The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 01 (of 10)
Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Folklore -- Arab countries
Here they stripped, ten of them being men to ten women,
and the King's wife cried out, "Where art thou, O Saeed?" The hideous
blackamoor dropped from the tree straightway; and, rushing into her
arms without stay or delay, cried out, "I am Sa'ad al-Din Saood!"[11]
The lady laughed heartily, and all fell to satisfying their lusts, and
remained so occupied for a couple of hours, when the white slaves rose
up from the handmaidens' breasts and the blackamoor dismounted from the
Queen's bosom: then they went into the basin and, after performing the
Ghusl, or complete ablution, donned their dresses and retired as they
had done before. When King Shahryar saw this infamy of his wife and
concubines he became as one distraught and he cried out, "Only in utter
solitude can man be safe from the doings of this vile world! By Allah,
life is naught but one great wrong." Presently he added, "Do not thwart
me, O my brother, in what I propose;" and the other answered, "I will
not." So he said, "Let us up as we are and depart forthright hence, for
we have no concern with Kingship, and let us over-wander Allah's earth,
worshipping the Almighty till we find some one to whom the like
calamity hath happened; and if we find none then will death be more
welcome to us than life." So the two brothers issued from a second
private postern of the palace; and they never stinted wayfaring by day
and by night, until they reached a tree a-middle of a meadow hard by a
spring of sweet water on the shore of the salt sea. Both drank of it
and sat down to take their rest; and when an hour of the day had gone
by, lo! they heard a mighty roar and uproar in the middle of the main
as though the heavens were falling upon the earth; and the sea brake
with waves before them, and from it towered a black pillar, which grew
and grew till it rose sky-wards and began making for that meadow.
Seeing it, they waxed fearful exceedingly and climbed to the top of the
tree, which was a lofty; whence they gazed to see what might be the
matter. And behold, it was a Jinni,[12] huge of height and burly of
breast and bulk, broad of brow and black of blee, bearing on his head a
coffer of crystal. He strode to land, wading through the deep, and
coming to the tree whereupon were the two Kings, seated himself beneath
it. He then set down the coffer on its bottom and out of it drew a
casket, with seven padlocks of steel, which he unlocked with seven keys
of steel he took from beside his thigh, and out of it a young lady to
come was seen, white-skinned and of winsomest mien, of stature fine and
thin, and bright as though a moon of the fourteenth night she had been,
or the sun raining lively sheen. Even so the poet Utayyah hath
excellently said:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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