The story told by the Parrot on the 50th Night is very singular, and
presents, no doubt, a faithful picture of Oriental manners and customs.
In the original text it is entitled
_Story of the Daughter of the Kaysar of Rome, and her trouble by reason
of her Son._
In former times there was a great king, whose army was numerous and
whose treasury was full to overflowing; but, having no enemy to contend
with, he neglected to pay his soldiers, in consequence of which they
were in a state of destitution and discontent. At length one day the
soldiers went to the prime vazír and made their condition known to him.
The vazír promised that he would speedily devise a plan by which they
should have employment and money. Next morning he presented himself
before the king, and said that it was widely reported that the kaysar of
Rome had a daughter unsurpassed for beauty--one who was fit only for
such a great monarch as his Majesty--and suggested that it would be
advantageous if an alliance were formed between two such potentates. The
notion pleased the king well, and he forthwith despatched to Rome an
ambassador with rich gifts, and requested the kaysar to grant him his
daughter in marriage. But the kaysar waxed wroth at this, and refused to
give his daughter to the king. When the ambassador returned thus
unsuccessful, the king, enraged at being made of no account, resolved to
make war upon the kaysar, and, opening the doors of his treasury, he
distributed much money among his troops, and then, "with a woe-bringing
lust, and a blood-drinking army, he trampled Rome and the Romans in the
dust." And when the kaysar was become powerless, he sent his daughter to
the king, who married her according to the law of Islám.
Now that princess had a son by a former husband, and the kaysar had said
to her before she departed: "Beware that thou mention not thy son, for
my love for his society is great, and I cannot part with him." But the
princess was sick at heart for the absence of her son, and she was ever
pondering how she should speak to the king about him, and in what manner
she might contrive to bring him to her. It happened one day the king
gave her a string of pearls and a casket of jewels. She said: "With my
father is a slave well skilled in the science of jewels." The king
replied: "If I should ask that slave of thy father, would he give him to
me?" "Nay," said she; "for he holds him in the place of a son. But, if
the king desire him, I will send a merchant to Rome, and I myself will
give him a token, and with pleasant wiles and fair speeches will bring
him hither." Then the king sent for a clever merchant who knew Arabic
eloquently and the language of Rome, and gave him goods for trading, and
sent him to Rome with the object of procuring that slave. But the
daughter of the kaysar said privately to the merchant: "That slave is my
son; I have, for a good reason, said to the king that he is a slave; so
thou must bring him as a slave, and let it be thy duty to take care of
him." In due course the merchant brought the youth to the king's
service; and when the king saw his fair face, and discovered in him many
pleasing and varied accomplishments, he treated him with distinction and
favour, and conferred on the merchant a robe of honour and gifts. His
mother saw him from afar, and was pleased with receiving a salutation
from him.
One day (the text proceeds) the king had gone to the chase, and the
palace remained void of rivals; so the mother called in her son, kissed
his fair face, and told him the tale of her great sorrow. A chamberlain
became aware of the secret, and another suspicion fell upon him, and he
said to himself: "The harem of the king is the sanctuary of security and
the palace of protection. If I speak not of this, I shall be guilty of
treachery, and shall have wrought unfaithfulness." When the king
returned from the chase, the chamberlain related to him what he had
seen, and the king was angry and said: "This woman has deceived me with
words and deeds, and has brought hither her desire by craft and cunning.
This conjecture must be true, else why did she play such a trick, and
why did she hatch such a plot, and why did she send the merchant?" The
king, enraged, went into the harem. The queen saw from his countenance
that the occurrence of the night before had become known to him, and she
said: "Be it not that I see the king angry." He said: "How should I not
be angry? Thou, by craft, and trickery, and intrigue, and plotting, hast
brought thy desire from Rome--what wantonness is this that thou hast
done?" Then he thought to slay her, but he forbore, because of his great
love for her. But he ordered the chamberlain to carry the youth to some
obscure place, and straightway sever his head from his body. When the
poor mother saw this she well-nigh fell on her face, and her soul was
near leaving her body. But she knew that sorrow would not avail, and she
restrained herself.
And when the chamberlain took the youth into his own house, he said to
him: "O youth, know you not that the harem of the king is the sanctuary
of security? What great treachery is this that thou hast perpetrated?"
The youth replied: "That queen is my mother, and I am her true son.
Because of her natural delicacy, she said not to the king that she had a
son by another husband. And when yearning came over her, she contrived
to bring me here from Rome; and while the king was engaged in the chase
maternal love stirred, and she called me to her and embraced me." On
hearing this, the chamberlain said to himself: "What is passing in his
mother's breast? What I have not done I can yet do, and it were better
that I preserve this youth some days, for such a rose may not be wounded
through idle words, and such a bough may not be broken by a single
breath. For some day the truth of this matter will be disclosed, and it
will become known to the king, when repentance may be of no avail."
