The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 07...

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the old woman betook herself to the Prince and told him all that had passed between herself and the Princess Hayat al-Nufus; and how her mistress was minded to go down into the garden on such a day and said to him, “Hast thou done as I bade thee with the Warder of the garden and hast thou made him taste of thy bounties?” He replied, “Yes, and the oldster is become my good friend: my way is his way and he would well I had need of him.” Then he told her all that had happened and of the dream-paintings which the Wazir had caused to be limned in the pavilion; especially of the fowler, the net and the falcon: whereat she joyed with great joy and said, “Allah upon thee, do thou set thy Minister midmost thy heart, for this that he hath done pointeth to the keenness of his wit and he hath helped thee to the winning thy wish. So rise forthright, O my son, and go to the Hammam-bath and don thy daintiest dress, wherein may be our success. Then fare thou to the Gardener and make shift to pass the night in the garden, for though he should give the earth full of gold none may win to pass into it, whilst the King’s daughter is therein. When thou hast entered, hide thee where no eye may espy thee and keep concealed till thou hear me cry:—O Thou whose boons are hidden, save us from that we fear!

Then come forth from thine ambush and walk among the trees and show thy beauty and loveliness which put the moons to shame, to the intent that Princess Hayat al-Nufus may see thee and that her heart and soul may be filled with love of thee; so shalt thou attain to thy wish and thy grief be gone.” “To hear is to obey,” replied the young Prince and gave her a purse of a thousand dinars, which she took and went away. Thereupon Ardashir fared straight for the bath and washed; after which he arrayed himself in the richest of robes of the apparel of the Kings of the Chosroës and girt his middle with a girdle wherein were conjoined all manner precious stones and donned a turband inwoven with red gold and purfled with pearls and gems. His cheeks shone rosy-red and his lips were scarlet; his eyelids like the gazelle’s wantoned; like a wine-struck wight in his gait he swayed; beauty and loveliness garbed him, and his shape shamed the bowing of the bough. Then he put in his pocket a purse containing a thousand dinars and, repairing to the flower-garden, knocked at the door. The Gardener opened to him and rejoicing with great joy salamed to him in most worshipful fashion; then, observing that his face was overcast, he asked him how he did. The King’s son answered, “Know, O elder, that I am dear to my father and he never laid his hand on me till this day, when words arose between us and he abused me and smote me on the face and struck me with his staff and drave me away.

Now I have no friend to turn to and I fear the perfidy of Fortune, for thou knowest that the wrath of parents is no light thing. Wherefore I come to thee, O uncle, seeing that to my father thou art known, and I desire of thy favour that thou suffer me abide in the garden till the end of the day, or pass the night there, till Allah grant good understanding between myself and my sire.” When the old man heard these words he was concerned anent what had occurred and said, “O my lord, dost thou give me leave to go to thy sire and be the means of reconciliation between thee and him?” Replied Ardashir, “O uncle, thou must know that my father is of impatient nature, and irascible; so an thou proffer him reconciliation in his heat of temper he will make thee no answer; but when a day or two shall have passed, his heat will soften. Then go thou in to him and thereupon he will relent.” “Hearkening and obedience,” quoth the Gardener; “but, O my lord, do thou come with me to my house, where thou shalt night with my children and my family and none shall reproach this to us.” Quoth Ardashir, “O uncle, I must be alone when I am angry.”[281] The old man said, “It irketh me that thou shouldst lie solitary in the garden, when I have a house.” But Ardashir said, “O uncle, I have an aim in this, that the trouble of my mind may be dispelled from me and I know that in this lies the means of regaining his favour and softening his heart to me.”

Rejoined the Gardener, “I will fetch thee a carpet to sleep on and a coverlet wherewith to cover thee;” and the Prince said, “There is no harm in that, O uncle.” So the keeper rose and opened the garden to him, and brought him the carpet and coverlet, knowing not that the King’s daughter was minded to visit the garth. On this wise fared it with the Prince; but as regards the nurse, she returned to the Princess and told her that the fruits were kindly ripe on the garden trees; whereupon she said, “O my nurse, go down with me to-morrow into the garden, that we may walk about in it and take our pleasure,—Inshallah; and send meanwhile to the Gardener, to let him know what we purpose.” So she sent to the Gardener to say:—The Princess will visit the parterre to-morrow, so leave neither water-carriers nor tree-tenders therein, nor let one of Allah’s creatures enter the garth. When word came to him, he set his water-ways and channels in order and, going to Ardashir, said to him, “O my lord, the King’s daughter is mistress of this garden; and I have only to crave thy pardon, for the place is thy place and I live only in thy favours, except that my tongue is under thy feet.[282] I must tell thee that the Princess Hayat al-Nufus hath a mind to visit it to-morrow at the first of the day and hath bidden me leave none therein who might look upon her. So I would have thee of thy favour go forth of the garden this day, for the Queen will abide only in it till the time of mid-afternoon prayer and after it shall be at thy service for se’nnights and fortnights, months and years.”

