"If we 'plain of absence what shall we say? * Or if pain afflict us
where wend our way?
An I hire a truchman[FN#182] to tell my tale * The lover's plaint is
not told for pay:
If I put on patience, a lover's life * After loss of love will not last
a day:
Naught is left me now but regret, repine * And tears flooding cheeks
for ever and aye:
O thou who the babes of these eyes[FN#183] hast fled * Thou art homed
in heart that shall never stray
Would heaven I wot hast thou kept our pact * Long as stream shall flow,
to have firmest fay?
Or hast forgotten the weeping slave * Whom groans afflict and whom
griefs waylay?
Ah, when severance ends and we side by side * Couch, I'll blame thy
rigours and chide thy pride!"
Now when the portress heard her second ode she shrieked aloud and said,
"By Allah! 'tis right good!"; and laying hands on her garments tore
them, as she did the first time, and fell to the ground fainting.
Thereupon the procuratrix rose end brought her a second change of
clothes after she had sprinkled water on her. She recovered and sat
upright and said to her sister the cateress, "Onwards, and help me in
my duty, for there remains but this one song." So the provisioneress
again brought out the lute and began to sing these verses:—
"How long shall last, how long this rigour rife of woe * May not
suffice thee all these tears thou seest flow?
Our parting thus with purpose fell thou dost prolong * Is't not enough
to glad the heart of envious foe?
Were but this lying world once true to lover heart * He had not watched
the weary night in tears of woe:
Oh pity me whom overwhelmed thy cruel will * My lord, my king, 'tis
time some ruth to me thou show:
To whom reveal my wrongs, O thou who murdered me? * Sad, who of broken
troth the pangs must undergo!
Increase wild love for thee and phrenzy hour by hour * And days of
exile minute by so long, so slow;
O Moslems, claim vendetta[FN#184] for this slave of Love * Whose sleep
Love ever wastes, whose patience Love lays low:
Doth law of Love allow thee, O my wish! to lie * Lapt in another's arms
and unto me cry Go!?
Yet in thy presence, say, what joys shall I enjoy * When he I love but
works my love to overthrow?"
When the portress heard the third song she cried aloud; and, laying
hands on her garments, rent them down to the very skirt and fell to the
ground fainting a third time, again showing the scars of the scourge.
Then said the three Kalandars, "Would Heaven we had never entered this
house, but had rather nighted on the mounds and heaps outside the city!
for verily our visit hath been troubled by sights which cut to the
heart." The Caliph turned to them and asked, "Why so?" and they made
answer, "Our minds are sore troubled by this matter." Quoth the Caliph,
"Are ye not of the household?" and quoth they, "No; nor indeed did we
ever set eyes on the place till within this hour." Hereat the Caliph
marvelled and rejoined, "This man who sitteth by you, would he not know
the secret of the matter?" and so saying he winked and made signs at
the Porter. So they questioned the man but he replied, "By the All
might of Allah, in love all are alike![FN#185] I am the growth of
Baghdad, yet never in my born days did I darken these doors till to day
and my companying with them was a curious matter." "By Allah," they
rejoined, "we took thee for one of them and now we see thou art one
like ourselves." Then said the Caliph, "We be seven men, and they only
three women without even a fourth to help them; so let us question them
of their case; and, if they answer us not, fain we will be answered by
force." All of them agreed to this except Ja'afar who said,[FN#186]
"This is not my recking; let them be; for we are their guests and, as
ye know, they made a compact and condition with us which we accepted
and promised to keep: wherefore it is better that we be silent
concerning this matter; and, as but little of the night remaineth, let
each and every of us gang his own gait." Then he winked at the Caliph
and whispered to him, "There is but one hour of darkness left and I can
bring them before thee to morrow, when thou canst freely question them
all concerning their story." But the Caliph raised his head haughtily
and cried out at him in wrath, saying, "I have no patience left for my
longing to hear of them: let the Kalandars question them forthright."
