I have heard, O fortunate king, that there was once a prince, Taj al-Muluk, who became a skilled horseman, surpassing all living at that time. Because of his beauty, whenever he went out on any business, all who saw him were captivated by him, poems were composed about him and freeborn women were shamefully seduced by his love. He was as described by the poet:
I became drunk on the fragrance of scent,
Embracing a moist branch the zephyr nurtured.
The lover was drunk, but not on wine.
Rather it was the beloved’s saliva that intoxicated him.
All beauty is held captive by the beloved,
And because of that he holds sway over men’s hearts.
By God, I will never think of consolation for his loss
As long as I am held in the bonds of life or afterwards.
If I live, I live loving him, and if I die
Because of the passion of my love, death will be welcome.
When he reached the age of eighteen, greenish down spread over a mole on his red cheek, while a beauty spot like a speck of amber was set there as an adornment. He began to captivate minds and eyes, as the poet says:
He is a successor to Joseph in his beauty;
When he appears, lovers are filled with fear.
Turn aside with me and look at him
To see on his cheeks the black banner of the caliphate.
Another poet has said:
Your eyes have never seen a finer sight
In anything that can be seen,
Than the green mole upon the cheek,
Red as it is, beneath the dark eye.
A third has said:
I wonder at a mole that always worships your cheek’s fire,
But is not burned by it, infidel though it is.
More wonderful is that a message from his glance
Should confirm God’s signs, although he is a sorcerer.
How green is the crop that his cheek has produced,
Because of the many hearts it breaks.
Yet another poet has said:
I wonder at those who question where
The water of life is found to flow.
I see it on a slender gazelle’s mouth
With sweet red lips, covered by a dark moustache.
How strange, when Moses found this water
Flowing there, he was not content to wait.
When Prince Taj al-Muluk, enjoying such advantages, reached manhood, he became ever more handsome. He had a number of companions and favourites, and all his close associates were hoping that he would become king after his father’s death and that they would be his emirs. He became attached to hunting and the chase, spending every hour that he had in its pursuit. His father, Sulaiman Shah, tried to keep him away from it, since he was afraid of his son’s exposure to the dangers of the wastelands and wild beasts, but the prince would not accept any restraint.
It happened, then, that he told his servants to take with them provisions for ten days, which they did, and he left with them on a hunting trip. For four days they travelled through the wilds until they reached a spot overlooking a green land, where they saw wild beasts grazing, trees laden with ripe fruits and gushing springs. He told them to spread out their trapping ropes in a wide ring, while they themselves were to assemble at a particular spot at the head of the ring. They followed his orders, setting up the ropes in a wide circle, within which they enclosed wild beasts of many kinds, including gazelles. This caused a disturbance among the beasts, who stampeded in the face of the horses, and the prince then released the dogs, the lynxes and the falcons at them, followed by flights of arrows which inflicted mortal wounds. Before they could reach the head of the ring, many of the beasts were taken, while the rest fled.
Taj al-Muluk then dismounted by a stream, where he collected and distributed the game, setting aside the best portion for his father, Sulaiman Shah. He sent this off to him, while he assigned other portions to his principal officers, before spending the night there. In the morning a large merchant caravan arrived, with black slaves and servants. They halted in the green meadow by the water, and when he saw them, Taj al-Muluk told one of his companions to find out about them and to ask them why they were halting there. The man went to them and said: ‘Tell me who you are and answer quickly.’ They told him: ‘We are merchants and we have stopped here to rest, as we have a long way to go before we reach the next stage on our route. We have halted here because we have confidence in Sulaiman Shah and his son; we know that all who stay in his lands can expect safe conduct, and we have expensive materials with us which we have brought for Prince Taj al-Muluk.’
The messenger went back to the prince and told him about this, relaying what he had heard from the merchants. ‘If they have something that they have brought for me,’ said the prince, ‘I shall not leave this spot and enter the city until I have inspected it.’ He mounted his horse and rode off, with his mamluks behind him, until he reached the caravan. The merchants rose to greet him, offering prayers for victory and good fortune, as well as continued glory and honour. A tent had been pitched for him of red satin embellished with pearls and gems, in which a royal couch had been placed on a silk carpet, its front studded with emeralds.
Taj al-Muluk took his seat, with his mamluks standing in attendance on him, and he then sent word to the merchants, telling them to produce everything that they had with them. They came with their goods, all of which he inspected, choosing what pleased him and paying its full price. He then mounted, intending to set off, but on happening to glance towards the caravan, he saw a handsome young man, neatly dressed and elegant, with a radiant forehead and a face like a moon, although his beauty had altered and he showed the pallor of one who has been parted from his beloved. Moaning and sobbing, with tears pouring down from his eyes, he recited:
We have long been parted; cares and passion never cease;
Friend, the tears flow from my eyes.
I took leave of my heart on the day of parting,
And I have remained alone with no heart and no hope.
Friend, stay with me as I take leave of one
Whose words can cure all sickness and all ills.
When he had finished speaking, the young man wept for a time and then fainted, with Taj al-Muluk looking on in amazement. When he had recovered, with a wounding glance he recited:
Beware of her glance, for it works sorcery,
And no one can escape who is shot by her eyes.
For all their languor, those dark eyes
Are sharp enough to split white swords.
Do not be deceived by her soft words,
For love’s fire can bemuse the mind.
She is softly formed; were silk to touch her body,
Blood would be drawn from it, as you can see.
How far it is between her anklets and her neck!
What fragrance rivals her sweet-smelling scent?
The young man then gave a groan and fainted. When Taj al-Muluk looked at him, he was baffled by his condition. He walked up to him, and when the young man had recovered consciousness, he saw Taj al-Muluk standing by his head. He rose to his feet and kissed the ground before him, after which the prince asked him why he had not shown him his merchandise. ‘There is nothing among my goods that is suitable for your excellency,’ the young man replied, but Taj al-Muluk insisted on being shown what he had, as well as on being told what was the matter with him, adding: ‘I see that you are tearful and sad. If you have been wronged, I shall right the wrong, and if you are in debt, I shall pay it, for it has pained me to see you like this.’
He then ordered chairs to be set out, and they fetched him one made of ivory and ebony, draped with gold-embroidered silk, and they spread out a silken carpet. Taj al-Muluk sat on the chair and told the young man to be seated on the carpet, after which he said: ‘Show me your goods.’ ‘Please don’t tell me to do that, master,’ said the young man. ‘My goods are not fit for you.’ Taj al-Muluk insisted, however, and told one of his servants to fetch them, whether or not he agreed. On seeing this, tears started from the young man’s eyes. He wept, groaned, complained and sighed deeply. Then he recited:
I swear by the coquetry and the kohl of your eyes,
By the soft lissomness of your form,
By the wine and honey of your mouth,
And by the gentleness and vexation of your nature:
There came an apparition sent by you, who are my hope,
Sweeter than safety for the craven coward.
He then opened up his goods and displayed them to Taj al-Muluk, one after the other, piece by piece. Among the things that he brought out was a satin robe with gold brocade worth two thousand dinars. When he unfolded this, a piece of material fell from the middle of it, which he quickly picked up and tucked beneath his hip. Then, in a daze, he recited:
When will the tortured heart find a cure for your love?
Union with you is farther than the Pleiades.
Distance, abandonment, longing and lovesickness,
Delay, postponement – this is how life passes.
Union does not bring life nor does abandonment kill me.
Distance does not bring me near, nor are you at hand.
It is neither fairness nor mercy that you show.
You do not help me, but I cannot flee from you.
All of my roads are blocked by love for you;
I cannot make out where I am to go.
Taj al-Muluk was astonished at this recitation and wondered at the reason for it, not knowing why the young man had picked up the scrap of material and put it under his hip. So he asked what this was. ‘You don’t need to see it, master,’ replied the young man, and when the prince insisted, he said: ‘This was the reason why I refused to show you my goods, and I cannot let you see it.’ ‘I must see it,’ insisted Taj al-Muluk, and as he was growing angry, the young man drew it out from under his hip, weeping, moaning, complaining and uttering many groans. He then recited these lines:
Do not blame him, for blame is hurtful.
I spoke the truth, but he does not listen.
I ask God to keep safe for me in the valley camping ground
A moon that rises from the sphere of buttons.
I said goodbye to him, but I would have preferred it
Had pleasant life taken its leave of me before I did.
How often did he plead with me on the morning of departure,
As both my tears and his poured down.
May God not give me the lie; parting from him
Has torn my garment of excuse, but I shall patch it.
I have no bed on which to lie, nor, since I left,
Does any place of rest remain for him.
Time did its best with its rough hand
To ban me from good fortune and to ban him too.
This was the hand that poured out unmixed grief,
Filling the cup from which he drank what I gave him.
When he had finished, Taj al-Muluk said to him: ‘I see that you are in a wretched state, so tell me why it is that you weep when you look at this piece of material.’ When he heard the prince mention the material, the young man sighed and said: ‘Master, my story is a remarkable one and the affair that connects me with this material, its owner and the one who embroidered it with these shapes and images, is strange.’ At this, he unfolded the material and there on it was the picture of a gazelle embroidered in silk picked out with red gold, while opposite it was the picture of another gazelle, picked out in silver with a collar of red gold and three pendants of chrysolite. When Taj al-Muluk looked at this and saw its fine workmanship, he exclaimed: ‘Glory be to God for teaching man what he did not know.’ He then became passionately interested in the young man’s story and asked him to tell him how he was connected with the lady who had embroidered the gazelles.
‘Know, master,’ replied the young man, ‘that my father was one of the great merchants and I was his only son. I had a female cousin who was brought up with me in my father’s house, as her own father had died. Before his death, he had come to an agreement with my father that they should marry me to her. When we both reached puberty, she was not kept away from me and I was not kept away from her. My father then talked with my mother and said: “This year we shall draw up the marriage contract between ‘Aziz and ‘Aziza.” My mother agreed to this and my father started to lay in provisions for a banquet. While all this was going on, my cousin and I were sleeping in the same bed, in ignorance of all this, except that she knew more than I did, being better informed and more knowledgeable.’ HE WENT ON:
My father then completed the wedding preparations and nothing remained except for the contract to be drawn up and the marriage consummated. My father wanted the contract to be signed after the Friday prayer, and he went to his friends among the merchants and others and told them about this, while my mother went and invited her women friends and her relatives. When Friday came, they washed out the hall that was prepared for the reception, cleaning the marble and spreading carpets in the house. Everything needed was set out there; the walls were adorned with brocaded hangings, and it was agreed that the guests should come to our house after the prayer. My father went off to supervise the making of the sweetmeats and the sugared dishes, and as the only thing left was the drawing up of the marriage contract, my mother made me go off to the baths, sending after me a splendid new suit of clothes. I put these on when I came out of the baths and, as they were perfumed, a pleasant odour spread from them, scenting the air.
I had meant to go to the Friday mosque, but then I remembered a friend of mine and went back to look for him in order to invite him to the signing of the marriage contract, telling myself that this would keep me busy until close to the time of prayer. I went into a lane where I had never been before, and I was sweating because of my bath and also because of the new clothes that I had on. As the sweat ran down, the scent grew stronger and I rested on a bench at the head of the lane, spreading out an embroidered kerchief that I had with me to sit on. It grew hotter and although sweat covered my forehead and poured down my face, I could not wipe it away with the kerchief because I was sitting on it. I was about to use my gown when suddenly from above me a white kerchief fell, more delicate than the zephyr and more delightful to the eye than a sick man’s cure. I caught it in my hand and looked up to see where it had come from. My gaze then fell on that of the gazelle lady, who was looking out of a window with a lattice of brass.
I had never seen anyone more beautiful; indeed, my tongue cannot describe her. When she saw me looking at her, she put one finger in her mouth, and then, joining her middle finger to her index finger, she placed them on her bosom between her breasts. She then withdrew her head from the window, closing it and disappearing from sight. Fire broke out in my heart; the flames spread; my one glance was followed by a thousand regrets, and I was bewildered. I had not been able to hear anything she said, nor had I understood her gestures. I looked at the window again, but found it closed, and although I waited until sunset, I heard no sound and saw no one. Despairing of catching sight of her again, I got up from my place, taking the kerchief with me and unfolding it. The scent of musk spread from it, so delighting me that I imagined myself to be in Paradise.
As I spread it out between my fingers, a small piece of paper fell from it. I opened this up and found that it was impregnated with the purest of scents, while on it were written these lines:
I sent him a note complaining of my love,
Written in a delicate hand – and scripts are of all kinds.
My friend said: ‘Why do you write like this,
So delicately and finely that it is hardly to be seen?’
I said: ‘That is because I am worn away and thin;
This is what happens to the script of lovers.’
After reading these lines, I studied the beautiful kerchief and saw the following lines on one of its borders:
Down, that excellent calligrapher,
Wrote two lines on his cheek in ornamental script.
When he appears, the sun and moon become confused,
And when he bends, branches are put to shame.
On the opposite border were these lines:
Down wrote with ambergris upon a pearl
Two lines of jet inscribed upon an apple.
There is death in the glance of languorous eyes
And drunkenness in cheeks, not in the wine.
When I saw the verses that were embroidered on the kerchief, fire spread through my heart and my longings and cares increased. I took the kerchief and the note and brought them back home, not knowing how to reach my beloved or how to particularize the generalities of love. Some of the night had already passed before I reached the house, and there I saw my cousin ‘Aziza sitting weeping. When she saw me, she wiped away her tears; coming up to me, she took off my robe and asked me why I had been absent. All the emirs, she told me, together with the great men, the merchants and others, had assembled in the house. The qadis and the notaries had been there; they had eaten all the food and stayed sitting for a time, waiting for me to come for the signing of the contract. ‘When finally they gave up hope of you,’ she went on, ‘they dispersed and each went his way. Your father was furious at that and swore that he would not draw up the marriage contract until next year, because of all the money that he had spent on the wedding feast.’
She then asked again what had happened to make me so late and to cause all this trouble by my absence. ‘Cousin,’ I said to her, ‘don’t ask what happened to me,’ but then I told her about the kerchief and explained things from start to finish. She took the paper and the kerchief and read what was written on them, with tears running down her cheeks. She then recited these lines:
If someone says: ‘Love starts with choice,’ tell them:
‘That is a lie; it all comes from necessity.’
Necessity is not followed by shame,
A point whose truth is shown by histories.
Sound currency cannot be falsified.
Call love sweet torture if you wish,
A throbbing in the entrails, or a blow,
A blessing, a misfortune or a goal
In which the soul finds pleasure or is lost.
Backwards or forwards – I do not know how love is to be read.
In spite of that, the days of love are feasts,
And the beloved’s mouth smiles all the while.
Her spreading fragrance is a festival,
And her love cuts off all that brings disgrace,
Never alighting in the heart of a base man.
She then asked me: ‘What did she say to you and what gestures did she make at you?’ ‘She didn’t speak at all,’ I replied, ‘but she put her finger in her mouth, and she then put it together with her middle finger and laid both of them on her breast, pointing downwards. Then she withdrew her head and shut the window, after which I didn’t see her again. She took my heart away with her and I sat until sunset, waiting for her to look out of the window a second time, but she didn’t, and when I had despaired of seeing her, I got up from where I was sitting and came home. This is my story, and I wish that you would help me in my misfortune.’
My cousin lifted her head towards me and said: ‘If you asked for my eye, cousin, I would pull it out from my eyelids for you, and I shall have to help you get what you want, as well as helping her, for she is as deeply in love with you as you are with her.’ I asked what her gestures had meant, and my cousin told me: ‘When she put her finger in her mouth, this was to show that you are like the soul in her body and that she would hold on to your union with her teeth. The kerchief is the sign of the lover’s greeting to the beloved; the note signifies that her soul is attached to you; and when she put two fingers on her bosom between her breasts, she meant to tell you to come back after two days so as to relieve her distress. You must know, cousin, that she is in love with you and that she trusts you. This is the interpretation that I put on these signs, and were I able to come and go, it would not take me long to bring you together and shelter the two of you under my wing.’
When I heard what she said, I thanked her and I said to myself that I would wait for two days. So I spent the time sitting at home, neither going out nor coming in and neither eating nor drinking. I put my head in my cousin’s lap and she kept consoling me and telling me to be determined, resolute and of good heart.
At the end of the two days, my cousin said to me: ‘Be cheerful and joyful; strengthen your resolution; put on your clothes and set off for your rendezvous with her.’ She then got up, brought me a change of clothing and perfumed me. I summoned up my strength, took heart and went out. I then walked on until I entered the lane, where I sat down on the bench for a time. Suddenly the window opened and I looked at the lady, but when I saw her I fell down in a faint. Then I recovered, summoned my resolve and took heart once more, but when I looked at her a second time, I lost consciousness again. When I came to myself, I saw that she had with her a mirror and a red kerchief. When she saw me, she uncovered her forearms, spread open her five fingers and struck her breast with the palm of her hand and her five fingers. Next, she raised her hands and put the mirror outside the window. She took the kerchief, went inside with it, and then, coming back again, she lowered it from the window in the direction of the lane. She did this three times, letting it down and raising it, after which she squeezed it and then folded it in her hand. She bowed her head and then drew it back from the window, which she shut. She went away without having said a single word to me, leaving me bemused, as I had no idea what her gestures meant.
