Chapter 26

So, on the morrow, they came up to the Divan and saluted the King, who said to them, 'O Amirs of Baghdad, whom will ye have to be king over you after me, that I may invest him in my lifetime, in the presence of you all?' Quoth they all, 'We are agreed upon thy daughter's husband, Hassan, son of the Vizier Ali.' 'If it be so,' said the King, 'go all of you and bring him before me.' So they all arose and repairing to Hassan's palace, said to him, 'Come with us to the King.' 'Wherefore?' asked he, and they answered, 'For a thing that will advantage both us and thee.' So he went in with them to the King and kissed the ground before the latter, who bade him be seated and said to him, 'O Hassan, all the Amirs have approved of thee and agreed to make thee king over them after me; and it is my purpose to proclaim thee, whilst I yet live, and so make an end of the business.' But Hassan arose and kissing the earth once more before the King, said to him, 'O our lord the King, among the Amirs there be [many] who are older than I and greater of worth; hold me quit therefore of this thing.' Quoth all the Amirs, 'We consent not but that thou be king over us.' Then said Hassan, 'My father is older than I, and he and I are one thing; and it befits not to advance me over him.' But Ali said, 'I will consent to nothing but what is pleasing to my brethren; and they have all chosen and agreed upon thee. Wherefore gainsay thou not the King's commandment and that of thy brethren.' And Hassan hung his head in abashment before the King and his father. Then said the King to the Amirs, 'Do ye all accept of him?' 'We do,' answered they and recited thereupon seven Fatihehs.'[FN#202] So the King said to the Cadi, 'Draw up a legal act testifying of these Amirs that they are agreed to make my daughter's husband Hassan king over them.' So the Cadi wrote the act and made it executory,[FN#203] after they had all taken the oath of fealty to Hassan. Then the King invested him with the insignia of royalty and bade him take his seat on the throne; whereupon they all arose and kissed King Hassan's hands and did homage to him.

The new king dispensed justice among the people that day, in right royal fashion, and invested the grandees of the realm in splendid robes of honour. When the Divan broke up, he went in to his father-and-law and kissed his hands; and the old King said to him, 'O my son, look thou govern the people in the fear of God.' 'O my father,' replied Hassan, 'through thy prayers for me, the grace of God will come to me.' Then he entered his own palace and was met by his wife and her mother and their attendants, who kissed his hands and gave him joy of his advancement, saying, 'This is a blessed day.' Then he went in to his father and mother, who rejoiced with an exceeding joy in that which God had vouchsafed him of his advancement to the kingship, and his father exhorted him to the fear of God and to affectionate solicitude in his dealings with his subjects. He passed the night in joy and gladness, and on the morrow, having prayed the appointed prayers, concluding with the customary recitation of part of the Koran, he repaired to the Divan, whither came all his officers and dignitaries. He passed the day in dispensing justice among his subjects, enjoining to beneficence and forbidding from iniquity and appointing and displacing, till nightfall, when the Divan broke up, after the goodliest fashion, and all present withdrew and went each his own way. Then he arose and went in to the palace, where he found his father-in-law's sickness grown heavy upon him and said to him, 'May no hurt befall thee!' At this the old King opened his eyes and said, 'O Hassan!' 'At thy service, O my lord,' replied the young man. Quoth the old King, 'My last hour is at hand: be careful of thy wife and her mother and look thou fear God and honour thy parents, being still in awe of the majesty of the Requiting King and remembering that He commandeth to justice and beneficence.' And Hassan replied, 'I hear and obey.'

The old King lingered three days after this and was then received into the mercy of God the Most High. They paid him the last offices and buried him and held over him readings and recitations of the Koran, to the end of the [customary] forty days. And King Hassan, son of the Vizier, reigned in his stead, and his subjects rejoiced in him and all his days were gladness. Moreover, his father ceased not to be his chief Vizier on his right hand, and he took to himself another Vizier, to be at his left hand. His reign was a prosperous one and he abode long King in Baghdad. God blessed him, by the old King's daughter, with three sons, who inherited the kingdom after him; and they abode in the enjoyment of all delight and solace of life, till there came to them the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies. And glory be to Him who is eternal and in whose hand are annulment and confirmation!

THE PILGRIM AND THE OLD WOMAN WHO DWELT IN THE DESERT.