Ardashir asked, “O elder, haply we have caused thee some mishap?”; and the other answered, “By Allah, O my lord, naught hath betided me from thee but honour!” Rejoined the Prince, “An it be so, nothing but all good shall befal thee through us; for I will hide in the garden and none shall espy me, till the King’s daughter hath gone back to her palace.” Said the Gardener, “O my lord, an she espy the shadow of a man in the garden or any of Allah’s male creatures she will strike off my head;”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Gardener said to the Prince, “An the King’s daughter espy the shadow of a man in her garden, she will strike off my head;” the youth replied, “Have no fear, I will on no wise let any see me. But doubtless to-day thou lackest of spending-money for thy family.” Then he put his hand to his purse and pulled out five hundred ducats, which he gave to him saying, “Take this gold and lay it out on thy family, that thy heart may be at ease concerning them.” When the Shaykh looked upon the gold, his life seemed a light thing to him[283] and he suffered the Prince to tarry where he was, charging him straitly not to show himself in the garden. Then he left him loitering about. Meanwhile, when the eunuchs went in to the Princess at break of day, she bade open the private wicket leading from the palace to the parterres and donned a royal robe, embroidered with pearls and jewels and gems, over a shift of fine silk purfled with rubies. Under the whole was that which tongue refuseth to explain, whereat was confounded the brain and whose love would embrave the craven’s strain. On her head she set a crown of red gold, inlaid with pearls and gems and she tripped in pattens of cloth of gold, embroidered with fresh pearls[284] and adorned with all manner precious stones.

Then she put her hand upon the old woman’s shoulder and commanded to go forth by the privy door; but the nurse looked at the garden and, seeing it full of eunuchs and handmaids walking about, eating the fruits and troubling the streams and taking their ease of sport and pleasure in the water said to the Princess, “O my lady, is this a garden or a madhouse?” Quoth the Princess, “What meaneth thy speech, O nurse?”; and quoth the old woman, “Verily the garden is full of slave-girls and eunuchs, eating of the fruits and troubling the streams and scaring the birds and hindering us from taking our ease and sporting and laughing and what not else; and thou hast no need of them. Wert thou going forth of thy palace into the highway, this would be fitting, as an honour and a ward to thee; but, now, O my lady, thou goest forth of the wicket into the garden, where none of Almighty Allah’s creatures may look on thee.” Rejoined the Princess, “By Allah, O nurse mine, thou sayst sooth! But how shall we do?”; and the old woman said, “Bid the eunuchs send them all away and keep only two of the slave-girls, that we may make merry with them.” So she dismissed them all, with the exception of two of her handmaids who were most in favour with her. But when the old woman saw that her heart was light and that the season was pleasant to her, she said to her, “Now we can enjoy ourselves aright: so up and let us take our pleasance in the garden.” The Princess put her hand upon her shoulder and went out by the private door.

The two waiting-women walked in front and she followed them laughing at them and swaying gracefully to and fro in her ample robes; whilst the nurse forewent her, showing her the trees and feeding her with fruits; and so they fared on from place to place, till they came to the pavilion, which when the King’s daughter beheld and saw that it had been restored, she asked the old woman, “O my nurse, seest thou yonder pavilion? It hath been repaired and its walls whitened.” She answered, “By Allah, O my lady, I heard say that the keeper of the garden had taken stuffs of a company of merchants and sold them and bought bricks and lime and plaster and stones and so forth with the price; so I asked him what he had done with all this, and he said:—I have repaired the pavilion which lay in ruins, presently adding:—And when the merchants sought their due of me, I said to them, Wait till the Princess visit the garden and see the repairs and they satisfy her; then will I take of her what she is pleased to bestow on me, and pay you what is your due. Quoth I—What moved thee to do this thing?; and quoth he:—I saw the pavilion in ruins, the coigns thrown down and the stucco peeled from the walls, and none had the grace to repair it; so I borrowed the coin on my own account and restored the place; and I trust in the King’s daughter to deal with me as befitteth her dignity. I said:—The Princess is all goodness and generosity and will no doubt requite thee. And he did all this but in hopes of thy bounty.”