I stayed sitting there until evening and it was almost midnight by the time I got home. There I found my cousin with her hand on her cheek and tears pouring from her eyes. She was reciting these lines:
Why should I harshly be abused for loving you?
How can I forget you, you the slender branch?
A beautiful face has ravished my heart and turned away –
I cannot escape my hopeless love for her.
With her Turkish glances she wounds my inner heart
More deeply than any polished and sharpened sword.
You have burdened me with a weight of passion,
While I am too weak to bear that of my shirt.
I shed tears of blood when those who blame me say:
‘A sharp sword from your beloved’s eyelids brings you fear.’
I wish my heart might be as hard as yours;
My withered body is as slender as your waist.
You lord it over me; your beauty is a steward
Treating me harshly, an unjust chamberlain.
To say all beauty was in Joseph is a lie.
How many Josephs are there in your loveliness!
I try to turn away from you, in fear
Of watching eyes. How difficult this is!
When I heard these lines, my cares and sorrows increased and multiplied, and I collapsed in a corner of the room. My cousin got up to come to me. She lifted me up, took off my robe and wiped my face with her sleeve. She then asked me what had happened and I told her everything that the lady had done. ‘Cousin,’ she said, ‘the gesture that she made with the palm of her hand and her five fingers means: “Come again after five days.” As for the mirror, the lowering and raising of the red kerchief and the fact that she put her head out of the window, this means: “Sit in the dyer’s shop until my messenger comes to you.”’ When I heard what she said, fire blazed in my heart and I said: ‘By God, cousin, your interpretation of this is right, as I saw a Jewish dyer in the lane.’ Then I wept and my cousin said: ‘Be resolute and firm. Others are obsessed with love for years and endure the heat of its passion with constancy, while you have only a week to wait, so why are you so impatient?’
She set about consoling me and she brought me food, but although I took a morsel and tried to eat it, I failed, and I then neither ate nor drank nor enjoyed the pleasures of sleep. My complexion turned pale and I lost my good looks, as I had never been in love before or experienced love’s heat. I became weak and so did my cousin because of me. Every night until I went to sleep she would try to console me by telling me stories of lovers, and whenever I woke up, I would find her still awake thanks to me, with tears running down her cheeks. Things went on like that for me until the five days had passed. Then my cousin got up, heated water for me and bathed me, after which she dressed me in my clothes. ‘Go to her,’ she said, ‘and may God fulfil your need and allow you to get what you want from your beloved.’
I left and walked on until I got to the head of the lane. It was a Saturday and I saw that the dyer’s shop was shut. I sat by it until the call for the afternoon prayer; then the sun grew pale and the muezzins called for the evening prayer. Night fell, but I could learn nothing of my lady and I heard nothing from her or of her. I became afraid for myself as I sat there alone, and so I got up, staggering like a drunken man until I got home. When I went in, I saw my cousin ‘Aziza, standing alone with one hand on a peg that had been driven into the wall and another on her breast. She was reciting, with deep sighs, the lines:
The passion of the Arab girl, whose clan have gone,
Who longs for the ban tree and the sweet bay of Hijaz –
When she entertains the riders, her yearning serves
For their guest fire and her tears for their water –
This passion is no more than what I feel
For my beloved, who thinks my love a fault.
When she had finished her poem, she turned and caught sight of me. She then wiped away her tears and mine with her sleeves and said, smiling at me: ‘May God grant you enjoyment of His gifts, cousin. Why did you not spend the night with your beloved and get what you wanted from her?’ On hearing this, I kicked her in the chest and she fell, striking her forehead on the edge of the raised floor of the room. There was a peg there and it was this that struck her forehead, and when I looked at it, I saw that the skin had been cut open and the blood was flowing. She remained silent, not saying a single word, then, getting up immediately, she burned some rags, applying the ash to the wound, which she bandaged. She wiped away the blood that had fallen on to the carpet, and it was as though all this had never happened. Then she came up to me, smiled at me and said softly: ‘By God, cousin, I didn’t say this to mock you or her, but I was distracted by a headache and I was thinking of having some blood let. Now my head and my forehead feel better and so tell me what happened to you today.’ I told her the whole story and then burst into tears. ‘There is good news for you, cousin,’ she said, ‘that you will succeed in your quest and achieve what you hope for, as this is a sign of acceptance. She stayed away from you because she wants to test you and to find out whether you can show patience or not, and whether you are really in love with her or not. Go to her tomorrow, to the place where you were to start with, and see what signs she makes to you, for joy is close at hand and your sorrows are nearly over.’
She started to console me for my disappointment, but my cares and sorrows increased. Then she brought me food, but I kicked out, knocking over all the bowls, and I said: ‘Every lover is mad. He has no taste for food and no enjoyment of sleep.’ ‘Aziza said: ‘By God, cousin, these are the signs of love.’ She was weeping as she picked up the broken bits of the bowls and cleaned away the food. Then she sat talking to me throughout the night, while I was praying for dawn.
When morning came and the light spread, I set off to go to the lady and quickly got to the lane, where I sat down on the bench. Suddenly the window opened and she put her head out, laughing. She then disappeared but later came back with a mirror, a bag and a pot filled with green shoots. In her hand she was carrying a lamp, and the first thing she did was to take the mirror in her hand and put it in the bag, which she then tied shut and threw into the house. She let down her hair over her face and placed the lamp for a moment on top of the plants. Then, gathering up everything, she took it away and closed the window. My heart was broken by this, by the secret gestures and cryptic signs and by the fact that she had not spoken a single word to me, but as a result, the ardour of my passionate love intensified and grew stronger.
I retraced my steps, weeping and sorrowful at heart, until I got back home, where I saw my cousin seated with her face turned to the wall. Her heart was consumed by care, sorrow and jealousy, but her love kept her from telling me anything about the passion that she felt because she could see the extent of my own infatuation. When I looked at her, I saw that she was wearing two bandages, one because of the blow to her forehead and the other over her eyes because of the pain caused by the violence of her weeping. She was in the worst of states, shedding tears and reciting:
I count the nights, one night after another,
But for long I lived without counting them.
I tell you, my companions, that I do not have
What God decreed for Laila and for me.
Destiny gave her to another, afflicting me with her love.
Why did it not send me some other grief?
When she had finished these lines, she looked up and saw me through her tears. Wiping them away, she came up to me, but the extent of her emotion was such that she could not speak. After staying silent for some time, she asked me to tell her what had happened to me this time with the lady. I gave her a full account and she said: ‘Show patience, for the time of your union is at hand and you will get what you are hoping for. When she gestured to you with the mirror and put it in the bag, she was telling you to wait till sunset. When she loosed her hair over her face, she was saying: “When night arrives and the fall of darkness overcomes the daylight, come.” The plant pot was meant to tell you that when you do, you are to enter the garden behind the lane, and by using the lamp she was telling you that when you walk into the garden, make for the place where you see a lighted lamp, sit beneath it and wait for her, for your love is killing her.’
On hearing what my cousin had to say, I shouted out because of the vehemence of my passion and said: ‘How many promises do you make me, yet when I go to her, I never get what I was hoping for? I don’t think that your interpretations are right.’ My cousin laughed and said: ‘You only have to show patience for the rest of this day until it ends and night falls. Then you will obtain union and reach the goal of your hopes. This is true and not a lie.’ Then she recited:
Allow the days to pass away;
Do not enter the house of care.
The goal of many a difficult quest
Is brought near by the hour of joy.
She then came up to me and started to console me with soft words, although she did not dare to bring me any food, for fear I might be angry with her. Hoping for my affection, all she did was to come to me and take off my robe, after which she said: ‘Sit down, cousin, so that I can tell you stories to distract you until the day’s end, for, if God Almighty wills it, when night falls you will be with your beloved.’ I paid no attention to her but set about waiting for the coming of night, exclaiming: ‘Oh my Lord, make night come soon!’
When it did come, my cousin wept bitterly. She gave me a globule of pure musk, saying ‘Cousin, put this in your mouth, and when you have met your beloved and have had your way with her, after she has granted you what you wanted, recite these lines to her:
Lovers, by God, tell me:
What is the desperate one of you to do?’
She then kissed me and made me swear that I would not recite these lines until I was on the point of leaving the lady. I agreed to this and went out in the evening, walking on and on until I came to the garden. I found the gate open, and when I went in I could see a light in the distance. When I got there I found a large garden room vaulted over with a dome of ivory and ebony, in the middle of which hung a lamp. The room was furnished with silk carpets, embroidered with gold and silver, while in a golden candelabrum hanging beneath the lamp was a huge lighted candle. In the middle of the room was a fountain adorned with various carved figures and beside it was a table with a silken covering, flanked by a large china jug filled with wine, together with a crystal goblet ornamented with gold. Beside all this was a large silver bowl and when I removed its cover, I found that it contained fruits of all kinds – figs, pomegranates, grapes, oranges and various sorts of citrus fruit. Among these were sweet-smelling flowers, including roses, jasmine, myrtle, eglantine, narcissus and various scented herbs.
I was enchanted and overjoyed by the place, which served to dispel my cares and sorrows, except for the fact that not one of Almighty God’s creatures was there. There were no slaves, male or female, to be seen, and there was no one in charge of the arrangements or guarding the contents of the room. I sat waiting for the arrival of my heart’s darling until the first hour of the night had passed, and then the second and the third, but she still did not come.
I was feeling very hungry as it was a long time since I had eaten, thanks to the violence of my passion, but when I saw that place and realized that my cousin had interpreted the gestures of my beloved correctly, I relaxed and then experienced hunger pangs. My appetite had been stimulated by the aroma of the food on the table when I got there, and certain that I was going to achieve union, I felt a longing for something to eat. So I went to the table, removed the covering and found in the middle of it a china dish containing four chickens, roasted and seasoned with spices. Set around the dish were four bowls containing a mixture of sweet and sour, one with sweetmeats, another with pomegranate seeds, a third with baqlava and a fourth with honey doughnuts. I ate some of the doughnuts and a piece of the meat, and I then turned to the baqlava and ate what I could. I went on to the sweetmeats and took a spoonful, then two and three and four, which I followed with a mouthful of chicken. My stomach was full and my joints relaxed. Sleeplessness had made me sluggish and so, after washing my hands, I rested my head on a cushion and was overcome by sleep.
I don’t know what happened to me after that, and I only woke up when the heat of the sun was scorching me, as it had been days since I had slept. When I did wake it was to find salt and charcoal scattered over my stomach. I stood up and shook out my clothes, looking to the right and left but seeing no one, and I found that I had been sleeping on the bare marble. Bewilderment filled me, together with great distress. Tears ran down my cheeks and I got up, feeling sorry for myself, and made for home. When I got there, I found my cousin striking her breast with her hand and shedding enough tears to rival a rain cloud. She was reciting:
The zephyr’s breath flows from the guarded land,
And as it blows, it rouses love.
Come to us, breath of the east wind,
For every lover has his own allotted fate.
Could we control passion, we would embrace,
As the lover clasps the breast of his true love.
After my cousin’s face, God has outlawed for me
All pleasures in this life that time can show.
I wish I knew whether his heart, like mine,
Is melting in the burning heat of love.
When she saw me, she got up quickly, wiping away her tears and approaching me with soft words. ‘Cousin,’ she said, ‘God has shown you kindness in your love in that He has caused your beloved to love you, while I weep in sorrow for parting from you, who both blame me and excuse me, but may God not blame you for my sake.’ She smiled at me, although with exasperation, spoke gently to me and removed my robe, which she spread out. ‘By God,’ she said, ‘this is not the scent of one who has enjoyed his beloved, so tell me all that happened to you, cousin.’ I told her the whole story, and again she smiled angrily, and said: ‘My heart is full of pain, but may no one live who can distress you. This woman treats you with great haughtiness and, by God, cousin, she makes me afraid for you. The salt, you should know, means that you were sunk in sleep, like unpleasant food which causes disgust, and you have to be salted lest you be spat out. You claim to be a noble lover, but lovers are forbidden to sleep and so your claim is false. In the same way, her love for you is false, as she saw you sleeping and did not wake you, which she would have done had she really loved you. By the charcoal she means to say: “May God blacken your face, in that you have falsely claimed to be in love, while in fact you are a child who thinks only of eating, drinking and sleeping.” This is what she meant – may God Almighty free you from her.’
When I heard what she had to say, I struck my breast with my hand and said: ‘By God, it is true; I slept, although lovers do not sleep. I wronged myself and how could I have done myself more harm than by eating and falling asleep? What am I to do?’ Weeping bitterly, I asked my cousin: ‘Tell me what to do. Have pity on me that God may pity you, for otherwise I shall die.’ My cousin, being deeply in love with me, agreed to do this, but she added: ‘I have told you many times that if I could go in and out as I pleased I would quickly bring the two of you together and take you under my protection, simply in order to please you. If God Almighty wills it, I shall do my best to unite you, but listen to what I say and obey me. Go back to the same place in the evening and sit where you were before. Take care not to eat anything, for eating induces sleep and you must not sleep. She will not come until the first quarter of the night has passed – may God protect you from her evil.’
Gladdened by hearing what she had to say, I started to pray God to bring on night. When it came, I was about to go out when my cousin reminded me that after my meeting with the lady, when I was about to leave, I was to quote the lines that she had recited earlier. I agreed to this and when I went to the garden, I found the place prepared in the same way that it had been on the first occasion, with all the necessary food and drink, dried fruits, sweet-smelling flowers, and so on. I went to the room and was attracted by what I could smell of the aroma of food. I restrained myself several times, but at last I could not resist and so I got up and went to the table. I lifted the cover and found a plate of chicken, surrounded by four bowls containing four different types of food. I took a mouthful of each and then I ate what I wanted of the sweetmeats, followed by a piece of meat. I tasted a saffron sorbet which I liked, and I drank a quantity of it with a spoon until I had had enough and my stomach was full. My eyelids closed and, taking a cushion, I placed it under my head, saying: ‘I will rest on it but I shall not sleep.’ Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep, not waking until the sun had risen.
On my stomach I found a large dice cube, a tab stick,* a date stone and a carob seed. There were no furnishings in the place or indeed anything else, and it looked as though there had never been anything there the night before. I got up, brushed off what was on me and left in anger, and when I got back home, I found my cousin once again sighing deeply, and reciting these lines:
An emaciated body and a wounded heart,
With tears that flood down over cheeks,
A lover whose love is hard to harvest,
But all that beauties do is beautiful.
Cousin, you have filled my heart with passion
And my eyes’ wounds are caused by tears.
I reproached her and scolded her, and she wept. Then, wiping away her tears, she came to me, kissed me and clasped me to her breast. I kept my distance from her, however, reproaching myself, and she said: ‘It seems as though you went to sleep again, cousin.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but when I woke up, I found a large dice cube, a tab stick, a date stone and a carob seed, and I don’t know why she did this.’ I then burst into tears and, going up to her, I asked her to interpret the signs for me, to tell me what I should do and to help me in my predicament. ‘Willingly,’ she replied. ‘By the tab stick which she placed on your stomach she means to say that although you were present your heart was absent, and she is telling you that love is not like that and you are not to count yourself among the lovers. With the date stone she is telling you that, were you a lover, your heart would be consumed by passion and you would not enjoy the pleasure of sleep, for the pleasure of love is like a date which sets light to a coal in the heart. As for the carob seed, she is telling you that the lover’s heart endures weariness, and she is saying: “Face separation from me with the patience of Job.”’
When I heard this interpretation, fire spread through my heart and I became more and more sorrowful. I cried out, saying: ‘God decreed that I should sleep because of my ill fortune,’ and then I said: ‘Cousin, by my life, I implore you to think of some scheme that will allow me to get to her.’ Weeping, she said: ‘‘Aziz, my cousin, my heart is so full of thoughts that I cannot speak, but if you go there tonight and take care not to sleep, you will get what you want. This is all the advice that I can give.’ ‘God willing, I shall not sleep,’ I replied, ‘and I shall do as you tell me.’ So ‘Aziza got up and fetched food, saying: ‘Eat as much as you want now, so you won’t have to think of it later.’ I ate my fill and when night came, ‘Aziza got up and brought me a splendid robe which she made me wear, and she got me to swear that I would quote to the lady the lines that she mentioned earlier. She also cautioned me again against sleeping, and I then left her and set off for the garden.
