“Then that weaver youth said, ‘O king, let them bring a cap that I may wind the turban for the king.’ They brought a cap, and the weaver youth laid that paper before him and moved his hands as though he wound the turban, and he put it on the king’s head. All the nobles who were standing there said, ‘Blessed be it! O king, how fair, how beautiful a turban!’ and they applauded it much. Then the king rose and went with two vezirs into a private room and said, “O vezirs, I am then a bastard; I see not the turban.’ Quoth the vezirs, ‘O king, we too see it not,’ At length they knew of a surety that the turban had no existence, and that that weaver had thus played a trick for the sake of money.
“O king, thou too sayest, ‘On the morrow will I kill him; I will do this and I will do that;’ and yet there is nothing. O king, I had that dream this night, there is no doubt that it is as I have interpreted. O king, if the king’s life and throne go, who knows what they will do to hapless me?” And she began to weep. When the king saw the lady thus weeping his heart was pained and he said, “On the morrow I will indeed refuse the words of whichsoever of my vezirs makes intercession for him, and I will indeed kill the youth; for, according to the dream thou hast had, this is no light affair.”
When it was morning the king came and sat upon his throne, and he caused the youth to be brought and commanded the executioner, “Smite off his head.” Whereupon the thirteenth vezir came forward and sought to make intercession, but the king was wroth and said, “Be silent, speak not.” Thereupon the vezir drew a paper from his breast and said, “For God’s sake read this paper, then thou wilt know.” Then the king looked at the paper and saw that there was written thereon, “O king, yesterday I looked at the astrolabe; for forty days is the prince’s ruling star in very evil aspect, such that the prince may even lose his head.” Then all the forty vezirs came forward at once and said, “O king, for the love of God and the honor of Muhammed Mustafa, for the forty days have patience and slay not the prince; thereafter it is certain that this affair will be made clear, and when its origin is known must each one receive his due.” Then said the vezir, “There is a story suitable to this; if the king grant leave I will tell it.” The king said, “Tell on, let us hear.” Quoth the vezir:
The Vicissitudes of Life
“There was in the palace of the world a great king and he ruled over the Seven Climes. But he had neither son nor daughter, and he was ever offering sacrifices in the way of God. One day God most high accepted his sacrifice and bestowed on him from his bounty a fair son who was in his time a second Joseph. So the king was glad, and that day he held a high feast, and at that feast he gave robes of honor and money to many men. After that he assembled the astrologers and made them cast the prince’s horoscope; and the astrologers looked the one at the other and were bewildered and confounded. Then the king said, ‘What see ye that ye stand looking the one at the other?’ The astrologers replied, ‘O king of the world, we have cast the prince’s horoscope; and in the astrolabe and the Jāmesb-Nāma they thus rule, that from his thirtieth year to his sixtieth the prince’s ruling star is afflicted so that he shall wander in strange lands, with tribulation and pain for his companions: “None ... knoweth the unseen save God.”‘[36] After the king had heard these things from the astrologers, at times his heart would be sad and at times he would plunge into the ocean of deliberation. Saying, ‘God knows the end of the boy,’ he began to train up the prince. When the latter entered his seventh year he appointed him a teacher, and he passed some years in acquiring reading and writing. When he was become a young man his father got for him a king’s daughter; and after a time the prince had two sons. These children, too, in a little time acquired knowledge; and from time to time they would go out a-pleasuring with their father.
“One day the prince’s heart desired a sea-voyage, and he commanded that they prepare a ship, and with his children and forty slaves and attendants he entered the ship. For many days they sailed the sea full pleasantly. But there was there a Frankish corsair filled with infidels, and they encountered the prince’s ship and straightway flung their grappling-irons, and took captive the prince and his two sons and forty servants, and went off. They took the prince and the forty men and sold them to the cannibal negroes; but the two boys they sold not, but kept by them. The negroes fed up the prince and the men with delicate and delicious foods, and every day they took one of them to their king’s kitchen and cut his throat, and cooked him at the fire and ate him. When they had eaten the forty men, the prince’s turn came, him too they took and brought to the kitchen that they might cut his throat. The prince perceived that plight, and he entreated God in his heart to give him strength, and he burst the fetters that were round his wrists and, striking about with the chains that were in his hands, he slipped through them and rushed out.