A man of the pilgrims once slept a long sleep and awaking, found no trace of the caravan. So he arose and walked on, but lost his way and presently came to a tent, at whose door he saw an old woman and a dog by her, asleep. He went up to the tent and saluting the old woman, sought of her food. 'Go to yonder valley,' said she, 'and catch thy sufficiency of serpents, that I may broil of them for thee and give thee to eat.' 'I dare not catch serpents,' answered the pilgrim; 'nor did I ever eat them.' Quoth the old woman, 'I will go with thee and catch them; fear not.' So she went with him, followed by the dog, to the valley, and catching a sufficient number of serpents, proceeded to broil them. He saw nothing for it but to eat, for fear of hunger and exhaustion; so he ate of the serpents.

Then he was athirst and asked for water to drink. 'Go to the spring and drink,' answered she. So he went to the spring and found the water thereof bitter; yet needs must he drink of it, for all its bitterness, because of the violence of his thirst. Then he returned to the old woman and said to her, 'O old woman, I marvel at thy choosing to abide in this place and putting up with such meat and drink!' 'And how is it then in thy country?' asked she. 'In my country,' answered he, 'are wide and spacious houses and ripe and delicious fruits and sweet and abundant waters and goodly viands and fat meats and plentiful flocks and all things pleasant and all the goods of life, the like whereof are not, save in the Paradise that God the Most High hath promised to His pious servants.' 'All this,' replied she, 'have I heard: but tell me, have you a Sultan who ruleth over you and is tyrannical in his rule and under whose hand you are, who, if one of you commit a fault, taketh his goods and undoth him and who, when he will, turneth you out of your houses and uprooteth you, stock and branch?' 'Indeed, that may be,' answered the man. 'Then, by Allah,' rejoined she, 'these your delicious viands and dainty life and pleasant estate, with tyranny and oppression, are but a corroding poison, in comparison wherewith, our food and fashion, with freedom and safety, are a healthful medicine. Hast thou not heard that the best of all boons, after the true Faith, are health and security?'

Now these[FN#204] [quoth he who tells the tale] may be by the just rule of the Sultan, the Vicar of God in His earth, and the goodness of his policy. The Sultan of times past needed but little awfulness, for that, when the people saw him, they feared him; but the Sultan of these days hath need of the most accomplished policy and the utmost majesty, for that men are not as men of time past and this our age is one of folk depraved and greatly calamitous, noted for folly and hardness of heart and inclined to hatred and enmity. If, therefore, the Sultan that is set over them be (which God the Most High forfend) weak or lack of policy and majesty, without doubt, this will be the cause of the ruin of the land. Quoth the proverb, 'A hundred years of the Sultan's tyranny, rather than one of the tyranny of the people, one over another.' When the people oppress one another, God setteth over them a tyrannical Sultan and a despotic King. Thus it is told in history that there was, one day, presented to El Hejjaj ben Yousuf[FN#205] a docket, in which was written, 'Fear God and oppress not His servants with all manner of oppression.' When he read this, he mounted the pulpit, (for he was ready of speech,) and said, 'O folk' God the Most High hath set me over you, by reason of your [evil] deeds; and though I die, yet will ye not be delivered from oppression, with your evil deeds; for God the Most High hath created many like unto me. If it be not I, it will be a more fertile than I in mischief and a mightier in oppression and a more strenuous in violence, even as saith the poet:

For no hand is there but the hand of God is over it And no oppressor but shall be with worse than he oppress.

Tyranny is feared: but justice is the best of all things. We beg God to better our case.'

ABOULHUSN AND HIS SLAVE-GIRL TAWEDDUD.

There was once in Baghdad a man of rank and rich in money and houses and lands, who was one of the chiefs of the merchants, and God had largely endowed him with worldly goods, but had not vouchsafed him what he longed for of offspring; and there passed over him a long space of time, without his being blessed with children, male or female. His years waxed great, his bones became wasted and his back bent, and weakness and trouble increased on him, and he feared the loss of his wealth and possessions, seeing he had no child, whom he might make his heir and by whom he should be remembered. So he betook himself with supplication to God the Most High, fasting by day and rising by night [to pray]. Moreover, he made vows to God the Living, the Eternal, and visited the pious and was instant in supplication to the Most Migh, till He gave ear to him and accepted his prayer and took pity on his striving and complaining; so that, before many days were past, he lay with one of his women and she became with child by him the same night. She accomplished the months of her pregnancy and casting her burden, bore a male child as he were a piece of the moon; whereupon the merchant, in his gratitude to God, (to whom belong might and majesty,) fulfilled his vows and gave alms and clothed the widow and the orphan.