When I got to the room, I looked out at the garden and started to prop open my eyes with my fingers, shaking my head as it grew dark. Sleeplessness, however, had made me hungry and this hunger grew worse as the aroma of food wafted over me. So I went to the table, removed the covering and ate a mouthful of every sort of food that there was, together with a piece of meat. Then I went to the wine jug, telling myself that I would drink one glass, which I did, but I followed this with a second and a third, up to a total of ten, and when a breath of wind blew over me, I collapsed on the ground like a dead man. I stayed like that until daybreak, and when I came to my senses, I found myself outside the garden with a sharp knife and an iron dirham lying on my stomach. I shuddered and, taking the things with me, I went back home.
There I found my cousin weeping and saying: ‘I am wretched and unhappy in this house and my only help is in tears.’ As soon as I entered, I fell down at full length in a faint, with the knife and the dirham falling from my hand. When I had recovered, I told her what had happened to me and that I had not achieved my goal. Her sorrow increased when she saw my passionate tears, and she said: ‘There is nothing that I can do. I advised you not to sleep, but you didn’t listen, so what I say is of no use to you at all.’ ‘By God,’ I said to her, ‘explain to me the meaning of the knife and the iron dirham.’ She replied: ‘By the iron dirham, she means her right eye, and she is taking an oath by it, saying: “By the Lord of creation, and by my right eye, if you come back again and fall asleep, I shall use this knife to cut your throat.” Her cunning makes me afraid for you, cousin, and my heart is so full of sorrow for you that I cannot speak. If you are sure that you will not fall asleep if you go back, then go, and if you guard against sleep, you will get what you want, but if after going back you fall asleep as usual, be sure that she will cut your throat.’
‘What am I to do, then, cousin?’ I asked. ‘For God’s sake, help me in this misfortune.’ ‘Willingly,’ she replied, ‘but I will only see your affair through if you listen to what I have to say and obey me.’ When I agreed that I would do this, she said: ‘I shall tell you when it is time to go,’ and, taking me in her arms, she placed me on the bed and continued to massage me until I was overcome by drowsiness and fell fast asleep. She took a fan and sat by my head, fanning my face until the end of the day. She then woke me up, and when I was roused, I found her sitting by my head, fan in hand, weeping. The tears had dampened her dress. When she saw that I was awake, she wiped them away and brought me some food. When I refused this, she said: ‘Didn’t I tell you to listen to me? Eat,’ and so I ate obediently. She started to put the food in my mouth and I chewed it until I was full. Then she gave me sugared jujube juice to drink; she washed my hands and dried them with a kerchief, after which she sprinkled me with rosewater and I sat with her, feeling in perfect health. When night fell, she gave me my robe to put on and said: ‘Cousin, stay awake for the whole night and don’t go to sleep. She will not come until the last part of the night, and if it is God’s will, you will be united with her, but don’t forget my instructions.’ Then she wept, and I was pained at heart by all those tears of hers and I asked what instructions they were that she meant. ‘When you leave her,’ she said, ‘recite the lines that I quoted to you earlier.’
I then left cheerfully and went to the garden, where I went up to the room and sat down, feeling sated and staying wakeful for the first quarter of the night. I sat there for what seemed like a year, but I still stayed awake until three quarters of it had gone and the cocks had crowed. This prolonged wakefulness made me very hungry, so I got up and went to the table, where I ate my fill. My head felt heavy and I was about to fall asleep when I saw a light approaching from a distance. I got up, washed my hands and my mouth and roused myself. It was not long before the lady came, surrounded by ten slave girls, like a moon among stars. She was wearing a dress of green satin, embroidered with red gold. She was as the poet has described:
She comes walking proudly to her lovers dressed in green,
With buttons undone and her hair unloosed.
‘What is your name?’ I asked her and she said:
‘I am she who has burned lovers’ hearts on coals of fire.’
I complained to her of love’s hardships I endured;
She said: ‘In your ignorance you complain to rock.’
‘Although your heart be rock,’ I said,
‘Yet God has brought pure water out of rock.’
When she saw me, she laughed and said: ‘How is it that you are awake and have not been overcome by sleep? Since you have been wakeful all night, I realize that you are a lover, for it is a characteristic of lovers that they pass sleepless nights, enduring the pains of longing.’ She then went up to her slave girls and gestured to them, after which they left her. She came to me, clasped me to her breast and kissed me. I kissed her and, when she sucked my upper lip, I kissed her lower lip. I stretched out my hand to her waist and squeezed it and we both came to the ground at the same time. She undid her drawers, which slipped down to her anklets. We started our love-play, with embraces, coquetry, soft words, bites, twining of legs, and a circumambulation of the House and its corners. This went on until her joints relaxed and she fainted away, losing consciousness. That night was a delight to the heart and joy to the eye, as the poet has said:
For me the pleasantest of all nights was the one
In which I did not let the wine cup slacken in its work.
I kept my eyelids from their sleep
And joined the girl’s earring to her anklet.
We slept together until morning. I then wanted to leave, but she held me back and said: ‘Stay, so that I can tell you something and give you instructions.’ So I stopped and she undid a knotted kerchief and took out this piece of material, which she unfolded in front of me and on which I found a gazelle pictured like this. I was filled with admiration for it and I took it, arranging with her that I should come to her every night in that garden. Then I left her, being full of joy, and in my joy I forgot the lines of poetry which my cousin had told me to recite. When the lady gave me the material with the picture of the gazelle, she had told me that this was her sister’s work, and when I asked her sister’s name, she said ‘Nur al-Huda’. She told me to keep the piece of material, after which I said goodbye to her and left joyfully.
I walked back and went in to find my cousin lying down, but when she saw me she got up, shedding tears, and coming up to me she kissed my chest. Then she asked whether I had recited the lines as she had told me, but I said: ‘I forgot it, but what distracted my attention was this gazelle,’ and I threw down the piece of material in front of her. She became very agitated and, being unable to control herself, she shed tears and recited these lines:
You, who seek for separation, go slowly,
And do not be deceived by an embrace.
Go slowly; Time’s nature is treacherous;
The end of companionship lies in parting.
When she had finished these lines, she asked me to give her the material, which I did, and she spread it out and read what was written on it. When the time came for me to go, she said: ‘Go in safety, cousin, and when you leave her, recite the lines that I told you earlier and which you forgot.’ ‘Repeat them,’ I asked her, and so she did, after which I went to the garden, entered the room and found the girl waiting for me. When she saw me, she got up, kissed me and made me sit on her lap. We then ate, drank and satisfied our desires as before. When morning came, I recited to her the lines:
Lovers, by God, tell me:
What is the desperate one of you to do?
On hearing this, her eyes brimmed over with tears and she recited:
He must conceal his love and hide his secret,
Showing patience and humility in all he does.
I memorized this, pleased to think that I had performed the task set by my cousin. So I left and went back to her, but I found her lying down with my mother by her head, weeping over the state that she was in. When I entered, my mother reproached me for having left my cousin in poor health without asking what was wrong with her. When she saw me, my cousin raised her head, sat up and said: ‘‘Aziz, did you recite to her the lines that I told you?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and when she heard them, she wept and recited other lines for me, which I memorized.’ My cousin asked me to tell them to her and, when I did, she wept bitterly and produced these lines:
How can the young man hide it, when love kills him,
And every day his heart is breaking?
He tried to show fair patience but could only find
A heart that love had filled up with unease.
Then my cousin said: ‘When you go to her as usual, recite these lines that you have heard.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ I said, and, as usual, I went to the girl in the garden and no tongue could describe the pleasure that we had. When I was on the point of leaving, I recited the lines to her, and, on hearing them, her eyes brimmed over with tears and she recited:
If he finds no patience to conceal his secret,
Nothing will serve him better than to die.
I memorized the lines and set off home, but when I went in to see my cousin, I found her lying unconscious, with my mother sitting by her head. On hearing my voice, she opened her eyes and said: ‘‘Aziz, did you recite the lines to her?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and when she heard them, she wept and recited a couplet, beginning: “If he finds no patience”.’ On hearing this, my cousin fainted again, and when she had recovered, she recited these lines:
I have heard, obeyed and now I die;
So greet the one who stopped this union.
May the fortunate enjoy their happiness,
While the sad lover has to drain the glass.
When night came, I went as usual to the garden, where I found the girl waiting for me. We sat down and ate and drank, made love and then slept until morning. Before leaving, I recited my cousin’s lines, and when she heard them, the girl gave a loud cry of sorrow and said: ‘Oh, oh, by God, the one who spoke these lines is dead!’ Then, in tears, she asked me whether that person was related to me, to which I replied that she was my cousin. ‘That is a lie, by God,’ said the girl. ‘If she had been your cousin, you would have loved her as much as she loved you. It is you who have killed her – may God kill you in the same way! By God, had you told me that you had a cousin, I would never have allowed you near me.’ I said: ‘She used to interpret for me the signs that you made to me; it was she who taught me how to reach you and to deal with you, and but for her I would never have got to you.’ ‘Did she know about us?’ she asked, and when I said yes, she said: ‘May God cause you to regret your youth as you have caused her to regret hers!’ Then she added: ‘Go and see her.’
So I left in a disturbed state and walked on until, reaching our lane, I heard cries of grief. When I asked about this, I was told: ‘We found ‘Aziza lying dead behind the door.’ I went into the house and when my mother saw me, she said: ‘It is you who are responsible for her loss and the guilt is all yours – may God not forgive you for her blood! What a bad cousin you are!’ My father then came and we prepared ‘Aziza for her funeral and then brought her out, accompanying her bier and burying her. We arranged for recitations of the whole Quran to be given over her grave, and we stayed there for three days before returning and going home.
I was grieving for her when my mother came to me and said: ‘I want to know what you were doing to ‘Aziza to break her heart. I kept on asking her about the cause of her illness but she wouldn’t tell me anything. I conjure you in God’s Name to let me know how it was that you led her to her death.’ ‘I didn’t do anything,’ I replied.
‘May God avenge her on you,’ she said, ‘for she told me nothing and concealed the matter from me until the time of her death. She approved of you; I was with her when she died and she opened her eyes and said: “Aunt, may God not hold your son responsible for my death and may He not punish him for what he has done to me. God has moved me from the lower world of transience to the eternal world.” “Daughter,” I said, “may you enjoy your youth in well-being,” and I started to ask what had caused her illness. At first she said nothing, but then she smiled and said: “Aunt, tell your son that if he wants to go to the place where he goes every day, when he leaves he is to say: ‘Loyalty is good; treachery is bad.’ In this I am showing pity for him, so that I may be seen to have been sympathetic to him both in my life and after my death.” Then she gave me something for you and made me swear that I would not hand it over to you until I had seen you weeping for her and mourning her. I have the thing with me and when I see you doing what she said, I shall give it to you.’
I told her to show it to me, but she refused, and I then occupied myself with my own pleasures, with no thought of my cousin’s death, because I was light-headed with love and wanted to spend every night and day with my beloved. As soon as I was certain that night had come, I went to the garden and found the girl sitting waiting for me, on fire with anxiety. As soon as she saw me, she embraced me, hugging me round the neck and asking me about my cousin. ‘She is dead,’ I replied, ‘and we held a dhikr ceremony for her, as well as recitations of the Quran. She died four nights ago and this is the fifth.’ When the girl heard this, she cried out and wept. Then she said: ‘It was you who killed her and had you told me about her before her death, I would have repaid her for the good that she did me. For she did me a service by bringing you to me. Had it not been for her, the two of us would never have met and I am afraid that some disaster may strike you because of her wrongful death.’ I told her: ‘Before her death she absolved me from blame,’ and then I repeated for her what my mother had told me. She then conjured me in God’s Name to go to my mother and find out what ‘the thing’ was that she was holding. I said: ‘My mother told me that before she died my cousin had given her instructions, saying: “When your son is about to go to the place that he is in the habit of visiting, quote these two sayings to him: ‘Loyalty is good; treachery is bad.’”’ When the girl heard this, she said: ‘May God Almighty have mercy on her. She has saved you from me, for I had intended to harm you and now I shall not, nor shall I stir up trouble for you.’
I was surprised by this and asked what she had been intending to do to me before hearing these words, in view of the love that we had shared. She said: ‘You are in love with me, but you are young and simple, and there is no deceit in your heart, so you don’t know our wiles and our deceitfulness. Had your cousin lived, she would have helped you, for it is she who has saved you and preserved you from destruction. I advise you now not to speak to any woman and not to talk with any of us, young or old. Beware, beware, for in your inexperience you know nothing of the deceit of women and their wiles. The one who used to interpret signs for you is dead and I am afraid that you may meet with a disaster from which you will find no one to save you, now that your cousin is dead. Alas for her! I wish that I had known her before her death, so that I might have repaid her for the good that she did me, and visited her – may Almighty God have mercy on her. She kept her secret hidden and did not reveal her feelings. Had it not been for her, you would never have got to me.’ She then said that she wanted me to do something, and when I asked what it was, she said: ‘I want you to take me to her tomb, so that I may visit her in her grave and write some verses on it.’ ‘Tomorrow, God willing,’ I replied. Then I slept with her that night, and after every hour she would say: ‘I wish you had told me about your cousin before her death.’ I asked her about the meaning of the two sayings: ‘Loyalty is good; treachery is bad,’ but she did not reply.
In the morning, she got up and, taking a purse with some dinars in it, she said: ‘Get up and show me her grave so that I may visit it and inscribe these verses. I shall have a dome made over it, pray God have mercy on her, and I shall spend this money on alms for her soul.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ I said, and we walked off, I in front and she behind me, and as she walked she kept distributing alms, saying every time she did so: ‘These are alms for the soul of ‘Aziza, who kept her secret hidden, without revealing her love, until she drank the cup of death.’ She kept on giving away money from her purse and saying: ‘This is for the soul of ‘Aziza,’ until the purse was empty.
We came to the grave and when she saw it, she burst into tears and threw herself down on it. Then she produced a steel chisel and a light hammer, and with the chisel she carved on the headstone of the grave in small letters the following lines:
In a garden I passed a dilapidated grave,
On which grew seven red anemones.
‘Whose is this grave?’ I asked. The earth replied:
‘Show respect; this is a lover’s resting place.’
I said: ‘God guard you, you who died of love,
And may He house you in the topmost heights of Paradise.
How sad it is for lovers, that among mankind
Their graves are covered by the soil of lowliness.
If I could, I would plant a garden around you
And water it with my flowing tears.’
She then left in tears and I went with her to the garden. ‘Never leave me,’ she said, ‘I conjure by God.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ I replied, and I devoted myself to her, visiting her again and again. Whenever I spent the night with her, she would be kind to me and treat me well. She would ask me about the two sayings which my cousin ‘Aziza had quoted to my mother and I would repeat them to her. Things went on like this with food and drink, embraces and hugs and changes of fine clothes, until I grew stout and fat. I had no cares or sorrows and I had forgotten my cousin.
This went on for a whole year. At the start of the new year, I went to the baths, groomed myself and put on a splendid suit of clothes. On coming out, I drank a cup of wine and sniffed at the scents coming from my clothes, impregnated as they were with various types of perfume. I was relaxed, not knowing the treachery of Time and the disasters that it brings. In the evening, I felt the urge to visit the girl, but I was drunk and didn’t know where I was heading. I set off on my way to her but in my drunkenness I strayed into what was called the Naqib’s Lane. While I was walking there, I suddenly saw an old woman walking with a lighted candle in one hand and, in the other, a folded letter. I went up to her and found that she was weeping and reciting these lines:
Greetings and welcome to the messenger who brings news of consent;
How sweet and pleasant are the words you bear,
Sent as you are by one whose greeting is dear to me;
May God’s peace rest on you as long as east winds blow!
When she saw me, she said: ‘My son, can you read?’ Inquisitiveness prompted me to reply: ‘Yes, old aunt.’ ‘Take this letter, then,’ she said, ‘and read it for me.’ She handed it to me and I took it from her, opened it up and read it to her. It contained greetings sent by the writer from a distant land to his loved ones. When the old woman heard this, she was happy and delighted; she blessed me and said: ‘May God banish your cares as you have banished mine.’ She took back the letter and walked on for a little. My bladder was overfull and I squatted down to relieve myself, after which I got up again, wiped myself, and after arranging my clothes, I was about to walk on when the old woman suddenly came back, bowed her head over my hand and kissed it. ‘Master,’ she said, ‘may God allow you to enjoy your youth. I hope that you will walk a few steps with me to that door there. I told them what you said to me when you read the letter, but they didn’t believe me. So walk a little way with me and read out the letter for them from behind the door, and accept my devout prayers.’