Replied the Princess, “By Allah, he hath dealt nobly in rebuilding it and hath done the deed of generous men! Call me my purse-keeperess.” The old woman accordingly fetched the purse-keeperess, whom the Princess bade give the Gardener two thousand dinars; whereupon the nurse sent to him, bidding him to the presence of the King’s daughter. But when the messenger said to him, “Obey the Queen’s order,” the Gardener felt feeble and, trembling in every joint, said in himself, “Doubtless, the Princess hath seen the young man, and this day will be the most unlucky of days for me.” So he went home and told his wife and children what had happened and gave them his last charges and farewelled them, while they wept for and with him. Then he presented himself before the Princess, with a face the colour of turmeric and ready to fall flat at full length. The old woman remarked his plight and hastened to forestall him, saying, “O Shaykh, kiss the earth in thanksgiving to Almighty Allah and be constant in prayer to Him for the Princess. I told her what thou didst in the matter of repairing the ruined pavilion, and she rejoiceth in this and bestoweth on thee two thousand dinars in requital of thy pains; so take them from the purse-keeperess and kiss the earth before the King’s daughter and bless her and wend thy way.” Hearing these words he took the gold and kissed the ground before Hayat al-Nufus, calling down blessings on her.

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Care-taker took the two thousand ducats from the Princess and returned to his house, all his family rejoiced in him and blessed him who had been the prime cause of this business. Thus it fared with these; but as regards the old woman, she said to the Princess, “O my lady, this is indeed become a fine place! Never saw I a purer white than its plastering nor properer than its painting! I wonder if he have also repaired it within: else hath he made the outside white and left the inside black. Come, let us enter and inspect.” So they went in, the nurse preceding, and found the interior painted and gilded in the goodliest way. The Princess looked right and left, till she came to the upper end of the estrade, when she fixed her eyes upon the wall and gazed long and earnestly thereat; whereupon the old woman knew that her glance had lighted on the presentment of her dream and took the two waiting-women away with her, that they might not divert her mind. When the King’s daughter had made an end of examining the painting, she turned to the old woman, wondering and beating hand on hand, and said to her, “O my nurse, come, see a wondrous thing which were it graven with needle-gravers on the eye corners would be a warner to whoso will be warned.” She replied, “And what is that, O my lady?”; when the Princess rejoined, “Go, look at the upper end of the estrade, and tell me what thou seest there.”

So she went up and considered the dream-drawing: then she came down, wondering, and said, “By Allah, O my lady, here is depicted the garden and the fowler and his net and the birds and all thou sawest in thy dream; and verily, nothing but urgent need withheld the male pigeon from returning to free his mate after he had fled her, for I see him in the talons of a bird of raven which hath slaughtered him and is drinking his blood and rending his flesh and eating it; and this, O my lady, caused his tarrying to return and rescue her from the net. But, O my mistress, the wonder is how thy dream came to be thus depicted, for, wert thou minded to set it forth in painture, thou hadst not availed to portray it. By Allah, this is a marvel which should be recorded in histories! Surely, O my lady, the angels appointed to attend upon the sons of Adam, knew that the cock-pigeon was wronged of us, because we blamed him for deserting his mate; so they embraced his cause and made manifest his excuse; and now for the first time we see him in the hawk’s pounces a dead bird.” Quoth the Princess, “O my nurse, verily, Fate and Fortune had course against this bird, and we did him wrong.”

Quoth the nurse, “O my mistress, foes shall meet before Allah the Most High: but, O my lady, verily, the truth hath been made manifest and the male pigeon’s excuse certified to us; for had the hawk not seized him and drunk his blood and rent his flesh he had not held aloof from his mate, but had returned to her, and set her free from the net; but against death there is no recourse, nor, O my lady, is there aught in the world more tenderly solicitous than the male for the female, among all creatures which Almighty Allah hath created. And especially ’tis thus with man; for he starveth himself to feed his wife, strippeth himself to clothe her, angereth his family to please her and disobeyeth and denieth his parents to endow her. She knoweth his secrets and concealeth them and she cannot endure from him a single hour.[286] An he be absent from her one night, her eyes sleep not, nor is there a dearer to her than he: she loveth him more than her parents and they lie down to sleep in each other’s arms, with his hand under her neck and her hand under his neck, even as saith the poet:—

Then he kisseth her and she kisseth him; and I have heard of a certain King that, when his wife fell sick and died, he buried himself alive with her, submitting himself to death, for the love of her and the strait companionship which was between them. Moreover, a certain King sickened and died, and when they were about to bury him, his wife said to her people: Let me bury myself alive with him: else will I slay myself and my blood shall be on your heads. So, when they saw she would not be turned from this thing, they left her, and she cast herself into the grave with her dead husband, of the greatness of her love and tenderness for him.” And the old woman ceased not to ply the Princess with anecdotes of conjugal love between men and women, till there ceased that which was in her heart of hatred for the sex masculine; and when she felt that she had succeeded in renewing in her the natural inclination of woman to man, she said to her, “’Tis time to go and walk in the garden.” So they fared forth from the pavilion and paced among the trees. Presently the Prince chanced to turn and his eyes fell on Hayat al-Nufus; and when he saw the symmetry of her shape and the rosiclearness of her cheeks and the blackness of her eyes and her exceeding grace and her passing loveliness and her excelling beauty and her prevailing elegance and her abounding perfection, his reason was confounded and he could not take his eyes off her.

