The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01Anonymous
General
The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01
Anonymous
Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Folklore -- Arab countries
they wanted. Pr'ythee, go up again, said the tailor, and tell
your master we have brought him a man that is very sick, and
wants his advice. Here, putting a piece of money into her hand,
give him that beforehand, to convince him that we have no mind to
make him lose his labour. While the servant was gone up to
acquaint her master with the welcome news, the tailor and his
wife nimbly conveyed the hunch-backed corpse to the head of the
stairs; and, leaving it there, ran off.
In the mean time, the maid, having told the doctor that a man and
a woman staid for him at the door, desiring he would come down
and look upon a sick man they had brought with them, and the maid
clapping the money she had received into his hand, the doctor was
transported with joy; being paid beforehand, he thought it was a
good job, and should not be neglected. Light, light! cried he to
the maid; follow me nimbly. However, without staying for the
light, he got to the stair-head in such haste, that stumbling
against the corps, he gave it such a kick, as made it tumble down
quiite to the stair-foot, and with difficulty saved himself. A
light, a light! cried he to the maid, quick, quick! at last the
maid came with a light, and he went down stairs with her; but
when he gav that the stumbling-block he had kicked down was a
dead man, he was so frightened, that he invoked Moses, Aaron,
Joshua, and Esdras, and all the other prophets of his law.
Unhappy man that I am! said he, what induced me to come down
without a light? I have e'en made an end of the fellow who was
brought to me to be cured? I am undoubtedly the cause of his
death, and unless, Esras's ass[Footnote: Here the Arabian author
ridicules the Jews: this ass is that which, as the Mahometans
believe, Esdras rode upon when he came from the Babylonian
captivity to Jerusalem.] comes to assist me, I nm ruined: mercy
on me, they will be here instantly, and drag me from my house as
a murderer! But, notwithstanding the perplexity and jeopardy he
was in, he had the precaution to shut his door, lest any one
passing by in the street should observe the mischance, of which
he reckoned himself the author. He then took the corpse into his
wife's chamber, upon which she swooned away. Alas! cried she, we
are utterly ruined! undone! undone! unless we fall upon some
expedient or other to turn the corpse out of our house this
night! Beyond all question, if we harbour it till morning, our
lives must pay for it. What a sad mischance is this! Why, how did
you kill this man? That is not the question, replied the Jew; our
business now is to find out a remedy for such a shocking
accident. They then consulted together how to get rid of the
corpse that night. The doctor racked his brain in vain; he could
not think of any stratagem to get clear: but his wife, who was
more fertile in invention, said, there is a thought come into my
head; let us carry.the corpse to the leads of our house, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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