‘What is the story behind this letter?’ I asked. ‘Master,’ she replied, ‘it comes from my son, who has been away for ten years. He went off to trade and stayed so long in foreign parts that we had abandoned hope of him and thought that he must be dead, until, some time ago, this letter came from him. He has a sister who has been weeping for him night and day. I told her that all was well with him but she didn’t believe me and told me: “You must fetch someone to read the letter in my presence, so that I may be reassured and happy.” You know, my son, that lovers are prone to suspicion, so do me the favour of going with me and reading her the letter. You can stand behind the curtain and I will call his sister to listen from inside the door. In this way you will free us from anxiety and fulfil our need. The Apostle of God – may God bless him and give him peace – said: “If anyone relieves an anxious man of one anxiety in this world, God will relieve him of a hundred,” while another hadith says: “Whoever relieves his brother of one anxiety in this world, God will relieve him of seventy-two on the Day of Judgement.” I have sought you out, so please don’t disappoint me.’
I agreed and told her to lead the way, which she did, with me following behind. We went a little way before arriving at the door of a fine, large house, the door itself being plated with copper. I stood behind it, while the old woman called out in Persian and before I knew what was happening, a girl came out lightly and briskly, with her dress tucked up to her knees. I saw a pair of legs that bewildered thought and sight. She was as the poet described:
You gird up your dress to show lovers your legs,
So they may understand what the rest of you is like.
You hurry to fetch a glass for the lover;
It is the glass and the legs that capture them.
These legs, like twin pillars of marble, were adorned with golden anklets set with gems. Her outer robe was bunched up beneath her armpits, and her sleeves were drawn back from her forearms so that I could see her white wrists. On her arms were two bracelets, fastened with large pearls; round her neck she wore a necklace of precious gems; she had pearl earrings and on her head was a brocaded kerchief studded with precious stones. She had tucked the ends of her skirt into her waistband as though she had been busy with some task, and when I saw her, I stared in astonishment at what looked like the bright sun. In a clear, pleasant voice – I had never heard a sweeter – she asked: ‘Mother, is this the man who has come to read the letter?’ ‘Yes,’ said her mother, and so the girl stretched out her hand to me with the letter in it. She was standing some six feet or so from the door, and when I put out my hand to take the letter from her, I put my head and shoulders inside the door to get nearer her in order to read it.
As I took the letter in my hand, all of a sudden the old woman butted me in the back with her head, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself inside the hallway. Quicker than a flash of lightning, the old woman came in and the first thing she did was to lock the door. The girl, seeing me in the hallway, came up to me and clasped me to her breast. She then threw me down on the ground and straddled my chest, pressing my stomach with her hands until I almost lost my senses. She took my hand and the violence of her embrace was such that I couldn’t free myself. The old woman then went ahead of us, carrying a lighted candle, as the girl took me through seven halls, bringing me at last to a large chamber with four galleries, big enough to serve as a polo ground.
She let me go and told me to open my eyes. I was still dizzy from the strength of her embraces, but I opened my eyes and I saw that the whole chamber had been built of the finest marble, and all its furnishings were of silk or brocade, as were the cushions and the coverings. There were two brass benches and a couch of red gold set with pearls and gems, together with other parlours and a princely chamber fit only for a king such as you.
The girl then said to me: ‘‘Aziz, which do you prefer – death or life?’ ‘Life,’ I said. ‘In that case,’ she replied, ‘marry me.’ ‘I don’t want to marry someone like you,’ I objected, but she went on: ‘If you marry me, you will be safe from the daughter of Delilah the wily.’ When I asked who this might be, she laughed and said: ‘The girl with whom you have now been keeping company for a year and four months – may God Almighty destroy her and afflict her with someone worse than herself! By God, there is no one more cunning than she. How many people has she killed already and what deeds she has done! How is it that you have escaped after such a long time in her company without her killing you or plunging you into confusion?’
Astonished by this, I asked her how she knew the girl. ‘I know her as Time knows its calamities,’ she replied, and she went on to ask me to tell her everything that had happened between us so that she could find out how I had managed to escape unharmed. I told her the full story of my dealings with the girl and with my cousin ‘Aziza. She invoked God’s pity on ‘Aziza, shedding tears and striking her hands together at the news of her death and exclaiming: ‘She sacrificed her youth in the path of God, and may He compensate you well for her loss! By God, ‘Aziz, she died and it was because of her that you were saved from the daughter of Delilah the wily, for had it not been for her you would have perished. I am afraid that you may still fall victim to her evil wiles, but my mouth is blocked and I am silenced.’ ‘Yes, by God,’ I told her, ‘all this happened.’ She shook her head, saying: ‘There is no one now to match ‘Aziza.’ I replied: ‘On her deathbed she told me to quote these two sayings, and nothing else, to the girl: “Loyalty is good; treachery is bad.”’ On hearing this, the girl said: ‘‘Aziz, these are the two sayings that saved you from being killed by her, and now I am reassured about you, for she is not going to kill you, as your cousin has saved you both in life and in death. By God, day after day I have been wanting you, but it is only now, when I played a successful trick on you, that I have been able to get you. For you are still inexperienced, and you don’t know the wiles of young women and the disasters brought about by old ones.’
I agreed with this and she told me that I could be cheerful and happy, ‘For the dead have found God’s mercy and the living will meet with kindness. You are a handsome young man and I only want you in accordance with the law of God and His Apostle – may God bless him and give him peace. Whatever money or materials you may want will be quickly brought to you; I shall not impose any tasks on you; in my house there is always bread baking and water in the jug. All I want you to do with me is what the cock does.’ ‘What is it that the cock does?’ I asked. She clapped her hands and laughed so much that she fell over backwards. Then she sat up, smiled and said: ‘Light of my eyes, do you really not know what the cock does?’ ‘No, by God, I don’t,’ I replied. ‘His business is eating, drinking and copulating,’ she said. I was embarrassed by this and said: ‘Is that really so?’ ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘and I want you to gird yourself, strengthen your resolve and copulate as hard as you can.’
She then clapped her hands and said: ‘Mother, bring out the people who are with you.’ The old woman then came forward with four notaries, bringing with her a piece of silk. She lit four candles and the notaries greeted me and took their seats. The girl got up and veiled herself, after which she empowered one of the notaries to act for her in drawing up the marriage contract. This was written down and she testified on her own behalf that she had received her whole dowry, both the first and the second payment, and that she was holding for me the sum of ten thousand dirhams. She then paid the notaries their fees and they went back to where they had come from. After that she got up, and after taking off her outer clothes, she came forward in a delicate chemise, embroidered with gold. She then pulled off her drawers and, taking me by the hand, she got up on top of the couch with me. ‘There is no shame in what is legal,’ she said, as she lay there, spreading herself out on her back. Dragging me down on to her breast, she moaned and followed the moan with a coquettish wriggle. She then pulled up her chemise above her breasts and when I saw her like that I could not restrain myself. I thrust into her, after sucking her lip. She cried ‘Oh!’ and pretended tearful submissiveness, but without shedding tears. ‘Do it, my darling,’ she said, reminding me as she did so of the poet’s lines:
When she lifted her dress to show her private parts,
I found what was as narrow as my patience and my livelihood.
I put it half in and she sighed.
‘Why this sigh?’ I asked, and she said: ‘For the rest.’
‘Finish off, darling,’ she said. ‘I am your slave. Please, give me all of it; give it to me so that I can take it in my hand and put it right into me.’ She kept on uttering love cries, with tears and moans, while kissing and embracing me, until, as the noise we were making approached its climax, we achieved our happiness and fulfilment. We slept until morning, when I wanted to go out, but she came up to me laughing and said: ‘Oh, oh, do you think that to enter the baths is the same as to leave them? You seem to think that I am like the daughter of Delilah the wily. Beware of any such thought. You are my lawfully wedded husband, and if you are drunk you had better sober up, for the house where you are is only open on one day in the year. Go and look at the great door.’
I went to it and found that it had been nailed shut, and when I returned and told her that, she said: ‘‘Aziz, we have enough flour, grain, fruit, pomegranates, sugar, meat, sheep, poultry and so on to last for many years. The door will not be opened until a year from now, and up till then you will not find yourself outside this house.’ I recited the formula: ‘There is no might and no power except with God,’ and she replied: ‘What harm will this do you when you remember what I told you about of the work of the cock?’ She laughed and I joined in her laughter. In obedience to her instructions, I stayed with her, acting the part of the cock – eating, drinking and copulating – until twelve months had passed. By the end of the year, she had conceived and given birth to my son.
At the start of the new year, I heard the sound of the door being opened and found men bringing in sweet cakes, flour and sugar. I was on the point of going out when my wife said to me: ‘Wait until evening and go out in the same way that you came in.’ So I waited and was again about to go out, despite being nervous and frightened, when she said to me: ‘By God, I am not going to let you out until I have made you swear that you will come back tonight before the door is closed.’ I agreed to this and swore a solemn oath by the sword, the Quran and the promise of divorce that I would come back to her. I then left her and went to the garden, which I found open as usual. I was angry and said to myself: ‘I have been absent from here for a whole year and yet when I come unexpectedly I find it open as usual. I wonder if the girl is still as she was before or not. It is now evening and I must go in to see before I go to my mother.’ So I entered the garden and went to the garden room, where I found the daughter of Delilah the wily seated with her head on her knees and her hand on her cheek. Her colour had changed and her eyes were sunken, but when she saw me she exclaimed: ‘Praise be to God that you are safe!’ She wanted to get up but in her joy she collapsed. I was ashamed and hung my head, but then I went up to her, kissed her and asked: ‘How did you know that I was going to come to you tonight?’ ‘I didn’t know,’ she replied, adding: ‘By God, it is a year since I enjoyed the taste of sleep, for every night I have stayed awake waiting for you. I have been like this since the day you left me. I had given you new clothes and you had promised me that you would go to the baths and then come back. I sat waiting for you on the first night, and then the second and then the third, but it is only after this time that you have come, although I have always been expecting you, in the way that lovers do. I want you to tell me why you left me all this year.’
I told her the story and when she heard that I was married, she turned pale. Then I said to her: ‘I have come to you tonight but I have to go before daybreak.’ ‘Wasn’t it enough for her,’ she said, ‘to have tricked you and married you, and imprisoned you with her for a year, that she made you swear by the promise of divorce to go back to her this same night before daybreak and she could not find the generosity to allow you to spend time with your mother or with me? She couldn’t bear the thought of your passing the night with either of us, away from her. How about the one whom you abandoned for a whole year, although I knew you before her? May God have mercy on your cousin ‘Aziza. No one else experienced what she did and she suffered what no one else could endure. She died because of the treatment to which you subjected her, and it is she who protected you from me. I thought you loved me and I let you go on your way, although I could have seen to it that you didn’t leave unscathed, or I could have kept you as a prisoner or killed you.’
Then she wept bitterly, shuddering with rage, looking at me with angry eyes. When I saw the state she was in, I trembled in fear; she was like a terrifying ghul and I was like a bean placed on a fire. ‘You are no use any more,’ she told me, ‘now that you are married and have a child. You are no longer suitable company for me; only bachelors are of use, while married men serve no purpose for me at all. You sold me for a bundle of filth and I am going to make that whore sorry, as you won’t be here, either for me or for her.’
She gave a loud cry, and before I knew what was happening, ten slave girls had come and thrown me on the ground. While they held me down, she got up, took a knife and said: ‘I am going to cut your throat as one would kill a goat, and this is the least repayment you can expect for what you did to me and to your cousin before me.’ When I saw the position I was in, held down by the slave girls, with my cheeks rubbed in the dust, and the knife being sharpened, I was sure that I was going to die. I implored her to help me, but this only added to her mercilessness. She told the slave girls to pinion me, which they did, and they threw me on my back, sitting on my stomach and holding my head. Two of them sat on my shins while another two held my hands, and their mistress then came up with two more, whom she ordered to beat me. They did this until I lost consciousness and could not speak, and when I recovered I said to myself: ‘It would be better for me to have my throat cut as this would be easier to bear than this beating.’ I remembered that my cousin had been in the habit of saying: ‘May God protect you from her evil,’ and I shrieked and wept until my voice failed me and I was left without feeling or breath.
She sharpened the knife and told her girls to bare my throat. Then God inspired me to quote the two sayings that my cousin had told me and recommended to me, and so I said: ‘My lady, don’t you know that loyalty is good and treachery is evil?’ On hearing this, she cried out and said: ‘May God have mercy on you, ‘Aziza, and reward you with Paradise in exchange for your youth.’ Then she said to me: ‘‘Aziza helped you both in her lifetime and after her death, and by these two sayings she has saved you from me. But I cannot let you go like this; I must leave a mark on you in order to hurt that shameless whore who has kept you away from me.’
She called out to her girls, telling them to tie my legs with rope and after that to sit on top of me, which they did. She left me and fetched a copper pan, which she put on top of a brazier. She poured in sesame oil and fried some cheese in it. I knew nothing of what was happening until she came up to me, undid my trousers and tied a rope round my testicles. She held the rope, but then gave it to two of her slave girls, telling them to pull. They both pulled and I fainted with the pain, losing all touch with this world. She then came with a steel razor and cut off my penis, so that I was left like a woman, and, while I was still unconscious, she cauterized the wound and rubbed it with powder.
When I came to my senses, the flow of blood had stopped and she told the slave girls to untie me. Then, after giving me a cup of wine to drink, she said: ‘You can go now to the one whom you married and who grudged me one single night. May God have mercy on your cousin, who is the reason why you have escaped with your life. She never revealed her secret, and if you had not quoted her two sayings, I would have cut your throat. Go off now to anyone you want. There is nothing that I needed from you except what I have cut off. You have nothing more for me, and I neither want you or need you. Get up, touch your head and invoke God’s mercy on your cousin.’ She then kicked me and I got up, but I could not walk properly and so I moved very slowly to the door of my house, which I found open. I threw myself down there in a faint and my wife came out and carried me into the hall, where she found that I had been emasculated. I fell into a deep sleep and when had I recovered my senses, I found that I had been thrown down by the garden gate.
I got up and walked home, moaning with grief, and when I went in I found my mother weeping for me and saying: ‘My son, I wonder in what land you are.’ I threw myself on her and when she looked at me and felt me, she discovered that I was unwell, with a mixture of pallor and blackness on my face. I thought of my cousin and the good that she had done me and I was certain that she had loved me. So I wept for her, as did my mother. My mother then told me that my father had died, and as my grief and anger increased, I wept until I fainted. When I had recovered, I looked at where my cousin had used to sit, and I wept again, again almost fainting because of the violence of my grief, and I continued to weep and sob until half the night had passed.
My mother told me that it was ten days since my father had died, but I said to her: ‘I cannot think of anyone except my cousin. I deserve everything that has happened to me for having neglected her in spite of the fact that she loved me.’ My mother then asked: ‘And what did happen to you?’ so I told her the story. She wept for a time and then got up and fetched me some food. I ate a little and drank and then repeated my story, telling her everything that had happened to me. ‘Praise be to God,’ she said, ‘that it was this rather than a cut throat that you suffered.’ She then tended me and treated me until I was cured and restored to full health.
‘My son,’ she then said, ‘I shall now fetch out what your cousin left with me as a deposit, for it is yours, and she made me swear that I would not produce it for you until I saw that you remembered her, mourned her and had cut your ties with other women. Now I know that you have fulfilled the condition.’ She got up, opened a chest and produced this piece of material that has on it the picture of this gazelle, and it was the daughter of Delilah who had given it to me in the first place. When I took it, I found embroidered on it the following verses:
Mistress of beauty, who prompted you to turn away,
So that you killed a pining lover through excessive love?
If after parting you have not remembered me,
God knows that I have not forgotten you.
You torture me, falsely accusing me, but your torture is sweet.
Will you be generous to me one day and allow me to see you?
Before I fell in love with you, I did not think
That love held sickliness and torment for the soul.
This was before my heart was stirred by passion
And I became a prisoner of love, ensnared by your glance.
The censurer pitied me, lamenting the state love brought me to,
But you, Hind, never have lamented one who pined for you.
By God, were I to die, I would not be consoled for you, who are my hope;
Were passion to destroy me, I would not forget.
On reading these lines, I wept bitterly, slapping my face. As I opened up the cloth, a piece of paper fell out of it, and when I opened it, I found written on it: ‘Cousin, know that I do not hold you to blame for my death, and I hope that God will grant you good fortune in your dealings with your beloved. But if something happens to you at the hands of the daughter of Delilah the wily, do not go back to her or to any other woman, but endure your misfortune. Had it not been that your allotted span is an extended one, you would have died long ago. Praise be to God, Who has allowed me to die before you. I give you my greetings. Keep this piece of material with the picture of the gazelle and never part from it, for the picture used to console me when you were absent.’