Quoth Ja'afar, "This is not my rede." Then words ran high and talk
answered talk, and they disputed as to who should first put the
question, but at last all fixed upon the Porter. And as the jingle
increased the house mistress could not but notice it and asked them, "O
ye folk! on what matter are ye talking so loudly?" Then the Porter
stood up respectfully before her and said, "O my lady, this company
earnestly desire that thou acquaint them with the story of the two
bitches and what maketh thee punish them so cruelly; and then thou
fallest to weeping over them and kissing them; and lastly they want to
hear the tale of thy sister and why she hath been bastinado'd with palm
sticks like a man. These are the questions they charge me to put, and
peace be with thee."[FN#187] Thereupon quoth she who was the lady of
the house to the guests, "Is this true that he saith on your part?" and
all replied, "Yes!" save Ja'afar who kept silence. When she heard these
words she cried, "By Allah, ye have wronged us, O our guests. with
grievous wronging; for when you came before us we made compact and
condition with you, that whoso should speak of what concerneth him not
should hear what pleaseth him not. Sufficeth ye not that we took you
into our house and fed you with our best food? But the fault is not so
much yours as hers who let you in." Then she tucked up her sleeves from
her wrists and struck the floor thrice with her hand crying, "Come ye
quickly;" and lo! a closet door opened and out of it came seven negro
slaves with drawn swords in hand to whom she said, "Pinion me those
praters' elbows and bind them each to each." They did her bidding and
asked her, "O veiled and virtuous! is it thy high command that we
strike off their heads?"; but she answered, "Leave them awhile that I
question them of their condition, before their necks feel the sword."
"By Allah, O my lady!" cried the Porter, "slay me not for other's sin;
all these men offended and deserve the penalty of crime save myself.
Now by Allah, our night had been charming had we escaped the
mortification of those monocular Kalandars whose entrance into a
populous city would convert it into a howling wilderness." Then he
repeated these verses :
"How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother! * And fairest fair
when shown to weakest brother:
By Love's own holy tie between us twain, * Let one not suffer for the
sin of other."
When the Porter ended his verse the lady laughed. And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
When It was the Eleventh Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the lady, after
laughing at the Porter despite her wrath, came up to the party and
spake thus, "Tell me who ye be, for ye have but an hour of life; and
were ye not men of rank and, perhaps, notables of your tribes, you had
not been so froward and I had hastened your doom." Then said the
Caliph, "Woe to thee, O Ja'afar, tell her who we are lest we be slain
by mistake; and speak her fair before some horror befal us." "'Tis part
of thy deserts,"replied he; whereupon the Caliph cried out at him
saying, "There is a time for witty words and there is a time for
serious work." Then the lady accosted the three Kalandars and asked
them, "Are ye brothers?"; when they answered, "No, by Allah, we be
naught but Fakirs and foreigners." Then quoth she to one among them,
"Wast thou born blind of one eye?"; and quoth he, "No, by Allah, 'twas
a marvellous matter and a wondrous mischance which caused my eye to be
torn out, and mine is a tale which, if it were written upon the eye
corners with needle gravers, were a warner to whoso would be
warned."[FN#188] She questioned the second and third Kalandar; but all
replied like the first, "By Allah, O our mistress, each one of us
cometh from a different country, and we are all three the sons of
Kings, sovereign Princes ruling over suzerains and capital cities."
Thereupon she turned towards them and said, "Let each and every of you
tell me his tale in due order and explain the cause of his coming to
our place; and if his story please us let him stroke his head[FN#189]
and wend his way." The first to come forward was the Hammal, the
Porter, who said, "O my lady, I am a man and a porter. This dame, the
cateress, hired me to carry a load and took me first to the shop of a
vintner, then to the booth of a butcher; thence to the stall of a
fruiterer; thence to a grocer who also sold dry fruits; thence to a
confectioner and a perfumer cum druggist and from him to this place
where there happened to me with you what happened. Such is my story and
peace be on us all!" At this the lady laughed and said, "Rub thy head
and wend thy ways!"; but he cried, "By Allah, I will not stump it till
I hear the stories of my companions." Then came forward one of the
Monoculars and began to tell her
The First Kalandar’s Tale.