On the seventh night after the boy's birth, he named him Aboulhusn, and the wet-nurses suckled him and the dry-nurses dandled him and the slaves and servants carried him, till he grew up and throve and learnt the sublime Koran and the ordinances of Islam and the things of the True Faith. Moreover, he learned writing and poetry and mathematics and archery and became the pearl of his age and the goodliest of the folk of his time and his day, fair of face and fluent of tongue, bearing himself with a proud and graceful port and glorying in his symmetry and amorous grace. His cheeks were red and his forehead white and brilliant and the tender down of the whiskers darkened upon his face, even as saith one, describing him:

The Spring of the down on his cheeks to the eye shows clear; And how shall the rose endure, after Spring is here? Dost thou not see that the growth on his cheek, forsooth, A violet is, that forth of its leaves doth peer?

He abode awhile with his father, in the best of case, and the latter rejoiced and delighted in him, till he came to man's estate, when the merchant one day made him sit down before him and said to him, 'O my son, the appointed term draws near; my last hour is at hand and it remains but to meet God (to whom belong might and majesty). I leave thee what shall suffice thee, even to thy son's son, of money and farms and houses and gardens; wherefore, O my son, fear thou God the Most High in [dealing with] that which I leave thee and follow none but those who will help thee [in this].' Not long after, he sickened and died; so his son ordered his funeral, after the goodliest fashion, and burying him, returned to his house and sat mourning for him [many] days and nights, till certain of his friends came in to him and said to him, 'Whoso leaveth the like of thee after him is not dead; indeed, what is past is past and mourning beseemeth none but girls and cloistered women.' And they ceased not from him, till they wrought on him to enter the bath and break off his mourning. Then he forgot his father's injunctions, and his head was turned by his riches; he thought fortune would still abide with him, as it was, and that wealth would never come to an end. So he ate and drank and made merry and took his pleasure and gave gifts of money and raiment and was profuse with gold and gave himself up to eating fowls and breaking the seals of wine-flasks and listening to songs and to the laugh of the wine, as it gurgled from the flagon; nor did he give over this way of life, till his wealth was wasted and the case became straitened [upon him] and he bit his hands [for repentance] and gone was all he had.

In good sooth, he had nothing left, after that which he had squandered, but a slave-girl that his father had bequeathed to him with the rest of his estate: her name was Taweddud and she had no equal in beauty and grace and brightness and symmetry and all perfection. She was past mistress in all manner of arts and accomplishments and endowed with [many] excellences, surpassing all the folk of her age and time. She was grown more notorious than a way-mark,[FN#206] for the versatility of her genius, and outdid the fair both in theory and practice and elegant and flexile grace, more by token that she was five feet high and in conjunction with fair fortune, with strait arched brows, as they were the crescent moon of Shaaban,[FN#207] and eyes like those of gazelles, nose like the point of the sabre and cheeks like blood-red anemones, mouth like Solomon's seal and teeth like necklaces of pearls, navel holding an ounce of benzoin ointment and waist more slender than his body whom love hath wasted and whom concealment [of his passion] hath made sick, and buttocks heavier than two hills of sand; brief, in all she answered to the saying of him who says:

Her fair shape ravisheth, if face to face she did appear, And if she turn, for severance from her she slayeth sheer. Sun-like, full-moon-like, sapling-like, unto her character Estrangement nowise appertains nor cruelty austere. Under the bosom of her shift the garths of Eden are, and the full-moon revolveth still upon her neck-rings' sphere.

She seemed [at once] a rising full moon and a browsing gazelle, a girl of nine and five,[FN#208] putting to shame the moon and the sun, even as saith of her the eloquent and ingenious poet:

The likeness of the full-moon, faring o'er The heavens, five and five and after four; 'Tis not my fault, if she have made of me Its likeness, when it first in heaven doth soar.