The note went on: ‘I implore you in God’s Name that, if fate brings you together with the one who embroidered this gazelle, keep away from her. Don’t let her make an approach to you and don’t marry her. Even if you do not fall in with her and are not fated to meet her, and even if you can find no way of reaching her, do not make advances to any other woman. You must know that the embroiderer of the gazelle makes one every year and sends it off to the furthest lands to spread the fame of her beautiful workmanship, which no one else in the world can match. This one fell into the hands of your inamorata, the daughter of Delilah the wily, who used it to bemuse people, showing it to them and saying: “I have a sister who makes this.” That was a lie – may God put her to shame! This is my advice, which I only give you because I know that, when I am dead, the world will be a difficult place for you and because of that you may go abroad and travel in foreign lands. It may be that you will hear of the lady who made this and want to make her acquaintance. You will remember me when it will do you no good and you will not recognize my value until after my death. Know that the girl who embroidered the gazelle is a noble princess, the daughter of the king of the Islands of Camphor.’
When I had read this note and grasped its meaning, I wept and my mother wept because of my tears. I went on looking at it and weeping until night came. I stayed in this state for a year. It was after this that these merchants, my companions in this caravan, made their preparations to leave my city on a journey. My mother advised me to get ready to travel with them, saying that I might find consolation and a cure for my sorrow. ‘Relax,’ she said, ‘and abandon your grief. You may be away for one year or two or three before the caravan gets back, and it may be that you will find happiness and clear your mind of sorrow.’ She kept on coaxing me until I prepared my trade goods and left with them. Throughout the length of the journey my tears have never dried and at every halting place I unfold this piece of material and look at its gazelle, weeping over the memory of my cousin, as you can see. For she loved me with an excessive love and she died of the sorrow that I inflicted on her. I did her nothing but harm and she did me nothing but good.
When the merchants return from their expedition, I shall go back with them. I shall have been away for a whole year, but my sorrow has increased, and what renewed it was the fact that I passed by the Islands of Camphor and the Crystal Castle. There are seven of these islands and their ruler is a king named Shahriman, who has a daughter called Dunya. I was told that it is she who embroiders the gazelles and that the gazelle I had with me was one of hers. On hearing this, I felt a surge of longing and sank into a sea of hurtful thoughts. I wept for myself, as I was now like a woman; there was nothing I could do and I no longer had a male organ. From the day that I left the Camphor Islands I have been tearful and sorrowful at heart. I have continued in this state for a long time, wondering whether I shall be able to go back to my own land and die in my mother’s house, for I have had enough of this world.
The young man then wept, groaned and complained. Looking at the image of the gazelle, with the tears running down his cheeks, he recited these lines:
Many a man has said to me: ‘Relief must come,’
And I have answered angrily: ‘How many times?’
‘After some time,’ he said, and I replied: ‘How strange!
Who guarantees me life, O faulty arguer?’
He also recited:
God knows that, after leaving you, I wept
Until I had to borrow tears on credit.
A censurer once told me: ‘Patience – you will reach your goal.’
‘Censurer,’ I said, ‘from where will patience come?’
‘This is my story, O king,’ he went on. ‘Have you ever heard one that is more remarkable?’
Taj al-Muluk was full of wonder, and when he heard the young man’s story, fires were kindled in his heart at the mention of Princess Dunya and her beauty. Realizing that it was she who had embroidered the gazelles, the passion of his love increased. The prince said to the young man: ‘By God, nothing like this adventure of yours has happened to anyone before, but you have to live out your own fate. There is something that I want to ask you.’ ‘Aziz asked what this was and Taj al-Muluk said: ‘Tell me how you came to see the girl who embroidered this gazelle.’ ‘Master,’ replied ‘Aziz, ‘I approached her by a trick. When I had entered her city with the caravan, I used to go out and wander round the orchards, which were full of trees. The orchard guard was a very elderly man and when I asked him who owned the place, he told me that it belonged to the king’s daughter, Princess Dunya. “We are underneath her palace here,” he said, “and when she wants to take the air, she opens the postern door and walks in the orchard, enjoying the scent of the flowers.” I said: “As a favour, let me sit here until she comes past, so that perhaps I may catch a glimpse of her.” “There is no harm in that,” agreed the old man, at which I gave him some money, saying: “Buy some food for us.” He took the money gladly, opened the gate and went in, taking me with him. We kept on walking until we came to a pleasant spot where he told me to sit, saying that he would go off and come back with some fruit. He left me and went away, coming back some time later with a roasted lamb, whose meat we ate until we had had enough. I felt a longing in my heart to see the girl, and while we were sitting there, the gate suddenly opened. “Get up and hide,” the old man told me, and so I did. A black eunuch then put his head out of the wicket and asked the old man whether there was anyone with him. When he said no, the eunuch told him to lock the orchard gate, which he did. Then, through the postern appeared Princess Dunya, and when I caught sight of her I thought that the moon had risen, spreading its light from the horizon. I gazed at her for a time and was filled with longing, like a man thirsting for water.
‘After a while, she shut the postern and went off, at which I left the garden and went to my lodgings. I realized that I could not get to her, nor was I man enough for her, as I had become like a woman and had no male tool. She was a king’s daughter and I was a merchant, and how then could I get to one like her, or indeed to any other woman? When my companions got ready to leave, I collected my things and went with them. This was where they were making for, and when we got here, I met you. You asked me questions and I replied to you. This is the story of what happened to me and that is all.’
When Taj al-Muluk heard this, his whole mind and all his thoughts were taken up with love for Princess Dunya, and he was at a loss to know what to do. He got to his feet, mounted his horse and, taking ‘Aziz with him, he went back to his father’s city. Here he gave ‘Aziz a house of his own and supplied him with whatever he needed in the way of food, drink and clothing. He then left him and went to his palace, with tears running down his cheeks, as instead of his seeing and meeting the princess, he had to make do with what he had heard about her. He was in this state when his father came in to see him and found that his colour had changed and that he had become thin and tearful. Realizing that something had happened to preoccupy him, he said: ‘My son, tell me how you are and what has happened to make you change colour and become emaciated.’
At that, Taj al-Muluk told him all that had happened, together with what he had heard from ‘Aziz, and the story of Princess Dunya, adding that he had fallen in love with her by hearsay without having seen her. ‘My son,’ said his father, ‘she is a king’s daughter; his country is far distant from us, so let this matter rest and go to your mother’s palace where there are five hundred slave girls like moons. Take whichever of them you like, or otherwise we can set about trying to get for you the hand of a princess more beautiful than Dunya.’ ‘I shall never want anyone else, father,’ Taj al-Muluk replied. ‘She is the lady of the gazelle which I saw. I must have her, or else I shall wander off in the wastes and wildernesses and kill myself because of her.’ ‘Wait,’ said his father, ‘until I send word to her father, ask for her hand and get you what you want, as I did for myself in the case of your mother. It may be that God will bring you to your goal, but if her father refuses, I shall overturn his kingdom with an army whose rearguard will still be with me when the vanguard has reached him.’
He then summoned the young ‘Aziz and said: ‘My son, do you know the way?’ When ‘Aziz said that he did, the king said: ‘I want you to go with my vizier.’ ‘To hear is to obey, king of the age,’ replied ‘Aziz. The king then summoned his vizier and said: ‘Arrange things for me to help my son; go to the Camphor Islands and ask that he be given the hand of the princess.’ When the vizier had agreed, Taj al-Muluk went back to his quarters. His lovelorn state had grown worse and he found the delay too long. In the darkness of night, he wept, moaned and complained, reciting these lines:
The night is dark; my tears flow more and more;
Passion springs out of my heart’s raging fire.
Question the nights about me. They will tell
Whether I think of anything but care.
Thanks to my love, I shepherd the night stars,
While tears drop on my cheeks like hail.
I am alone; I have no one,
Like a lover without kin and with no child.
On finishing his poem, he fainted for a time and only recovered consciousness in the morning. One of his father’s servants entered and stood by his head, telling him to come to his father. He went with the man and when his father saw him, he found that his son’s colour had changed. Urging him to have patience, he promised that he would bring him together with his princess, and he then made preparations to send off ‘Aziz and the vizier, supplying them with gifts.
These two travelled day and night until, when they were close to the Camphor Islands, they halted by a river bank, from where the vizier sent a messenger to the king to tell him of their arrival. The messenger had hardly been gone an hour when the king’s chamberlains and his emirs came out to greet the visitors, and after meeting them at a parasang’s distance from the city, they escorted them into the king’s presence. They presented their gifts to the king and were entertained by him for three days. On the fourth day, the vizier entered the king’s presence, stood before him and told him of the errand on which he had come. The king was at a loss to know how to reply, as his daughter had no love for men and did not want to marry. For a time he bowed his head towards the ground and then, raising it again, he summoned one of the eunuchs and said: ‘Go to your mistress, Dunya; repeat to her what you have heard and tell her of the errand on which this vizier has come.’ The eunuch went off and was away for an hour, after which he came back to the king and said: ‘King of the age, when I went in and told Princess Dunya what I had heard, she fell into a violent rage and attacked me with a stick, wanting to break my head. I ran away from her, but she said: “If my father forces me to marry, then I shall kill my husband.”’ Her father said to the vizier and ‘Aziz: ‘You have heard and understood. Tell this to your king. Give him my greetings but say that my daughter has no love for men and no desire for marriage.’
The unsuccessful envoys then returned and, having completed their journey, they came to the king and told him what had happened. The king ordered his commanders to proclaim to the troops that they were to march out to war, but the vizier said: ‘Your majesty, don’t do this. It is not the fault of King Shahriman. When she learned of the proposal, his daughter sent him a message to say that if he forced her to marry, she would first kill her husband and then herself. The refusal came from her.’ When the king heard what the vizier had to say, he was afraid for Taj al-Muluk and said: ‘If I go to war against the father and capture the daughter, she will kill herself and it will do me no good at all.’
He told Taj al-Muluk about this, and when he learned what had happened, Taj al-Muluk said: ‘Father, I cannot bear to do without her. I shall go to her and try to reach her by some ruse, even if I die. There is no other course for me to follow.’ ‘How will you go to her?’ asked his father, and when Taj al-Muluk said that he would disguise himself as a merchant, the king said: ‘If you must do this, take the vizier and ‘Aziz with you.’ He then took out some money for him from his treasury and prepared trade goods to the value of a hundred thousand dinars.
Both the vizier and ‘Aziz agreed to go with Taj al-Muluk, and they went to ‘Aziz’s house and spent the night there. Taj al-Muluk, having lost his heart, could enjoy neither food nor sleep, assaulted, as he was, by cares and shaken by longing for his beloved. He implored the Creator to grant him a meeting with her, and with tears, moans and complaints, he recited these lines:
Do you think that after parting we shall meet again?
I complain to you of my love and say:
‘I remembered you, while night forgot;
You denied me sleep, while others were heedless.’
When he had finished his poem, he wept bitterly, while ‘Aziz, remembering his cousin, wept too. They continued to shed tears until morning came. Taj al-Muluk then got up and went to see his mother, wearing his travelling dress. She asked him how he was, and after he had repeated his story to her, she gave him fifty thousand dinars and said goodbye to him. As he left, she wished him a safe journey and a meeting with his beloved. He then went to see his father and asked leave to go. His father granted him this and gave him another fifty thousand dinars, ordering a tent to be pitched for him outside the city. This was done and he stayed there for two days before setting off.
He had become friendly with ‘Aziz and said to him: ‘Brother, I cannot bear to be parted from you.’ ‘I feel the same,’ said ‘Aziz, ‘and I would like to die at your feet, but, brother of my heart, I am concerned about my mother.’ Taj al-Muluk reassured him: ‘When we reach our goal, all will be well.’ They then set off. The vizier had told Taj al-Muluk to be patient and ‘Aziz would talk with him at night, reciting poetry for him and telling him histories and tales. They pressed on with their journey, travelling night and day for two full months. Taj al-Muluk found the journey long, and as the fires of his passion increased, he recited:
The way is long; cares and disquiet have increased;
The heart holds love, whose tortures worsen.
You who are my desire and the goal of my hopes, I have sworn an oath
By Him who created man from a clot of blood,
The sleepless passion I have borne, you who are my wish,
Is more than lofty mountains have to bear.
My lady Dunya, love has destroyed me,
Leaving me as a corpse deprived of life.
Did I not hope to gain union with you,
I would not leave on such a journey now.
When he had finished his recitation, he wept, as did ‘Aziz, whose heart was wounded. The vizier felt pity for their tears, saying: ‘Master, set your heart at rest and take comfort, for nothing but good will come of this.’ ‘This has been a long journey, vizier,’ said Taj al-Muluk, ‘so tell me how far we are from the city.’ ‘There is only a little way to go,’ the vizier replied, and they went on, crossing valleys, rugged ridges and desert wastes.
One night, when Taj al-Muluk was sleeping, he dreamt that his beloved was with him and that he was embracing her and clasping her to his breast. Waking in alarm with his wits astray, he recited:
My two companions, my heart is astray and my tears fall;
I am filled with passion; infatuation clings to me.
My tearful lament is that of a woman who has lost her child;
In the darkness of night I moan as moans the dove.
If the wind blows from your land,
I find a coolness spreading over the earth.
I send you my greetings when the east wind blows,
As long as ringdoves fly and pigeons moan.
When he had finished reciting these lines, the vizier came up to him and said: ‘Be glad; this is a good sign, so set your heart at rest and take comfort, for you are certain to reach your goal.’ ‘Aziz went up to him to urge him to have patience, entertaining him, talking to him and telling him stories. They continued to press on with their journey, travelling day and night for another two months. Then one day when the sun rose they saw in the distance something white. Taj al-Muluk asked ‘Aziz what it was and he replied: ‘Master, that is the White Castle and this is the city that you have been making for.’ Taj al-Muluk was glad, and he and the others went on until they came close to it.
At that point the prince was transported by joy, and care and sorrow fell away from him. He and his companions entered the city disguised as traders, with Taj al-Muluk dressed as a merchant prince. They went to a large hostel known as the merchants’ khan and Taj al-Muluk asked ‘Aziz if it was where merchants stayed. ‘Yes,’ replied ‘Aziz, ‘and it is where I lodged myself.’ So they halted there, making their camels kneel and unsaddling them, after which they put their goods in the storehouses and rested for four days. The vizier then advised them to rent a larger house. They agreed and hired a spacious property, well adapted for feasts, and there they took up their quarters.
The vizier and ‘Aziz spent their time trying to come up with a plan for Taj al-Muluk, while he himself was at a loss, with no idea what to do except to take his wares to the silk bazaar. The vizier approached him and ‘Aziz, saying: ‘If we stay here like this, then you can be sure that we shall not get what we want or carry out our mission. I have thought of something which, God willing, may produce a good result.’ ‘Do whatever occurs to you,’ said the others, ‘for old men are fortunate and this is especially true of you, thanks to your experience of affairs. So tell us what you have thought of.’ ‘My advice,’ the vizier said to Taj al-Muluk, ‘is that we should take a booth for you in the silk market where you should sit, buying and selling. Everyone of whatever class, upper or lower, needs pieces of silk, and if you sit there quietly, God willing, you will succeed in your affair, especially because of your good looks. Make ‘Aziz your agent, so that he can sit inside the booth to hand you the various items and materials.’
When he heard this, Taj al-Muluk agreed that it was a good and sound idea. He took out a splendid set of merchant’s clothes, put them on and walked off, followed by his servants, to whom he had given a thousand dinars in order to set the new place to rights. They went on until they reached the silk market, and when the merchants saw Taj al-Muluk and noted how handsome he was, they were taken aback. ‘Ridwan has opened the gates of Paradise and forgotten to close them again, and so this wonderfully handsome young man has come out,’ said one. ‘Perhaps he is an angel!’ exclaimed another. When his party came to the merchants, they asked where the market superintendent had his booth. They were given directions and walked on until they found it. They greeted him and he and the merchants who were with him rose to meet them, invited them to sit and treated them with honour. This was because of the vizier, whom they saw to be a dignified old man. On noting that he was accompanied by the young Taj al-Muluk and by ‘Aziz, they said to themselves: ‘There is no doubt that this old man is the father of the two young ones.’
The vizier asked which of them was the superintendent of the market. ‘This is he,’ they said, and the man came forward. The vizier looked at him, studied him and found him to be a venerable and dignified old man, with eunuchs, servants and black slaves. The old man gave the visitors a friendly greeting, treating them with the greatest honour, and after making them sit beside him, he asked whether they had any need that he might be able to fulfil. ‘Yes,’ said the vizier. ‘I am an old man, stricken in years, and I have with me these two young men with whom I have travelled to many regions and countries. I have never entered a town without staying there for a whole year so that they could see its sights and get to know its people. I have now arrived at this town of yours, and as I have chosen to stay here, I want you to provide me with a fine booth in a good situation where I can set them down to trade and to inspect the city, while adapting themselves to the manners of its people, and learning how to buy and sell, give and take.’ ‘There is no problem with that,’ said the superintendent, as he had been glad to see the two young men, for whom he felt a surge of love, he being someone who was passionately fond of murderous glances and who preferred the love of boys to that of girls, inclining to the sour rather than the sweet. To himself he said: ‘This is a fine catch – praise be to Him who created and fashioned them from vile sperm!’