“While he was running on, a vast forest appeared before him, he entered it, and although the negroes searched for him they could not find him. Then he came out thence and fared on many stages till one day he came to a great city. The people crying, ‘He is an enemy,’ rushed upon him. And the prince exclaimed, ‘O Lord, what tribulation is this!’ and fought with them. Word was brought to their king, and he came and saw that the prince was fighting like a dragon. When the king saw the prince’s valor he admired it, and said to his soldiers who were there, ‘Let no one attack the stranger.’ Then the soldiers dispersed, and the king took the prince and went to the palace. He prepared a suit of clothes, and sent him to the bath, and caused his head to be shaven and made him put on those clothes, and brought him back to the palace. The king said, ‘Come, remain by me, I have a daughter, I will give her thee.’ The prince consented; so they gave him the king’s daughter; and he remained there two years and his lot was right pleasant. One day the prince’s wife died; now this was their custom, they had a great deep pit, and if a man died they put his wife with him alive into that pit, and if a woman died they did the same with her husband; and they let down along with them a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water, and covered over the pit with a great stone.
“So they brought the prince and his wife with a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water to that pit, and, saying, ‘It is our custom,’ lowered both of them into the pit and placed that great stone over them. When the prince saw himself in such case he was bewildered and said, ‘My God! what plight is this!’ and he prayed to God. And he searched the inside of the pit carefully and saw a fair girl seated there, and he asked her, ‘What manner of girl art thou?’ She replied, ‘I am a young bride; they have put me into this pit with my husband.’ And the prince examined the pit, and saw it to be all full of the bodies of men, some of which were decayed and some of which were writhing in the agonies of death; and dread overcame the prince. Of a sudden, while he was seated, a rustling sound came from one part of the pit; the prince knew that it was some beast, and he arose and went with the girl straight to that place, and he found the passage through which that beast had come in. They went for a time through that passage, and at length came out on the skirt of a mountain on the bank of a great river. And they were glad thereat, and thanked God much.
“And there they found a boat, and they gathered fruit from that mountain and filled the boat, and they both entered the boat and went along with the current of the river. That river grew wider day by day; but it passed underneath a great mountain. When they came near to the tunnel under that mountain they could not govern the boat, and the water took the boat and bore it under the mountain. When the prince saw this he exclaimed, ‘My God! O Lord! what tribulation is this too! how shall we escape from this!’ Helpless they sat in the boat; now the water dashed the boat against the rocks, now it made it fly down precipices, and now the mountain became low and pushed the boat under the water; and they, never ceasing, emptied the water out of the boat. They knew not at all whither the boat was going, neither did they know whether it was night or day. For a long time they were a prey to that anguish; and scarce a spark of life remained in their bodies when, at length, after a hundred thousand perils, their boat came out from under the mountain on to the surface of the earth.
“They were glad, and they drew their boat to the shore and got out of it, and took fruits from the trees that were there, and ate them. While standing there they saw a great white vaulted building, the dome whereof was of crystal. The prince and the girl went up to it, and they saw that it was a great castle, and that the domed building was within the castle, and on the door of the castle was written, ‘O thou who wouldst open this door, O thou who desirest to overcome this talisman, bring a five-footed animal and kill it before here, that the bolts of this talisman may be opened thereby,’ The prince marvelled and said, ‘Is there in the world a five-footed animal?’ and he wondered. And they sat by the gate of the castle and lice tormented them, and they began to louse themselves. The prince killed a louse, and straightway the bolts of the castle fell, and they knew that the said five-footed animal was the louse. Then they both entered by a door, and they saw a garden, such that of every tree which is in the world there was therein; and ripe fruits were hanging there and running streams were flowing.