Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Folklore -- Arab countries; Tales -- Arab countries
He then took forth from his pocket a case, written upon, and sealed; and
he broke its seal, and scattered its contents, whereupon there fell from
it strung jewels, consisting of all kinds of jacinths and other gems,
together with three hundred oblong emeralds, and three hundred oblong
large jewels, of the size of the eggs of the ostrich, the light of which
was more resplendent than the light of the sun and the moon. And he
said: "O King of the age, these jewels and jacinths are a present from
me unto thee; for we never brought thee a present, because we knew not
the place of Gulnare's abode. So when we saw thee to have become united
to her, and that we all had become one, we brought thee this present;
and after every period of a few days, we will bring thee the like of it.
For these jewels and jacinths with us are more plentiful than the gravel
upon the land, and we know the excellent among them, and the bad, and
the places where they are found, and they are easy of access to
us."--And when the king looked at those jewels, his reason was
confounded and his mind was bewildered, and he said: "By Allah, one of
these jewels is worth my kingdom!" Then the king thanked Saleh of the
Sea for his generosity, and looking toward the Queen Gulnare said to
her: "I am abashed at thy brother; for he hath shewn favour to me, and
presented me with this magnificent present, which the people of the
earth would fail to procure." So Gulnare thanked her brother for that
which he had done; but her brother said: "O King of the age, to thank
thee hath been incumbent on us; for thou hast treated my sister with
beneficence, and we have entered thine abode, and eaten of thy
provision." Then Saleh said: "If we stood serving thee, O King of the
age, a thousand years, regarding nothing else, we could not requite
thee, and our doing so would be but a small thing in comparison with thy
desert." And Saleh remained with the king, he and his mother and the
daughters of his uncle, forty days; after which he arose and kissed the
ground before the king, the husband of his sister. So the king said to
him: "What dost thou desire, O Saleh?" And he answered: "O King of the
age, we desire of thy goodness that thou wouldst give us permission to
depart; for we have become desirous of seeing again our family and our
country and our relations and our homes. We will not, however,
relinquish the service of thee, nor that of my sister nor the son of my
sister; and by Allah, O King of the age, to quit you is not pleasant to
my heart; but how can we act, when we have been reared in the sea, and
the land is not agreeable to us?" So when the king heard his words, he
rose upon his feet, and bade farewell to Saleh of the Sea and his mother
and the daughters of his uncle, and they wept together on account of the
separation. Then they said to the king: "We will never relinquish you,
but after every period of a few days we will visit you." And after this,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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