He got up and stood before them as a gesture of respect like a servant, after which he made ready for them a booth in the covered market. In size and splendour it was unsurpassed, being roomy and well decorated, with shelves of ivory and ebony. The keys were handed to the vizier, dressed as he was as an elderly merchant, and the superintendent said to him: ‘Take these, master, and may God bless this place for your sons.’ The vizier took the keys and the three of them went to the khan where they had left their things and told the servants to move all their goods and materials to the booth. There was a great deal of stuff, worth huge amounts of money; all of it was shifted and they themselves went to the booth where it was stored. They spent the night there and in the morning the vizier took the two young men to the baths. They made full use of these, washing and cleaning themselves, putting on splendid clothes and applying perfume. Each of them was dazzlingly handsome and their appearance in the baths fitted the poet’s lines:
Good news it was for the bath man when his hand met
A body created from a mix of water and of light.
He continued with his delicate artistry,
Plucking musk from an image made of camphor.
When they came out, the market superintendent, who had heard where they had gone, was sitting waiting for them. They moved forward like gazelles, with red cheeks, dark eyes and shining faces, like two brilliant moons or two branches laden with fruit. When the superintendent saw them, he rose to his feet and said: ‘My sons, may the baths always bring you comfort.’ In return, Taj al-Muluk said pleasantly: ‘May God grant you grace, father. Why did you not come and bathe with us?’ He and ‘Aziz then bent over the man’s hand and kissed it, after which they walked in front of him to the booth as a token of respect and reverence, since he was the leader of the merchants and the superintendent of the market, and he had already done them a favour by giving them the booth. When he saw their buttocks swaying, his passion increased; he snorted in his excitement and was unable to restrain himself, but staring fixedly at them, he recited these lines:
The heart studies the chapter devoted to him,
Reading nothing that covers partnership with others.
It is not surprising that weight causes him to sway;
How many movements are there in the revolving sphere?
He also recited:
My eye saw the two of them walking on the earth,
And I wished they had been walking on my eye.
When they heard what he said, they insisted that he go a second time with them to the baths. Scarcely able to believe this, he hurried back and they went in with him. The vizier had not yet left and when he heard that the superintendent was there, he came out and met him in the middle of the bath house and invited him to enter. He refused, but Taj al-Muluk took one of his hands and ‘Aziz the other and they brought him to a private room. The evil old man allowed himself to be led by them and his passion increased. Taj al-Muluk swore that he and he alone should wash him, while ‘Aziz swore that none but he should pour the water over him. Although this was what he wanted, he refused, but the vizier said: ‘They are your sons; let them wash you and clean you.’ ‘May God preserve them for you,’ said the superintendent. ‘By God, your arrival and that of your companions has brought blessing and fortune to our city.’ He then recited the lines:
You have come and our hills are clothed in green;
Whoever looks can see they bloom with flowers.
The earth and those who walk on it cry out:
‘Welcome and greeting to the one who comes!’
They thanked him for that, and Taj al-Muluk continued to wash him as ‘Aziz poured water over him, leading him to think that his soul was in Paradise. When they had finished attending to him, he blessed them and sat down beside the vizier to talk to him, although his eyes were fixed on the two young men. Then the servants brought towels and they all dried themselves, put on their things and left the baths. ‘Sir,’ said the vizier to the superintendent, ‘baths are the delight of this world.’ ‘May God grant you and your sons health,’ he replied, ‘and guard you from the evil eye. Can you quote anything that eloquent men have said about baths?’ ‘I can quote you some lines,’ said Taj al-Muluk, and he recited:
Life is at its pleasantest in the baths,
But our stay there cannot be long.
This is a paradise where we dislike to stay,
And a hell where it is pleasant to go in.
After Taj al-Muluk had finished, ‘Aziz said: ‘I, too, remember some lines about baths.’ The superintendent asked him to recite them and he quoted:
There is many a chamber whose flowers are solid stone,
Elegant when fires are kindled round about.
To you it looks like a hell, but it is Paradise,
Most of whose contents look like suns and moons.
When he had finished, the superintendent was full of admiration for his quotation, and seeing the combination of beauty and eloquence that the two possessed, he said: ‘By God, you are both eloquent and graceful, so now listen to me.’ He then chanted tunefully the following lines:
Beauty of hellfire, torment of Paradise,
That gives both souls and bodies life,
A marvellous chamber filled with fresh delight,
Although beneath it there are kindled flames.
Here pleasure lives for all those who approach,
And over it the streams have poured their tears.
Then, letting his gaze roam over the gardens of their beauty, he recited:
I went into that house and saw no chamberlain
Who did not greet me with a smiling face.
I entered Paradise and visited its hell,
Thanking Ridwan and Malik the kindly.
They were filled with admiration when they heard these lines, but when the superintendent invited them home, they refused and went back to their own lodgings to rest after the intense heat of the baths. Having done this, and after eating and drinking, they spent the night there, enjoying the fortune of perfect happiness. In the morning they woke up, performed their ablutions and prayers and took their morning drink. When the sun had risen and the shops and markets were open, they walked off from the house to the market, where they opened their booth. The servants had put this in excellent order, laying down rugs and silk carpets, and in it they had placed two couches, each worth a hundred dinars and each covered with a cloth fit for a king, fringed with a border of gold, while in the middle were splendid furnishings that harmonized with the place.
Taj al-Muluk sat on one sofa and ‘Aziz on the other, while the vizier took his place in the middle of the shop, with the servants standing before him. Hearing about them, the townspeople crowded around, so enabling them to sell some of their goods and their materials. The fame of Taj al-Muluk’s beauty spread through the city, and after several days, on each of which more and more people had come hurrying up to them, the vizier reminded Taj al-Muluk to keep his secret hidden and, after advising him to take care of ‘Aziz, he went home to concoct on his own some plan that might turn out to their advantage.
Taj al-Muluk and ‘Aziz started to talk to each other, with Taj al-Muluk saying that perhaps someone might come from Princess Dunya. He kept repeating this for some days and nights, and being disturbed at heart, he was unable to sleep or rest. Love had him in its grip, and his passion and lovesickness grew worse, while the pleasure of sleep was denied him and he abstained from drinking and eating.
However, his beauty was like that of the moon on the night that it becomes full, and while he was sitting there, he was suddenly approached by an old woman, followed by two slave girls. She walked up and stood by the shop and when she saw his symmetrical physique, his beauty and elegance, she admired his gracefulness and her harem trousers became damp. ‘Glory to the One who created you from vile sperm and made you a temptation for those who look at you!’ she exclaimed. Then, after studying him, she added: ‘This is not a mortal man but a noble angel.’ She approached and greeted him; he returned the greeting and rose to his feet with a smile, being prompted in all this by gestures from ‘Aziz. Asking her to sit beside him, he began to fan her until she was refreshed and rested. She then turned to him and said: ‘My son, you are a pattern of all perfection: do you come from these parts?’ Taj al-Muluk replied eloquently, in pleasant and agreeable tones: ‘My lady, this is the first time that I have ever been here in my life and I have only stopped here in order to look at the sights.’ She spoke words of welcome and then asked: ‘What materials have you brought with you? Show me something beautiful, for that is the only thing that can be worn by the beautiful.’
When Taj al-Muluk heard this, his heart fluttered and he could not grasp what she meant, but ‘Aziz made a sign to him and he said: ‘I have here everything that you could want. I have what will suit only kings or the daughters of kings, so tell me for whom it is that you need this, in order that I can put out for you everything that might be appropriate.’ By saying this he hoped to find out what she really meant. In reply she said: ‘I want something suitable for Princess Dunya, the daughter of King Shahriman.’
Overjoyed to hear this reference to his beloved, Taj al-Muluk told ‘Aziz to fetch him a particular package. ‘Aziz brought it and opened it in front of him, after which Taj al-Muluk told the old woman: ‘Choose what will suit her, for this is something that you will find nowhere else.’ The old woman picked on something that was worth a thousand dinars, and asked its price, while, as she talked to him, she was rubbing the palm of her hand between her thighs. ‘Am I to haggle with someone like you about this paltry price? Praise be to God who has let me come to know you,’ said Taj al-Muluk. ‘May God’s Name guard you,’ she replied. ‘I ask the protection of the Lord of the dawn for your beautiful face. A beautiful face and an eloquent tongue – happy is she who sleeps in your embrace, clasps your body and enjoys your youth, especially if she is as beautiful as you!’ Taj al-Muluk laughed until he fell over, exclaiming: ‘You Who fulfil desires at the hands of profligate old women, it is they who satisfy needs!’
The woman asked his name and on being told that it was Taj al-Muluk, she said: ‘This is a name for kings and princes, but you are dressed as a merchant.’ ‘Aziz said: ‘It was because of the love and affection that his parents and his family had for him that they called him this.’ ‘That must be true,’ said the old woman. ‘May God protect you from the evil eye and from the evil of your enemies and the envious, even though your beauty causes hearts to break.’ She then took the material and went on her way, still dazed by his beauty and symmetrical physique. She walked on until she came into the presence of Princess Dunya. ‘I have brought you some fine material, lady,’ she said. When the princess told her to show it to her, she said: ‘Here it is, lady; turn it over and look at it.’ Dunya was astonished at what she saw, saying: ‘This is beautiful stuff, nurse. I have never seen its like in our city.’ ‘The man who sold it is more beautiful still,’ said the old woman. ‘It is as though Ridwan opened the gates of Paradise, and then when he forgot to close them, out came the young man who sold me this material. I wish that he could sleep with you tonight and lie between your breasts. He has brought precious stuffs to your city in order to look around it, and he is a temptation to the eyes of those who see him.’
Princess Dunya laughed at what she had to say, exclaiming: ‘May God shame you, you unlucky old woman; you are talking nonsense and you have lost your wits!’ Then she added: ‘Bring me the material so that I can have a good look at it.’ When it was given to her, she looked at it for a second time and saw that, albeit small, it was precious. She admired it, as never in her life had she seen its match, saying: ‘By God, this is good material.’ ‘By God, lady,’ said the old woman, ‘if you saw its owner, you would realize that he is the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth.’ The princess enquired: ‘Did you ask him to tell us whether there is any need he has that we can fulfil for him?’ The old woman shook her head and said: ‘May God preserve your perspicacity. By God, he does have a need, may your skill not desert you. Can anyone escape from needs and be free of them?’ ‘Go to him,’ said the princess, ‘greet him and say: “You have honoured our land and our city by coming here. Whatever needs you have we shall willingly fulfil.”’
Back went the old woman immediately to Taj al-Muluk, and when he saw her, his heart leapt with happiness and joy. He got up, took her by the hand and made her sit beside him. When she had rested she told him what the princess had said to her. He was overjoyed, cheerful and relaxed; happiness entered into his heart and he said to himself: ‘I have got what I wanted.’ He asked the old woman: ‘Would you carry a message from me and bring me the reply?’ ‘Willingly,’ she said, and he then told ‘Aziz to bring him an inkstand, paper and a brass pen. When these had been fetched, he took the pen in his hand and wrote these lines:
I have written you a letter, you who are my wish,
Telling of how I suffer from the pain of separation.
Its first line tells of the fire within my heart,
Its second of my passion and my longing.
The third tells how my life and patience waste away;
The fourth says: ‘All the passion still remains.’
The fifth asks: ‘When shall my eyes rest on you?’
And the sixth: ‘On what day shall we meet?’
At the end of the letter he wrote: ‘This letter comes from the captive of desire, held in the prison of longing, whose only chance of freedom lies in union and a meeting that follows after remoteness and separation. Parting from loved ones has left him to endure the pain and torture of passion.’ With tears pouring from his eyes, he then wrote these lines:
I have written to you as my tears flood down,
Falling from my eyes in ceaseless streams.
But I am not one to despair of the grace of God;
A day may come on which we two shall meet.
He folded the letter, sealed it and gave it to the old woman, saying: ‘Take this to Princess Dunya.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ she said, and he then handed her a thousand dinars, saying: ‘Accept this as a friendly gift from me, mother.’ She took the money, blessed him and left, walking back to Princess Dunya, who, when she saw her, said: ‘Nurse, what did he ask for, so that we can fulfil his request?’ ‘Lady,’ the old woman replied, ‘he sent me with this letter, but I don’t know what is in it.’ She handed the letter to Dunya, who took it, read it and, after having understood its meaning, exclaimed: ‘What are things coming to when this trader sends me messages and writes to me?’ She slapped her own face and said: ‘With my position, am I to have connections with the rabble? Oh, Oh!’ and she added: ‘Were it not for my fear of God, I would have him killed and crucified over his shop.’
‘What is in the letter that has upset and disturbed you?’ asked the old woman. ‘I wonder whether it is some complaint about injustice and whether he is asking payment for the material.’ ‘Damn you,’ said Dunya, ‘it is not about that. There is nothing in it but words of love. This is all thanks to you, for otherwise how could this devil have known about me?’ ‘Lady,’ answered the old woman, ‘you sit in your high palace and no one, not even the birds of the air, can reach you. May you and your youthfulness be free from blame and reproach. The dogs may bark, but this means nothing to you, who are a princess and the daughter of a king. Don’t blame me for bringing you the letter, for I had no idea what was in it. My advice is that you should send him a reply, threaten him with death and tell him to give up this wild talk. That will finish the matter for him and he will not do the same thing again.’ Princess Dunya said: ‘I’m afraid that if I write to him, this may stir his desire for me.’ ‘When he hears the threats and warnings, he will draw back,’ said the old woman.
The princess told her to fetch an inkstand, paper and a brass pen. When these had been brought, she wrote the following lines:
You make a pretence of love and claim sad sleeplessness,
Talking of passion and your cares;
Deluded man, do you seek union with the moon?
Has anyone got what he wanted from the moon?
I advise you to give up your quest;
Abandon it, for in it there is danger.
If you use words like these again,
You will be punished harshly at my hands.
I swear by Him Who created man from sperm
And caused the sun and the moon to spread their light,
If you should dare to talk of this again,
I shall have you crucified upon a tree.
She folded the letter, gave it to the old woman and said: ‘Hand this to him and tell him to stop talking in this way.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ replied the old woman, who took the letter joyfully and went to her house, where she spent the night. In the morning she set off for Taj al-Muluk’s shop and found him waiting for her. When he saw her, he almost flew up into the air for joy, and when she approached, he rose to meet her. He made her sit beside him, and she produced the note, handed it to him and told him to read it. ‘Princess Dunya was angry when she read your letter,’ she said, ‘but I humoured her and joked with her until I made her laugh. Her feelings towards you softened and she wrote you a reply.’ Taj al-Muluk thanked her for that and told ‘Aziz to give her a thousand dinars, but when he read the note and understood what it meant, he wept bitterly. The old woman felt sympathy for him and was grieved by his tears and complaints. ‘My son,’ she said, ‘what is in this paper that has made you weep?’ ‘She threatens to kill me and to crucify me,’ he answered, ‘and she forbids me to write to her, but if I do not, then it would be better for me to die than to live. So take the answer to her letter and let her do what she wants.’ ‘By your youthful life,’ said the old woman, ‘I must join you in risking my own life in order to get you to your goal and to help you reach what you have in mind.’ ‘I shall reward you for everything you do,’ said Taj al-Muluk, ‘and you will find it weighed out in your favour on the Day of Judgement. You are experienced in the running of affairs and you know the various types of intrigue. All difficulties are easy for you to overcome, and God has power over all things.’
He then took a piece of paper and wrote these lines on it:
She threatened me with death, alas for me,
But this would bring me rest; death is decreed for all,
And it is easier for a lover than long life
When he is kept from his beloved and oppressed.
Visit a lover who has few to help him, for God’s sake;
I am your slave, and slaves are held captive.
My lady, pity me in my love for you.
All those who love the nobly born must be excused.
After writing the lines, he sighed deeply and wept until the old woman wept too. She then took the paper from him and told him to be of good cheer and to console himself, for she would bring him to his goal.
She left him on fire with anxiety and set off for the princess. Dunya had been so enraged by Taj al-Muluk’s letter that the old woman found that her colour had changed, and when she was given the second note, she grew even angrier. ‘Didn’t I tell you that he would desire me?’ she said to the old woman. ‘What is this dog that he should do such a thing?’ the woman replied. ‘Go to him,’ ordered Dunya, ‘and tell him that if he sends me another letter, I shall have his head cut off.’ The old woman said: ‘Write this down for him in a letter and I shall take it with me, to make him even more frightened.’ Dunya then took a piece of paper on which she wrote these lines:
You who are heedless of the blows of fate,
You race for union, but are bound to fail.
Do you suppose, deluded man, that you can reach a star?
The shining moon remains outside your grasp.
How is it that you set your hopes on me
Hoping for union, to embrace my slender form?