Another day he went before the king, and said: "That which was commanded
have I fulfilled." On hearing this the king's wrath was to some extent
removed, but his trust in the kaysar's daughter was departed; while she,
poor creature, was grieved and dazed at the loss of her son.
Now in the palace harem there was an old woman, who said to the queen:
"How is it that I find thee sorrowful?" And the queen told the whole
story, concealing nothing. The old woman was a heroine in the field of
craft, and she answered: "Keep thy mind at ease: I will devise a
stratagem by which the heart of the king will be pleased with thee, and
every grief he has will vanish from his heart." The queen said, that if
she did so she should be amply rewarded. One day the old woman, seeing
the king alone, said to him: "Why is thy former aspect altered, and why
are traces of care and anxiety visible on thy countenance?" The king
then told her all. The old woman said: "I have an amulet of the charms
of Solomon, in the Syriac language, in the the writing of the jinn
[genii]. When the queen is asleep do thou place it on her breast, and,
whatever it may be, she will tell all the truth of it. But take care,
fall thou not asleep, but listen well to what she says." The king
wondered at this, and said: "Give me that amulet, that the truth of this
matter may be learned." So the old woman gave him the amulet, and then
went to the queen and explained what she had done, and said: "Do thou
feign to be asleep, and relate the whole of the story faithfully."
When a watch of the night was past, the king laid the amulet upon his
wife's breast, and she thus began: "By a former husband I had a son, and
when my father gave me to this king, I was ashamed to say I had a tall
son. When my yearning passed all bounds, I brought him here by an
artifice. One day that the king was gone to the chase, I called him into
the house, when, after the way of mothers, I took him in my arms and
kissed him. This reached the king's ears, and he unwittingly gave it
another construction, and cut off the head of that innocent boy, and
withdrew from me his own heart. Alike is my son lost to me and the king
angry." When the king heard these words he kissed her and exclaimed: "O
my life, what an error is this thou hast committed? Thou hast brought
calumny upon thyself, and hast given such a son to the winds, and hast
made me ashamed!" Straightway he called the chamberlain and said: "That
boy whom thou hast killed is the son of my beloved and the darling of my
beauty! Where is his grave, that we may make there a guest-house?" The
chamberlain said: "That youth is yet alive. When the king commanded his
death I was about to kill him, but he said: 'That queen is my mother;
through modesty before the king she revealed not the secret that she had
a tall son. Kill me not; it may be that some day the truth will become
known, and repentance profits not, and regret is useless.'" The king
commanded them to bring the youth, so they brought him straightway. And
when the mother saw the face of her son, she thanked God and praised the
Most High, and became one of the Muslims, and from the sect of
unbelievers came into the faith of Islám. And the king favoured the
chamberlain in the highest degree, and they passed the rest of their
lives in comfort and ease.
* * * * *
This tale is also found in the Persian _Bakhtyár Náma_ (or the Ten
Vazírs), the precise date of which has not been ascertained, but a MS.
Túrkí (Uygúr) version of it, preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford,
bears to have been written in 1434; the Persian text must therefore have
been composed before that date. In the text translated by Sir William
Ouseley, in place of the daughter of the kaysar of Rome it is the
daughter of the king of Irák whom the king of Abyssinia marries, after
subduing the power of her father; and, so far from a present of jewels
to her being the occasion of her mentioning her son, in the condition of
a slave, it is said that one day the king behaved harshly to her, and
spoke disrespectfully of her father, upon which she boasted that her
father had in his service a youth of great beauty and possessed of every
accomplishment, which excited the king's desire to have him brought to
his court; and the merchant smuggled the youth out of the country of
Irák concealed in a chest, placed on the back of a camel. In
Lescallier's French translation it is said that the youth was the fruit
of a _liaison_ of the princess, unknown to her father; that his
education was secretly entrusted to certain servants; and that the
princess afterwards contrived to introduce the boy to her father, who
was so charmed with his beauty, grace of manner, and accomplishments,
that he at once took him into his service. Thus widely do manuscripts of
the same Eastern work vary!
_The King and his Seven Vazírs._
On the Eighth Night the Parrot relates, in a very abridged form, the
story of the prince who was falsely accused by one of his father's women
of having made love to her, and who was saved by the tales which the
royal counsellors related to the king in turn during seven consecutive
days. The original of this romance is the _Book of Sindibád_, so named
after the prince's tutor, Sindibád the sage: the Arabic version is known
under the title of the _Seven Vazírs_; the Hebrew, _Mishlé Sandabar_;
the Greek, _Syntipas_; and the Syriac, _Sindbán_; and its European
modifications, the _Seven Wise Masters_. In the Parrot-Book the first to
the sixth vazírs each relate one story only, and the damsel has no
stories (all other Eastern versions give two to each of the seven, and
six to the queen); the seventh vazír simply appears on the seventh day
and makes clear the innocence of the prince. This version, however,
though imperfect, is yet of some value in making a comparative study of
the several texts.