The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 07 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 07 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
the King himself with a grevious wound; whereupon he and his people
fled and stayed not in their flight, till they reached the Fortalice of
Fruits and went into Siran, crying out and exclaiming, “Woe!” and
“Ruin!” And the Red King said to Siran, “O sage, Gharib hath with him
the enchanted sword of Japhet son of Noah, and whomsoever he smiteth
therewith he severeth him in sunder, and with him also are two Marids
from Mount Caucasus, given to him by King Mura’ash. He it is who slew
the Blue King and Barkan Lord of the Carnelian City, and did to death
much people of the Jinn.” When the Enchanter heard this, he said to the
Red King “Go,” and he went his ways; whereupon he resumed his
conjurations, and calling up a Marid, by name Zu’ázi’a gave him a
drachm of levigated Bhang and said to him, “Go thou to Isbanir and
enter King Gharib’s palace and assume the form of a sparrow. Wait till
he fall asleep and there be none with him; then put the Bhang up his
nostrils and bring him to me.” “To hear is to obey,” replied the Marid
and flew to Isbanir, where, changing himself into a sparrow, he perched
on the window of the palace and waited till all Gharib’s attendants
retired to their rooms and the King himself slept. Then he flew down
and going up to Gharib, blew the powdered Bhang into his nostrils, till
he lost his senses, whereupon he wrapped him in the bed-coverlet and
flew off with him, like the storm-wind, to the Fortalice of Fruits;
where he arrived at midnight and laid his prize before Siran. The
Sorcerer thanked him and would have put Gharib to death, as he lay
senseless under Bhang; but a man of his people withheld him saying, “O
Sage, an thou slay him, his friend King Mura’ash will fall on us with
all his Ifrits and lay waste our realm.” “How then shall we do with
him?” asked Siran, and the other answered, “Cast him into the Jayhun
while he is still in Bhang and he shall be drowned and none will know
who threw him in.” And Siran bade the Marid take Gharib and cast him
into Jayhun river.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased
to say her permitted say.
When it was the Six Hundred and Seventy-second Night,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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