Passion annihilated his right judgment and love overpassed all limits in him; his vitals were occupied with her service and his heart was aflame with the fire of repine, so that he swooned away and fell to the ground. When he came to himself, she had passed from his sight and was hidden from him among the trees;——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Prince Ardashir, who lay hid in the garden, saw the Princess and her nurse walking amongst the trees, he swooned away for very love-longing. When he came to himself Hayat al-Nufus had passed from his sight and was hidden from him among the trees; so he sighed from his heart-core and improvised these couplets:—

The old woman ceased not to lead the Princess a-pleasuring about the garden, till they reached the place where the Prince lay ambushed, when, behold she said, “O Thou whose bounties are hidden, vouchsafe us assurance from that we fear!” The King’s son hearing the signal, left his lurking-place and, surprised by the summons, walked among the trees, swaying to and fro with a proud and graceful gait and a shape that shamed the branches. His brow was crowned with pearly drops and his cheeks red as the afterglow, extolled be Allah the Almighty in that He hath created! When the King’s daughter caught sight of him, she gazed a long while on him and noticed his beauty and grace and loveliness and his eyes that wantoned like the gazelle’s, and his shape that outvied the branches of the myrobalan; wherefore her wits were confounded and her soul captivated and her heart transfixed with the arrows of his glaces. Then she said to the old woman, “O my nurse, whence came yonder handsome youth?”; and the nurse asked, “Where is he, O my lady?” “There he is,” answered Hayat al-Nufus; “near hand, among the trees.” The old woman turned right and left, as if she knew not of his presence, and cried, “And pray, who can have taught this youth the way into this garden?” Quoth Hayat al-Nufus, “Who shall give us news of the young man? Glory be to Him who created men! But say me, dost thou know him, O my nurse?” Quoth the old woman, “O my lady, he is the young merchant who wrote to thee by me.”

The Princess (and indeed she was drowned in the sea of her desire and the fire of her passion and love-longing) broke out, “O my nurse, how goodly is this youth! Indeed he is fair of favour. Methinks, there is not on the face of earth a goodlier than he!” Now when the old woman was assured that the love of him had gotten possession of the Princess, she said to her, “Did I not tell thee, O my lady, that he was a comely youth with a beaming favour?” Replied Hayat al-Nufus, “O my nurse, King’s daughters know not the ways of the world nor the manners of those that be therein, for that they company with none, neither give they nor take they. O my nurse, how shall I do to bring about a meeting and present myself to him, and what shall I say to him and what will he say to me?” Said the old woman, “What device is left me? Indeed, we were confounded in this matter by thy behaviour”; and the Princess said, “O my nurse, know thou that if any ever died of passion, I shall do so, and behold, I look for nothing but death on the spot by reason of the fire of my love-longing.” When the old woman heard her words and saw the transport of her desire for him, she answered, “O my lady, now as for his coming to thee, there is no way thereto; and indeed thou art excused from going to him, because of thy tender age; but rise with me and follow me. I will accost him: so shalt thou not be put to shame, and in the twinkling of an eye affection shall ensue between you.” The King’s daughter cried, “Go thou before me, for the decree of Allah may not be rejected.”

Accordingly they went up to the place where Ardashir sat, as he were the full moon at its fullest, and the old woman said to him, “See O youth, who is present before thee! ’Tis the daughter of our King of the age, Hayat al-Nufus: bethink thee of her rank and appreciate the honour she doth thee in coming to thee and rise out of respect for her and stand before her.” The Prince sprang to his feet in an instant and his eyes met her eyes, whereupon they both became as they were drunken without wine. Then the love of him and desire redoubled upon the Princess and she opened her arms and he his, and they embraced; but love-longing and passion overcame them and they swooned away and fell to the ground and lay a long while without sense. The old woman, fearing scandalous exposure, carried them both into the pavilion, and, sitting down at the door, said to the two waiting-women, “Seize the occasion to take your pleasure in the garden, for the Princess sleepeth.” So they returned to their diversion. Presently the lovers revived from their swoon and found themselves in the pavilion, whereat quoth the Prince, “Allah upon thee, O Princess of fair ones, is this vision or sleep-illusion?” Then the twain embraced and intoxicated themselves without wine, complaining each to other of the anguish of passion; and the Prince improvised these couplets:—