Know, O my lady, that the cause of my beard being shorn and my eye
being out torn was as follows. My father was a King and he had a
brother who was a King over another city; and it came to pass that I
and my cousin, the son of my paternal uncle, were both born on one and
the same day. And years and days rolled on; and, as we grew up, I used
to visit my uncle every now and then and to spend a certain number of
months with him. Now my cousin and I were sworn friends; for he ever
entreated me with exceeding kindness; he killed for me the fattest
sheep and strained the best of his wines, and we enjoyed long
conversing and carousing. One day when the wine had gotten the better
of us, the son of my uncle said to me, "O my cousin, I have a great
service to ask of thee; and I desire that thou stay me not in whatso I
desire to do!" And I replied, "With joy and goodly will." Then he made
me swear the most binding oaths and left me; but after a little while
he returned leading a lady veiled and richly apparelled with ornaments
worth a large sum of money. Presently he turned to me (the woman being
still behind him) and said, "Take this lady with thee and go before me
to such a burial ground" (describing it, so that I knew the place),
"and enter with her into such a sepulchre[FN#190] and there await my
coming." The oaths I swore to him made me keep silence and suffered me
not to oppose him; so I led the woman to the cemetery and both I and
she took our seats in the sepulchre; and hardly had we sat down when in
came my uncle's son, with a bowl of water, a bag of mortar and an adze
somewhat like a hoe. He went straight to the tomb in the midst of the
sepulchre and, breaking it open with the adze set the stones on one
side; then he fell to digging into the earth of the tomb till he came
upon a large iron plate, the size of a wicket door; and on raising it
there appeared below it a staircase vaulted and winding. Then he turned
to the lady and said to her, "Come now and take thy final choice!" She
at once went down by the staircase and disappeared; then quoth he to
me, "O son of my uncle, by way of completing thy kindness, when I shall
have descended into this place, restore the trap door to where it was,
and heap back the earth upon it as it lay before; and then of thy great
goodness mix this unslaked lime which is in the bag with this water
which is in the bowl and, after building up the stones, plaster the
outside so that none looking upon it shall say:—This is a new opening
in an old tomb. For a whole year have I worked at this place whereof
none knoweth but Allah, and this is the need I have of thee;" presently
adding, "May Allah never bereave thy friends of thee nor make them
desolate by thine absence, O son of my uncle, O my dear cousin!" And he
went down the stairs and disappeared for ever. When he was lost to
sight I replaced the iron plate and did all his bidding till the tomb
became as it was before and I worked almost unconsciously for my head
was heated with wine. Returning to the palace of my uncle, I was told
that he had gone forth a-sporting and hunting; so I slept that night
without seeing him; and, when the morning dawned, I remembered the
scenes of the past evening and what happened between me and my cousin;
I repented of having obeyed him when penitence was of no avail, I still
thought, however, that it was a dream. So I fell to asking for the son
of my uncle; but there was none to answer me concerning him; and I went
out to the grave-yard and the sepulchres, and sought for the tomb under
which he was, but could not find it; and I ceased not wandering about
from sepulchre to sepulchre, and tomb to tomb, all without success,
till night set in. So I returned to the city, yet I could neither eat
nor drink; my thoughts being engrossed with my cousin, for that I knew
not what was become of him; and I grieved with exceeding grief and
passed another sorrowful night, watching until the morning. Then went I
a second time to the cemetery, pondering over what the son of mine
uncle had done; and, sorely repenting my hearkening to him, went round
among all the tombs, but could not find the tomb I sought. I mourned
over the past, and remained in my mourning seven days, seeking the
place and ever missing the path. Then my torture of scruples[FN#191]
grew upon me till I well nigh went mad, and I found no way to dispel my
grief save travel and return to my father. So I set out and journeyed
homeward; but as I was entering my father's capital a crowd of rioters
sprang upon me and pinioned me.[FN#192] I wondered thereat with all
wonderment, seeing that I was the son of the Sultan, and these men were
my father's subjects and amongst them were some of my own slaves. A
great fear fell upon me, and I said to my soul,[FN#193] "Would heaven I
knew what hath happened to my father!" I questioned those that bound me
of the cause of their doing, but they returned me no answer. However,
after a while one of them said to me (and he had been a hired servant
of our house), "Fortune hath been false to thy father; his troops
betrayed him and the Wazir who slew him now reigneth in his stead and
we lay in wait to seize thee by the bidding of him." I was well nigh
distraught and felt ready to faint on hearing of my father's death;
when they carried me off and placed me in presence of the usurper. Now
between me and him there was an olden grudge, the cause of which was
this. I was fond of shooting with the stone bow,[FN#194] and it befel
one day as I was standing on the terrace roof of the palace, that a
bird lighted on the top of the Wazir's house when he happened to be
there. I shot at the bird and missed the mark; but I hit the Wazir's
eye and knocked it out as fate and fortune decreed. Even so saith the
poet:—
We tread the path where Fate hath led * The path Fate writ we fain must
tread:
And man in one land doomed to die * Death no where else shall do him
dead.