White of skin, odoriferous of breath, it seemed as if she were [at once] fashioned of fire and moulded of crystal; rose-red was the cheek of her and perfect her shape and figure; even as saith of her one, describing her:

Scented with sandal and musk, right proudly doth she go, With gold and silver and rose and saffron-colour aglow. A flower in a garden she is, a pearl in an ouch of gold Or an image in chapel set for worship of high and low. Slender and shapely she is; vivacity bids her arise, But the weight of her hips says, "Sit, or softly and slowly go." Whenas her favours I seek and sue for my heart's desire, "Be gracious," her beauty says; but her coquetry answers, "No." Glory to Him who made beauty her portion, and that Of her lover to be the prate of the censurers, heigho!

Indeed, she captivated all who saw her, with the excellence of her beauty and the sweetness of her smile, and transpierced them with the arrows she launched from her eyes; and withal she was eloquent of speech and excellently skilled in poetry.

When Aboulhusn had squandered all his wealth and there remained to him nought but this slave-girl, when [I say] the wretchedness of his plight became manifest to him, he abode three days without tasting food or taking rest in sleep, and Taweddud said to him, 'O my lord, carry me to the Khalif Haroun er Reshid, fifth of the sons of Abbas, and seek of him ten thousand dinars to my price. If he deem me dear at this price, say to him, "O Commander of the Faithful, my slave is worth more than this: do but prove her, and her value will be magnified in thine eyes, for she hath not her equal, and it were unfit that any but thou should possess her." And beware, O my lord, of selling me for less than the sum I have named, for it is but little for the like of me.' (Now Aboulhusn knew not her worth nor that she had no equal in her day.) So he carried her to the Khalif, to whom he repeated what she had bidden him say, and the Khalif said to her, 'What is thy name?' 'Taweddud,' answered she. 'O Taweddud,' asked he, 'in what branches of knowledge dost thou excel?' 'O my lord,' answered she, 'I am versed in syntax and poetry and jurisprudence and exegesis and lexicography and music and the knowledge of the Divine ordinances and in arithmetic and geodesy and the fables of the ancients. I know the sublime Koran [by heart] and have read it according to the seven and the ten and the fourteen [modes]. I know the number of its chapters and verses and sections and words and letters and its halves and fourths and eighths and tenths, the number of acts of adoration, that occur in it, and what there is in it of cancelling and cancelled;[FN#209] also what parts of it were revealed at Medina and what at Mecca and the manner of the different revelations. I know the Holy Traditions, their history and variants and the manner of their recitation and interpretation, together with those of them whose chain of descent is unbroken and those for which it is broken; and I have studied the exact sciences, geometry and philosophy and medicine and logic and rhetoric and composition; and I know many things and am passionately fond of poetry. I can play the lute and know its gamut and notation and so forth. If I sing and dance, I ravish, and if I adorn and perfume myself, I slay. In fine, I have reached a pitch of perfection such as can only be estimated by those who are stablished in knowledge.'[FN#210]

When the Khalif heard her words, he wondered at them and at the eloquence of her speech, seeing the tenderness of her age, and turning to Aboulhusn, said to him, 'I will summon those who shall examine her in all she lays claim to; if she answer [correctly,] I will give thee the price thou askest for her and more; and if not, thou art fitter to [possess] her [than I].' 'With all my heart, O Commander of the Faithful,' replied Aboulhusn. So the Khalif wrote to the Viceroy of Bassora, to send him Ibrahim ben Siyyar the poet, who was the first man of his day in argument and eloquence and poetry and logic, and bade him bring with him readers of the Koran and doctors of the law and physicians and astrologers and sages and geometricians and philosophers; and Ibrahim was more learned than all. In a little while they all arrived at the Khalif's palace, knowing not what was to do, and the latter sent for them to his sitting-chamber and bade them be seated. So they sat down and he bade fetch the damsel Taweddud, who came and unveiling, showed herself, as she were a sparkling star. The Khalif caused set her a stool of gold; and she saluted and speaking with an eloquent tongue, said, 'O Commander of the Faithful, bid the learned men present contend with me in argument.' So he said to them, 'I desire of you that ye dispute with this damsel on the things of her faith and make void her argument, in all she avoucheth;' and they answered, saying, 'We hear and obey God and thee, O Commander of the Faithful.'