The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 08 (of 10) — John Shaqi
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 08 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 08 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! This hound
hath played the traitor with me." And he sat bemoaning himself and
reciting these couplets,
"When God upon a man possessed of reasoning, Hearing and sight
His will in aught to pass would bring,
He stops his ears and blinds his eyes and draws his wit, From
him, as one draws out the hairs to paste that cling;
Till, His decrees fulfilled, He gives him back His wit, That
therewithal he may receive admonishing.
So say thou not of aught that haps, 'How happened it?' For Fate
and fortune fixed do order everything.[FN#34]"
—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her
permitted say.
When it was the Seven Hundred and Eighty-fourth Night,
She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Magian sent Hasan to the mountain-top and made him throw down all he
required he presently reviled him and left him and wended his ways and
the youth exclaimed, "There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in
Allah, the Glorious, the Great! This damned hound hath played the
traitor." Then he rose to his feet and looked right and left, after
which he walked on along the mountain top, in mind making certain of
death. He fared on thus till he came to the counterslope of the
mountain, along which he saw a dark-blue sea, dashing with billows
clashing and yeasting waves each as it were a lofty mount. So he sat
down and repeated what he might of the Koran and besought Allah the
Most High to ease him of his troubles, or by death or by deliverance
from such strait. Then he recited for himself the
funeral-prayer[FN#35] and cast himself down into the main; but, the
waves bore him up by Allah's grace, so that he reached the water
unhurt, and the angel in whose charge is the sea watched over him, so
that the billows bore him safe to land, by the decree of the Most High.
Thereupon he rejoiced and praised Almighty Allah and thanked Him; after
which he walked on in quest of something to eat, for stress of hunger,
and came presently to the place where he had halted with the Magian,
Bahram. Then he fared on awhile, till behold, he caught sight of a
great palace, rising high in air, and knew it for that of which he had
questioned the Persian and he had replied, "Therein dwelleth a foe, of
mine." Hasan said to himself, "By Allah, needs must I enter yonder
palace; perchance relief awaiteth me there." So coming to it and
finding the gate open, he entered the vestibule, where he saw seated on
a bench two girls like twin moons with a chess-cloth before them and
they were at play. One of them raised her head to him and cried out
for joy saying, "By Allah, here is a son of Adam, and methinks 'tis he
whom Bahram the Magian brought hither this year!" So Hasan hearing her
words cast himself at their feet and wept with sore weeping and said,
"Yes, O my ladies, by Allah, I am indeed that unhappy." Then said the
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