Give up this quest of yours for fear I force on you
A day of gloom to whiten the parting of the hair.
She folded the letter and handed it to the old woman, who took it off to Taj al-Muluk. When he saw her, he got to his feet and said: ‘May God never deprive me of the blessing of your coming.’ The old woman told him to take the reply to his letter and when he had taken it and read it, he burst into tears. ‘I would like someone to kill me now so that I might find rest, for to be slain would be easier for me to bear than my present position.’ He then took the inkstand, pen and paper and wrote a note with these lines:
You who are my wish, seek no harsh parting;
Visit a lover drowning in his love.
Do not think this harshness will allow me life;
The breath of life will leave with the beloved.
He folded the letter and gave it to the old woman, saying: ‘Don’t reproach me for putting you to trouble without reward.’ Telling ‘Aziz to pay her a thousand dinars, he then said to her: ‘Mother, this note will lead either to complete union or to a final break.’ ‘My son,’ she replied, ‘by God, all I want is your good and I would like you to have her, for you are the radiant moon and she is the rising sun. If I fail to bring you together, then my life is of no use. I have reached the age of ninety, having spent my days in wiles and trickery, so how can I fail to unite a pair in illicit love?’ She then took her leave of him and went off, having encouraged him.
When she came into the presence of Princess Dunya, she had hidden the paper in her hair. When she sat down there, she scratched her head and asked the princess to examine her head for lice, saying that it was a long time since she had been to the baths. The princess rolled back her sleeves to the elbow, let down the old woman’s hair and started to search. The note fell out and when the princess saw it, she asked what it was. ‘It must have stuck to me while I was sitting in the trader’s shop,’ the old woman said. ‘Give it to me so that I can take it back to him, as there may be a bill there which he will need.’ The princess opened it up and read it, and when she had seen what was in it, she said to the old woman: ‘This is one of your tricks and but for the fact that you brought me up, I would strike out at you here and now. God has plagued me with this merchant, and everything that he has done to me has been thanks to you. I don’t know from what land he has come; no one else has been able to take such liberties with me, and I am afraid lest this become public, especially since it concerns a man who is not of my race and is not one of my equals.’ The old woman turned to her and said: ‘No one will dare talk about it for fear of your power and the awe in which your father is held. There can be no harm in sending him back an answer.’ ‘Nurse,’ the princess said, ‘this man is a devil. How has he dared to talk like this? He doesn’t fear the king’s power, and I don’t know what to do about him. If I order him to be killed, that would not be right, but if I let him be, he will grow even more daring.’ ‘Write him a note,’ said the old woman, ‘so that he may be warned off.’
The princess asked for paper, an inkstand and a pen, after which she wrote these lines:
You have long been censured, but too much folly leads you astray;
How many verses must I write to hold you back?
The more you are forbidden, the more you covet;
If you keep this secret, that is the only thing I shall approve.
Conceal your love; never let it be known;
For if you speak, I shall not listen to you,
And if you talk of this again,
The raven of parting will croak your death-knell.
Death will soon swoop down on you,
And you will rest buried beneath the earth.
Deluded man, you will leave your family to regret your loss,
Mourning that you have gone from them for ever.
She then folded the paper and gave it to the old woman, who took it and set off to Taj al-Muluk. She gave it to him and, having read it, he realized that princess was hard-hearted and that he would not be able to reach her. He took his complaint to the vizier, asking him to devise a good plan. The vizier told him that the only thing that might be of use would be for him to write her a letter calling down a curse on her. Taj al-Muluk said: ‘‘Aziz, my brother, write for me, as you know what to say.’ So ‘Aziz took a piece of paper and wrote:
Lord, by the five planets I ask You, rescue me
And lead the one who torments me to taste my grief.
You know I suffer from a burning passion;
She treats me harshly and is pitiless.
How long must I be tender in my sufferings?
How long will she oppress me in my feebleness?
I stray through endless floods of misery
And find no one to help me, oh my Lord.
How often do I try to forget her love!
It has destroyed my patience; how can I forget?
You keep me from the sweet union of love;
Are you yourself safe from the miseries of Time?
Are you not happy in your life, while, thanks to you,
I am an exile from my country and my kin?
‘Aziz then folded the letter and handed it to Taj al-Muluk, who read it with admiration and handed it to the old woman. She took it and went to Princess Dunya, to whom she gave the letter. When Dunya had read it and digested its contents, she was furiously angry and said: ‘This illomened old woman is responsible for all that has happened to me.’ She called to her slave girls and eunuchs and said: ‘Seize this damned scheming old creature and beat her with your slippers.’ They fell upon her and beat her until she fainted. When she had recovered consciousness, the princess said to her: ‘By God, you wicked old woman, were it not for my fear of Almighty God I would kill you.’ She then told the servants to beat her again, which they did until she fainted, after which on her orders they dragged her off face downwards and threw her outside in front of the door of the palace.
When she had recovered, she got up and moved off, walking and sitting down at intervals, until she reached her house. She waited until morning and then got up and went to Taj al-Muluk, to whom she told everything that had happened to her. Finding this hard to bear, he said: ‘I am distressed by this, mother, but all things are controlled by fate and destiny.’ She told him to be of good heart and to take comfort, adding: ‘I shall not stop trying until I have brought the two of you together and fetched you to this harlot who has me beaten so painfully.’ Taj al-Muluk then asked her what had caused the princess to hate men, and when he was told that this was because of a dream that she had had, he asked what the dream had been.
The old woman replied: ‘One night when the princess was asleep she saw in a dream a hunter spreading out a net on the ground and scattering wheat around it. He sat down close by and all the birds there came to the net, among them being a pair of pigeons, male and female. While she was watching the net, the male pigeon got caught in it. It started to struggle and all the other birds took fright and flew off, but the female pigeon came back. She circled over him and then came down to the part of the net where her mate’s foot was trapped, pulling at it with her beak until the foot was freed, after which the two of them flew off. The hunter, who had not noticed what was happening, came up and readjusted the net before sitting down at a distance from it. Within an hour, the birds had come down again, and this time it was the female pigeon that was trapped. All the birds took fright, including the male, who did not return for his mate, and so, when the hunter arrived, he took her and cut her throat. The princess woke from her dream in alarm and said: “All males are like this; there is no good in them, and no men are of any good to women.” ’
When she had finished her tale, Taj al-Muluk said: ‘Mother, I want to look at her once, even if this means my death, so think of some way for me to do this.’ The old woman said: ‘Know that beneath her palace she has a pleasure garden to which she goes once a month from her postern door. In ten days, it will be time for her next visit, and when she is on the point of going out, I shall come and tell you so that you can go and meet her. Take care not to leave the garden, for it may be that if she sees how handsome you are, she may fall in love with you, and love is the most potent motive for union.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ said Taj al-Muluk, and he and ‘Aziz then left the shop and, taking the old woman with them, they went back to their house, which they showed to her. Taj al-Muluk said to ‘Aziz: ‘Brother, I don’t need the shop any more. I have got what I wanted from it and so I give it to you, with all its contents, as you have come with me to a foreign country, leaving your own land.’
‘Aziz accepted the gift and the two sat talking, with Taj al-Muluk asking ‘Aziz about the strange circumstances in which he had found himself and about his adventures, while ‘Aziz gave him an account of everything that had happened to him. After that they went to the vizier and told him what Taj al-Muluk had determined to do, and asked him how they should set about it. ‘Come with me to the garden,’ said the vizier, and they each put on their most splendid clothes and went out, followed by three mamluks. They made their way to the garden, where they saw quantities of trees and many streams, with the gardener sitting by the gate. After they had exchanged greetings, the vizier handed the man a hundred dinars and said: ‘Please take this money and buy us something to eat, as we are strangers here. I have with me these sons of mine and I want to show them the sights.’ The gardener took the dinars and told them: ‘Go in and look around, for it is all yours. Then you can sit down and wait for me to bring you food.’
He then went off to the market, and the vizier, Taj al-Muluk and ‘Aziz entered the garden. After a while he brought back a roast lamb and bread as white as cotton, which he placed in front of them. They ate and drank, and he then produced sweetmeats, which they ate, and after this they washed their hands and sat talking. ‘Tell me about this place,’ the vizier then said to the gardener. ‘Do you own or rent it?’ ‘It’s not mine,’ replied the gardener. ‘It belongs to the king’s daughter, Princess Dunya.’ ‘What is your monthly pay?’ asked the vizier. ‘One dinar, and no more,’ replied the man. The vizier looked at the garden and saw that it contained a high pavilion, but that this was old. He then said to the gardener: ‘Shaikh, I would like to do a good deed by which you may remember me.’ When the man asked him what he was thinking of, by way of reply he said: ‘Accept these three hundred dinars.’ When the gardener heard him talk of gold, he said: ‘Master, do whatever you want.’ The vizier gave him the money and said: ‘If it is the will of Almighty God, we shall achieve something good here.’
The three then left the gardener and went back to their house, where they passed the night. The next day, the vizier summoned a house painter, an artist and a skilled goldsmith, and he produced for them all the tools they would need. He took them into the garden and told them to whitewash the pavilion and to decorate it with various kinds of pictures. He had gold and lapis lazuli fetched and he told the artist to produce on one side of the hall a picture of a hunter who had spread a net into which birds had fallen, with a female pigeon entangled by its beak. When the artist had painted this, the vizier told him to repeat the motif on the other side of the hall, with the pigeon alone captured by the hunter, who had put a knife to its throat. Opposite this there was to be the picture of a great hawk which had seized the male pigeon and sunk its claws into it. The artist completed the painting and when all three had finished the tasks set them by the vizier, he paid them their wages and they went off, as did the vizier and his companions. After taking leave of the gardener, they went home and sat talking.
Taj al-Muluk said to ‘Aziz: ‘Recite me some poetry, brother, so as to cheer me and to remove these cares of mine, cooling the raging fire in my heart.’ At that, ‘Aziz chanted the following lines:
All the grief of which lovers talk
Is mine alone, exhausting endurance.
If you wish to be watered by my tears,
Their seas will serve all those who come for water,
And if you wish to see what lovers suffer,
From the power of passion, then look at my body.
Shedding tears, he went on to recite:
Whoever does not love graceful necks and eyes,
But still lays claim to worldly pleasure, does not tell the truth.
Love holds a concept that cannot be grasped
By any man except for those who love.
May God not move love’s burden from my heart,
Nor take away the sleeplessness from my eyes.
He next chanted the following lines:
In his Canon, Avicenna claims
That music is the lover’s cure,
Together with union with one like his love,
As well as wine, a garden and dried fruits.
To find a cure, I chose a different girl,
Aided by fate and opportunity,
Only to find that lovesickness is fatal,
While Avicenna’s ‘cure’ is senseless talk.
When ‘Aziz had finished his poem, Taj al-Muluk was astonished at his eloquence and the excellence of his recitation and told him that he had removed some of his cares. The vizier then said: ‘Among the experiences of the ancients are some that leave the hearer lost in wonder.’ ‘If you remember anything of this kind,’ Taj al-Muluk said, ‘let me hear what you can produce in the way of delicate poetry and long stories.’ The vizier then chanted these lines:
I used to think that union could be bought
By prized possessions and payment of cattle.
In ignorance I thought your love too inconsiderable
A thing on which to waste a precious life.
That was before I saw you make your choice
And single out your beloved with choice gifts.
I realized there was no stratagem for me
To reach you, and I tucked my head beneath my wing,
Making my home within the nest of love,
Where endlessly I must pass all my days.
So much, then, for them, but as for the old woman, she remained isolated in her house. It happened that the princess felt a longing to take a walk in the garden. As she would not go out without the old woman, she sent a message and made her peace with her, reconciling her and telling her that she wanted to go out into the garden to look at the trees and their fruits and to enjoy herself among the flowers. The old woman agreed to go with her but said that she first wanted to return home to change her clothes before coming back. ‘Go home, then,’ the princess said, ‘but don’t be long.’ The old woman left her and went to Taj al-Muluk. ‘Get ready,’ she said. ‘Put on your most splendid clothes, go to the garden and, after you have greeted the gardener, hide yourself there.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ he replied, and they agreed between themselves on a signal, after which the old woman returned to Princess Dunya.
When she had left, the vizier and ‘Aziz dressed Taj al-Muluk in the most splendid of royal robes, worth five thousand dinars, and around his waist they fastened a girdle of gold set with gems and precious stones. They then set off for the garden, and when they reached its gate, they found the gardener sitting there. When he saw Taj al-Muluk, he got to his feet and greeted him with reverence and honour, opening the gate for him and saying: ‘Come in and look around the garden.’ He did not know that the princess was going to visit it that day.
Taj al-Muluk went in, but he had been there for only an hour when he heard a noise, and before he knew what was happening, the eunuchs and the slave girls had come out of the postern gate. When the gardener saw them, he went to tell Taj al-Muluk, saying: ‘Master, what are we going to do, for my lady, Princess Dunya, is here?’ ‘No harm will come to you,’ said Taj al-Muluk, ‘for I shall hide myself somewhere in the garden.’ The man told him to be very careful, and then left him and went off.
The princess entered the garden with her maids and the old woman, who told herself: ‘If the eunuchs come with us, we shall not get what we want.’ She then said to the princess: ‘Lady, I can tell you how best to relax,’ and after the princess had told her to speak, she went on: ‘We don’t need these eunuchs now; you can’t relax as long as they are with us, so send them off.’ The princess agreed and sent the eunuchs away.
Soon after that, she began to walk, while, unbeknown to her, Taj al-Muluk was watching her in all her beauty. Every time he looked, he would lose his senses because of her surpassing loveliness. The old woman kept talking to her mistress in order to inveigle her into approaching the pavilion, which had been painted as the vizier had instructed. The princess entered it and looked at the paintings, where she saw the birds, the hunter and the pigeons. ‘Glory be to God!’ she exclaimed. ‘This is exactly what I saw in my dream.’ Looking with amazement at the pictures of the birds, the hunter and the net, she said: ‘Nurse, I used to blame men and hate them, but look at how the hunter has cut the throat of the female pigeon. The male escaped, but he was going to come and rescue his mate when he was met by the hawk, which seized him.’ The old woman, pretending to know nothing about this, kept her occupied with conversation until the two of them came close to Taj al-Muluk’s hiding place.
She then gestured to get Taj al-Muluk to walk beneath the windows of the pavilion, and the princess, who was standing there, happened to turn. She caught sight of Taj al-Muluk and had the chance to study his beauty and his symmetrical form. ‘Where has this handsome young man come from, nurse?’ she asked. ‘I know nothing about him,’ the old woman told her, ‘but I think that he must be the son of a great king, for he is handsome and beautiful to the furthest degree.’ Princess Dunya fell in love; the ties of the spells that had bound her were undone, and she was dazzled by Taj al-Muluk’s beauty and the symmetry of his form. Passion stirred in her and she said to the old woman: ‘Nurse, this young man is handsome.’ ‘True,’ replied the nurse, and she gestured to Taj al-Muluk to indicate that he should go home. He was on fire with love and his passion and ardour had increased, but he went off without stopping and, after saying goodbye to the gardener, he returned home. His longing had been aroused, but he did not disobey the old woman and he told the vizier and ‘Aziz that she had signalled to him to go. They advised him to be patient, telling him that she would not have done that had she not thought that it would be useful.
So much for Taj al-Muluk, the vizier and ‘Aziz, but as for the princess, she was overwhelmed by love, and her passion and ardour increased. She told the old woman: ‘I don’t know how I can meet this young man except with your help.’ ‘I take refuge in God from Satan the accursed,’ said the old woman. ‘You don’t want men, so how have you come to be so disturbed by love for this one, although, by God, he is the only fit mate for your youth?’ ‘Help me, nurse,’ said the princess, ‘and if you can arrange for me to meet him, I shall give you a thousand dinars, while if you don’t, I am sure to die.’ ‘Do you go back to your palace,’ said the old woman, ‘and I shall arrange your meeting and give my life to satisfy the two of you.’
Princess Dunya then returned to her palace, while the old woman went to Taj al-Muluk. When he saw her, he jumped to his feet and greeted her with respect and honour and sat her down beside him. ‘The scheme has worked,’ she said, and she told him what had happened with the princess. ‘When can we meet?’ he asked her, and when she said tomorrow, he gave her a thousand dinars and a robe worth another thousand. She took these and then left, going straight on until she reached the princess. ‘Nurse,’ the princess asked, ‘what news do you have of my beloved?’ ‘I have found where he is,’ she replied, ‘and tomorrow I shall bring him to you.’ In her delight at this, the princess gave her a thousand dinars and a robe worth another thousand. The old woman took these and went off to her house, where she spent the night.
