Now, at these words the fox-heads and the sheep-heads and the ass-heads
and the other heads of beasts were lifted up, and lo! they put their
hands to their ears, and tapped their foreheads with the finger of
reflection, as creatures seeking to bring to mind a serious matter. Then
the fountains rose higher, and flung jets of radiant jewels, and a
drenching spray of gems upon them, and new thirst aroused them to renew
their gulping of the falls, and a look of eagerness was even in the eyes
of the ass-heads and the silly sheep-heads; surely, Shibli Bagarag
laughed to see them! Now, when he had pressed his lips to recover his
sight from the dazzling of those wondrous fountains, he heard himself
again addressed by the title of King, and there was before him a lofty
cock with a man's head. So he resumed the majesty of his march, and
followed the fine-stepping cock into another hall, spacious, and clouded
with heavy scents and perfumes burning in censers and urns, musk, myrrh,
ambergris, and livelier odours, gladdening the nostril like wine, making
the soul reel as with a draught of the forbidden drink. Here, before a
feast that would prick the dead with appetite, were shapes of beasts with
heads of men, asses, elephants, bulls, horses, swine, foxes,
river-horses, dromedaries; and they ate and drank as do the famished with
munch and gurgle, clacking their lips joyfully. Shibli Bagarag remembered
the condition of his frame when first he looked upon the City of Shagpat,
and was incited to eat and accede to the invitation of the cock with the
man's head, and sit among these merry feeders and pickers of
mouth-watering morsels, when, with the City of Shagpat, lo! he had a
vision of Shagpat, hairier than at their interview, arrogant in
hairiness; his head remote in contemptuous waves and curls and frizzes,
and bushy protuberances of hair, lost in it, like an idolatrous temple in
impenetrable thickets. Then the yearning of the Barber seized Shibli
Bagarag, and desire to shear Shagpat was as a mighty overwhelming wave in
his bosom, and he shouted, 'The Sword of Aklis! nought save the Sword!'
Now, at these words the beasts with men's heads wagged their tails, all
of them, from right to left, and kept their jaws from motion, staring
stupidly at the dishes; but the dishes began to send forth stealthy
steams, insidious whispers to the nose, silver intimations of
savouriness, so that they on a sudden set up a howl, and Shibli Bagarag
puckered his garments from them as from devouring dogs, and hastened from
that hall to a third, where at the entrance a damsel stood that smiled to
him, and led him into a vast marbled chamber, forty cubits high, hung
with draperies, and in it a hundred doors; and he was in the midst of a
very rose-garden of young beauties, such as the Blest behold in Paradise,
robed in the colours of the rising and setting sun; plump, with long,
black, languishing, almond-shaped eyes, and undulating figures. So they
cried to him, 'What greeting, O our King?'
Now, he counted twenty and seven of them, and, fitting his gallantry to
verse, answered:
Poor are the heavens that have not ye
To swell their glowing plenty;
Up there but one bright moon I see,
Here mark I seven-and-twenty.
The damsels laughed and flung back their locks at his flattery, sporting
with him; and he thought, 'These be sweet maidens! I will know if they be
illusions like Rabesqurat'; so, as they were romping, he slung his right
arm round one, and held the Lily to her, but there was no change in her
save that she winked somewhat and her eyes watered; and it was so with
the others, for when they saw him hold the Lily to one they made him do
so to them likewise. Then he took the phial, and touched their lips with
the waters, and lo! they commenced luting and laughing, and singing
verses, and prattling, laughing betweenwhiles at each other; and one, a
noisy one, with long, black, unquiet tresses, and a curved foot and
roguish ankle, sang as she twirled:
My heart is another's, I cannot be tender;
Yet if thou storm it, I fain must surrender.
And another, a fresh-cheeked, fair-haired, full-eyed damsel, strong upon
her instep and stately in the bearing of her shoulders, sang shrilly:
I'm of the mountains, and he that comes to me
Like eagle must win, and like hurricane woo me.
And another, reclining on a couch buried in dusky silks, like a butterfly
under the leaves, a soft ball of beauty, sang moaningly:
Here like a fruit on the branch am I swaying;
Snatch ere I fall, love! there's death in delaying.
And another, light as an antelope on the hills, with antelope eyes edged
with kohl, and timid, graceful movements, and small, white, rounded ears,
sang clearly:
Swiftness is mine, and I fly from the sordid;
Follow me, follow! and you'll be rewarded.
And another, with large limbs and massive mould, that stepped like a cow
leisurely cropping the pasture, and shook with jewels amid her black hair
and above her brown eyes, and round her white neck and her wrists, and on
her waist, even to her ankle, sang as with a kiss upon every word:
Sweet 'tis in stillness and bliss to be basking!
He who would have me, may have for the asking.
And another, with eyebrows like a bow, and arrows of fire in her eyes,
and two rosebuds her full moist parted pouting lips, sang, clasping her
hands, and voiced like the tremulous passionate bulbul in the shadows of
the moon:
Love is my life, and with love I live only;
Give me life, lover, and leave me not lonely.
And a seventh, a very beam of beauty, and the perfection of all that is
imagined in fairness and ample grace of expression and proportion, lo!
she came straight to Shibli Bagarag, and took him by the hand and pierced
him with lightning glances, singing:
Were we not destined to meet by one planet?
Can a fate sever us?--can it, ah! can it?
And she sang tender songs to him, mazing him with blandishments, so that
the aim of existence and the summit of ambition now seemed to him the
life of a king in that palace among the damsels; and he thought, 'Wah!
these be no illusions, and they speak the thing that is in them. Wullahy,
loveliness is their portion; they call me King.'
Then she that had sung to him said, 'Surely we have been waiting thee
long to crown thee our King! Thou hast been in some way delayed, O
glorious one!'
And he answered, 'O fair ones, transcending in affability, I have
stumbled upon obstructions in my journey hither, and I have met with
adventures, but of this crowning that was to follow them I knew nought.
Wullahy, thrice have I been saluted King; I whom fate selecteth for the
shaving of Shagpat, and till now it was a beguilement, all emptiness.'
They marked his bewildered state, and some knelt before him, some held
their arms out adoringly, some leaned to him with glistening looks, and
he was fast falling a slave to their flatteries, succumbing to them;
imagination fired him with the splendours due to one that was a king, and
the thought of wearing a crown again took possession of his soul, and he
cried, 'Crown me, O my handmaidens, and delay not to crown me; for, as
the poet says:
“The king without his crown
Hath a forehead like the clown”;
and the circle of my head itcheth for the symbols of majesty.'
At these words of Shibli Bagarag they arose quickly and clapped their
hands, and danced with the nimble step of gladness, exclaiming, 'O our
King! pleasant will be the time with him!' And one smoothed his head and
poured oil upon it; one brought him garments of gold and silk inwoven;
one fetched him slippers like the sun's beam in brightness; others stood
together in clusters, and with lutes and wood-instruments, low-toned,
singing odes to him; and lo! one took a needle and threaded it, and gave
the thread into the hands of Shibli Bagarag, and with the point of the
needle she pricked certain letters on his right wrist, and afterwards
pricked the same letters on a door in the wall. Then she said to him, 'Is
it in thy power to make those letters speak?'