, and dug a trench of the size of the chest between four tombs; Káfoor digging, and Ṣawáb removing the earth in baskets, until they had dug to the depth of half a fathom, when they put the chest into the trench, and replaced the earth over it, and went forth from the enclosure, and, having closed the gate, disappeared from before the eyes of Ghánim the son of Eiyoob.

When, therefore, they had left the place vacant unto Ghánim, and he knew that he was alone, his mind became busied respecting the contents of the chest, and he said within himself, What can this chest contain? He waited until daybreak gleamed and shone forth, and then descended from the palm-tree, and removed the earth with his hand until he had uncovered the chest and disengaged it, when he took a stone, and struck with it the lock, and broke it; and lifting up the cover, he looked in, and beheld a sleeping damsel, stupified with benj,[17] but still breathing: she was of beautiful and lovely person, and decked with ornaments of gold, and necklaces of jewels, worth a kingdom, and of a value that no money would equal. When Ghánim the son of Eiyoob beheld her, he knew that she had been the object of a plot, and, being convinced of this, he pulled her up until he had lifted her out of the chest, and laid her upon her back; and as soon as she scented the breeze, and the air entered her nostrils and her mouth and throat, she sneezed, and then was choked, and coughed, whereupon there fell from her throat a round piece of benj, of such potency that if an elephant smelt it he would sleep from one night to another. She then opened her eyes, and, looking round, said, with an eloquent voice, Wo to thee, O wind! Thou neither satisfiest the thirsty, nor cheerest by thy presence the satisfied with drink! Where is Zahr-el-Bustán?—But no one answered her. Then looking aside, she exclaimed, Ṣabeeḥah! Shejeret-ed-Durr! Noor-el-Hudà! Nejmet-eṣ-Ṣubḥ! Art thou awake?[18] Nuzheh! Ḥulweh! Ẓareefeh! Speak ye!—But no one answered her. And she looked round about her, and exclaimed, Alas for me, that I am transported to the tombs! O Thou who knowest the secrets of the breasts, and recompensest on the day of resurrection! who hath brought me from among the curtains and the veils, and placed me amid four tombs?