In the morning, she went out and set off to meet Taj al-Muluk. She dressed him in women’s clothes and told him: ‘Follow behind me; sway as you walk; don’t hurry and pay no attention to anyone who talks to you.’ After giving him these instructions, she went out and he followed behind her in his women’s clothes. All the way along she was telling him what to do and encouraging him to stop him taking fright. She continued to walk on ahead, with him at her heels, until they reached the palace door. She led him in and started to pass through doorways and halls, until she had taken him through seven doors. At the seventh, she said to him: ‘Take heart, and when I shout to you: “Come in, girl,” don’t hang back but hurry. When you get into the hall, look left and you will see a room with several doors in it. Count five of them and go in through the sixth door, where you will find what you seek.’ ‘And where will you go yourself?’ asked Taj al-Muluk. ‘Nowhere,’ she replied, ‘but I may fall behind you, and if the chief eunuch detains me, I’ll chat with him.’
She walked on, followed by Taj al-Muluk, until she came to the door where the chief eunuch was. He saw that she had a companion, this being Taj al-Muluk disguised as a slave girl, and he asked about ‘her’. ‘She is a slave girl. Princess Dunya has heard that she knows how to do various types of work and wants to buy her.’ ‘I know nothing about a slave girl or anyone else,’ said the eunuch, ‘but no one is going in until I search them, as the king has ordered.’ The old woman made a show of anger and said: ‘I know you as a sensible, well-mannered man, but if you have changed, I shall tell the princess and let her know that you have obstructed the arrival of her slave girl.’ She then shouted to Taj al-Muluk and said: ‘Come on, girl,’ at which he came into the hall as she had told him, while the eunuch kept silent and said nothing.
Taj al-Muluk counted five doors and went in through the sixth, where he found Princess Dunya standing waiting for him. When she saw him, she recognized him and clasped him to her breast, as he clasped her to his. The old woman then came in, having contrived to get rid of the slave girls for fear of exposure. ‘You can act as doorkeeper,’ the princess told her, and she then remained alone with Taj al-Muluk. The two of them continued hugging, embracing and intertwining legs until early dawn. Then, when it was nearly morning, she left him, closing the door on him and going into another room, where she sat down in her usual place. Her slave girls came to her, and after dealing with their affairs and talking to them, she told them to leave her, saying that she wanted to relax alone. When they had gone, she went to Taj al-Muluk, and the old woman brought them some food, which they ate. She then shut the door on them, as before, and they engaged in love-play until daybreak, and things went on like this for a whole month.
So much, then, for Taj al-Muluk and Dunya, but as for the vizier and ‘Aziz, after Taj al-Muluk had gone to the princess’s palace and stayed there for so long, they believed that he would never come out and would undoubtedly perish. ‘Aziz asked the vizier what they should do. ‘My son,’ said the vizier, ‘this is a difficult business. If we don’t go back and tell his father, he will blame us for it.’ They made their preparations immediately and set off for the Green Land and the Twin Pillars, the royal seat of King Sulaiman Shah. They crossed the valleys by night and by day until they reached the king, and they told him what had happened to his son, adding that since he had entered the palace of the princess they had heard no news of him.
The king was violently agitated and bitterly regretted what had happened. He gave orders that war should be proclaimed, with the troops moving out of the city, where tents were pitched for them. The king himself sat in his pavilion until his forces had gathered from all parts of his kingdom. He was popular with his subjects because of his justice and beneficence, and so when he moved out in search of his son, Taj al-Muluk, it was with an army which spread over the horizon.
So much for them, but as for Taj al-Muluk and Princess Dunya, they continued as they had been for six months, with their love for each other growing every day. The strength of Taj al-Muluk’s love and his passion and ardour increased until he told the princess what was in his heart and said: ‘Know, my heart’s darling, that the longer I stay with you, the more my passionate love increases, for I have not fully reached my goal.’ ‘And what do you want, light of my eyes and fruit of my heart?’ she asked. ‘For if you want more than hugs and embraces and the intertwinings of legs, then do what you want, for only God is a partner in our love.’ ‘That is not the kind of thing that I mean,’ he said, ‘but rather I would like to tell you the truth about myself. You have to know that I am not a merchant but a king and the son of a king. My father’s name is Sulaiman Shah, the great king, who sent his vizier to your father to ask for your hand for me, but when you heard of this, you would not agree.’ Then he told her his story from beginning to end, and there is nothing to be gained from repeating it. Taj al-Muluk went on: ‘I want now to go to my father to get him to send another envoy to your father to ask him again for your hand, so that we may relax.’ When she heard this, the princess was overjoyed, because it coincided with what she herself wanted, and the two of them spent the night in agreement on this.
As fate had decreed, on that particular night they were overcome by sleep and they did not wake until the sun had risen. By then, King Shahriman was seated on his royal throne with the emirs of his kingdom before him. The master of the goldsmiths came into his presence carrying a large box, and, on approaching, he opened this before the king. From it he took a finely worked case which was worth a hundred thousand dinars because of what it contained in the way of gems, rubies and emeralds, such that no king of the lands could amass. When the king saw the case, he admired its beauty and he turned to the chief eunuch, Kafur, whose meeting with the old woman has already been described, and he told him to take the case and bring it to Princess Dunya.
The eunuch took the case and went to Dunya’s room, where he found the door shut and the old woman sleeping on the threshold. ‘Are you still asleep as late as this?’ he exclaimed. When she heard his voice, the old woman woke in alarm. ‘Wait until I fetch you the key,’ she said, and then she left as fast as she could and fled away. So much for her, but as for the eunuch, he realized that there was something suspicious about her and, lifting the door from its hinges, he entered the room where he found Dunya asleep in the arms of Taj al-Muluk. When he saw this, he was at a loss to know what to do and he thought of going back to the king. The princess woke up and on finding him there she changed colour, turned pale and said: ‘Kafur, conceal what God has concealed.’ ‘I cannot hide anything from the king,’ he answered, and locking the door on them, he returned to the king. ‘Have you given your mistress the case?’ he asked. ‘Take the box,’ said Kafur. ‘There it is; I cannot hide anything from you, and so you have to know that I saw a handsome young man sleeping with the Lady Dunya on the same bed, and they were embracing.’
The king ordered that both of them be brought before him. ‘What have you done?’ he said to them, and in his rage he seized a whip and was about to strike Taj al-Muluk when the princess threw herself on him and said to her father: ‘Kill me before you kill him.’ The king spoke angrily to her and ordered the servants to take her to her room. He then turned to Taj al-Muluk and said: ‘Where have you come from, damn you? Who is your father and how did you dare to approach my daughter?’ Taj al-Muluk said: ‘King, know that if you kill me, you will be destroyed and you and all the inhabitants of your kingdom will have cause for regret.’ When the king asked him why this was, he went on: ‘Know that I am the son of King Sulaiman Shah, and before you know it, he will bring his horse and foot against you.’
When King Shahriman heard that, he wanted to postpone the execution and to keep Taj al-Muluk in prison until he could see whether what he said was true, but the vizier said: ‘My advice is that you should kill this scoundrel quickly, for he has the insolence to take liberties with the daughters of kings.’ So the king told the executioner: ‘Cut off his head, for he is a traitor.’ The executioner seized Taj al-Muluk and bound him. He then raised his hand, by way of consulting the emirs, first once and then again. In doing so, he wanted to delay things, but the king shouted at him: ‘How long are you going to consult? If you do this once more, I shall cut off your head.’ So the executioner raised his arm until the hair in his armpit could be seen, and he was about to strike when suddenly there were loud screams and people shut up their shops. ‘Don’t be too fast,’ the king said to the executioner, and he sent someone to find out what was happening. When the man came back, he reported: ‘I have seen an army like a thunderous sea with tumultuous waves. The earth is trembling beneath the hooves of their galloping horses, but I don’t know who they are.’
The king was dismayed, fearing that he was going to lose his kingdom. Turning to his vizier, he asked: ‘Have none of our troops gone out to meet this army?’ But before he had finished speaking, his chamberlains entered, escorting messengers from the newly arrived king, among them being Sulaiman Shah’s vizier. The vizier was the first to greet the king, who rose to meet the envoys, told them to approach and asked them why they had come. The vizier came forward from among them and said: ‘Know that a king has come to your land who is not like former kings or the sultans of earlier days.’ ‘Who is he?’ the king asked. ‘The just and faithful ruler, the fame of whose magnanimity has been spread abroad,’ replied the vizier. ‘He is King Sulaiman Shah, ruler of the Green Land, the Twin Pillars and the mountains of Isfahan. He loves justice and equity, hating injustice and tyranny. His message to you is that his son, who is his darling and the fruit of his heart, is with you and in your city. If the prince is safe, that is what he hopes to find, and you will be thanked and praised, but if he has disappeared from your land or if some misfortune has overtaken him, then be assured of ruin and the devastation of your country, for he will make it a wilderness in which the ravens croak. I have given you the message and so, farewell.’
When King Shahriman heard the vizier’s message, he was alarmed and feared for his kingdom. He shouted a summons to his state officials, his viziers, chamberlains and deputies, and when they came, he told them to go and look for the young man. Taj al-Muluk was still in the hands of the executioner and so afraid had he been that his appearance had changed. His father’s vizier happened to look around and found him lying on the execution mat. On recognizing him, he got up and threw himself on him, as did his fellow envoys. They then unloosed his bonds, kissing his hands and his feet. When Taj al-Muluk opened his eyes, he recognized the vizier and his companion ‘Aziz and fainted from excess of joy.
King Shahriman was at a loss to know what to do and he was very afraid when it became clear to him that it was because of the young man that this army had come. He got up and went to Taj al-Muluk. With tears starting from his eyes, he kissed his head and said: ‘My son, do not blame me; do not blame the evil-doer for what he did. Have pity on my white hairs and do not bring destruction on my kingdom.’ Taj al-Muluk went up to him, kissing his hand and saying: ‘No harm will come to you. You are like a father to me, but take care that nothing happens to my beloved, Princess Dunya.’ ‘Have no fear, sir,’ said the king. ‘Nothing but happiness will come to her.’ He continued to excuse himself and to appease Sulaiman Shah’s vizier, promising him a huge reward if he would conceal from his master what he had seen. He then ordered his principal officers to take Taj al-Muluk to the baths, give him the finest of clothes and return with him quickly. This they did, escorting him to the baths and making him put on a suit of clothes that King Shahriman had sent specially for him, before bringing him back to the audience chamber.
When he entered, the king got up for him and made all his principal officers rise to attend on the prince. Taj al-Muluk then sat down to talk to his father’s vizier and to ‘Aziz, telling them what had happened to him. They, in their turn, told him that during his absence they had returned to his father with the news that he had gone into the princess’s apartments and not come out, leaving them unsure as to what had happened. They added: ‘When he heard that, he mustered his armies and we came here, bringing great relief to you and joy to us.’ ‘From first to last, good continues to flow from your hands,’ exclaimed Taj al-Muluk.
King Shahriman went to his daughter and found her wailing and weeping for Taj al-Muluk. She had taken a sword, fixed the hilt in the ground and placed the point between her breasts directly opposite her heart. She bent over it, saying: ‘I must kill myself, for I cannot live after my beloved.’ When her father came in and saw her like this, he shouted to her: ‘Mistress of princesses, don’t do it! Have pity on your father and your countrymen!’ He then went up to her and said: ‘You are not to bring down evil upon your father.’ He told her that her beloved, the son of King Sulaiman Shah, wanted to marry her, adding that the betrothal and the marriage were dependent on her. She smiled and said: ‘Didn’t I tell you that he was a king’s son? By God, I shall have to let him crucify you on a piece of timber worth two dirhams.’ ‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘have mercy on me that God may have mercy on you.’ To which she replied: ‘Hurry off and bring him to me quickly and without delay.’
The king then hurried away to Taj al-Muluk, to whom he whispered the news, and then the two of them went to the princess. On seeing her lover, she threw her arms around his neck in the presence of her father, embraced him and kissed him, saying: ‘You left me lonely.’ Then she turned to her father and said: ‘Do you think that anyone could exaggerate the merits of so handsome a being? In addition, he is a king and the son of a king, one of those of noble stock who are prevented from indulging in depravity.’ At that, the king went out and shut the door on them with his own hand. He then went to the vizier of Sulaiman Shah and his fellow envoys, and he told them to inform their master that his son was well and happy, living a life of the greatest pleasure with his beloved.
When they had set off to take this message to Sulaiman Shah, King Shahriman ordered that presents, forage and guest provisions should be sent out to his troops. When all this had been done, he sent out a hundred fine horses, a hundred dromedaries, a hundred mamluks, a hundred concubines, a hundred black slaves and a hundred slave girls, all of whom were led out before him as a gift, while he himself mounted and rode from the city with his chief officials and principal officers. When Sulaiman Shah learned of this, he got up and walked a few paces to meet the king. He had been delighted to hear the news brought by the vizier and ‘Aziz, and he exclaimed: ‘Praise be to God who has allowed my son to achieve his wish.’ He then embraced King Shahriman and made him sit beside him on his couch, where they talked together happily. Food was produced and they ate their fill, after which they moved on to sweetmeats and fruit, both fresh and dried, all of which they sampled. Shortly afterwards, Taj al-Muluk arrived, dressed in his finery. His father, on seeing him, got up to embrace him and kissed him, while all those who were seated rose to their feet. The two kings made him sit between them and they sat talking for a time until Sulaiman Shah said to King Shahriman: ‘I want to draw up a contract of marriage between my son and your daughter before witnesses, so that the news may spread abroad, as is the custom.’ ‘To hear is to obey,’ said King Shahriman, and at that, he sent for the qadi and the notaries. When they came they drew up the contract between Taj al-Muluk and Princess Dunya, after which money and sweetmeats were distributed, incense was burned and perfume released. That was a day of happiness and delight, and all the leaders and the soldiers shared in the joy.
While King Shahriman began to prepare for his daughter’s wedding, Taj al-Muluk said to his father: ‘This young ‘Aziz is a noble fellow who has done me a great service. He has shared my hardships, travelled with me, brought me to my goal, endured with me and encouraged me to endure until the affair was settled. For two years now he has been with me, far from his own land. I want us to equip him with merchandise from here so that he can go off joyfully, as his country is not far from here.’ The king agreed that this was an excellent idea and they prepared for ‘Aziz a hundred loads of the finest and most expensive materials. Taj al-Muluk then came, presented him with a huge sum of money, and said, on taking his leave of him: ‘Brother and friend, take this money as a gift of friendship, and may safety attend you as you return to your own country.’ ‘Aziz accepted the gift and kissed the ground before him and before the king. He took his leave and Taj al-Muluk rode with him for three miles, after which ‘Aziz entreated him persuasively to turn back, adding: ‘Were it not for my mother, master, I would not leave you, but don’t deprive me of news of you.’
Taj al-Muluk agreed to this and went back, while ‘Aziz travelled on until he reached his own country. He did not stop until he had come to his mother, who, as he found, had built a tomb for him in the middle of the house, which she continually visited. When he went in, he found that she had undone her hair, which was spread over the tomb. She was weeping and reciting the lines:
I show patience in the face of each disaster,
But separation leaves me prey to care.
Who can bear to lose his friend,
And who is not brought low by the imminence of parting?
She then sighed deeply and recited:
Why is it when I pass the tombs
And greet my beloved’s grave, he makes no answer?
He says: ‘How can I answer you,
When I am held down here by stones and earth?
The earth has eaten my beauties; I have forgotten you,
Secluded as I am from my kin and my dear ones.’
While she was in this state, ‘Aziz came in and, on seeing him, she fell fainting with joy. He sprinkled water on her face, and when she had recovered, she got up and took him in her arms, hugging him as he hugged her. They then exchanged greetings, and when she asked the reason for his absence, he told her the whole story of what had happened to him from beginning to end, including how Taj al-Muluk had given him money as well as a hundred loads of materials. His mother was delighted, and he stayed with her in his city, lamenting what had happened to him at the hands of the daughter of Delilah the wily, who had castrated him.
So much for ‘Aziz, but as for Taj al-Muluk, he went in to his beloved, Princess Dunya, and deflowered her. King Shahriman then began to equip her for her journey with her husband and her father-in-law. He brought for them provisions, gifts and rarities, which were loaded on their beasts, and when they set off, he went with them for three days to say goodbye. On the prompting of King Sulaiman Shah, he then turned back, while Sulaiman Shah himself, Taj al-Muluk, his wife and their troops travelled on, night and day, until they were close to their city. News had kept coming in of their approach and the city was adorned with decorations for them. When they entered, the king took his seat on his royal throne, with Taj al-Muluk at his side. He distributed gifts and largesse, and freed all those held in his prisons. He then organized a second wedding for his son, with songs and music continuing to sound for a whole month. The dressers presented Princess Dunya in her bridal robes, and she never tired of the process and neither did the ladies tire of looking at her. Taj al-Muluk, after a meeting with his father and mother, went in to his bride and they continued to lead the most delightful and pleasant of lives until they were visited by the destroyer of delights.
[Nights 110–37]