The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I. Commonly Called the...

The 'Efreet, when he had heard this story, replied, Lengthen not thy words to me: as to my killing thee, fear it not; and as to my pardoning thee, covet it not; but as to my enchanting thee, there is no escape from it;—and, so saying, he clove the earth asunder, and soared with me through the sky to such a height that I beheld the world beneath me as though it were a bowl of water: then, alighting upon a mountain, he took up a little dust, and, having muttered and pronounced certain words over it, sprinkled me with it, saying, Quit this form, and take the form of an ape!—whereupon I became like an ape of a hundred years of age.

When I saw myself changed into this ugly form, I wept for myself, but determined to be patient under the tyranny of fortune, knowing it to be constant to no one. I descended from the summit of the mountain, and, after having journeyed for the space of a month, arrived at the sea-shore; and, when I had stood there a short time, I saw a vessel in the midst of the sea, with a favourable wind approaching the land; I therefore hid myself behind a rock on the beach, and when the ship came close up, I sprang into the midst of it. But as soon as the persons on board saw me, one of them cried, Turn out this unlucky brute from the ship:—another said, Let us kill him:—and a third exclaimed, I will kill him with this sword. I, however, caught hold of the end of the sword, and tears flowed from my eyes; at the sight of which the captain took compassion on me, and said to the passengers, O merchants, this ape hath sought my aid, and I give it him; he is under my protection; let no one, therefore, oppose or trouble him. He then treated me with kindness, and whatever he said to me I understood, and all that he required to be done I performed as his servant.

We continued our voyage for fifty days with a fair wind, and cast anchor under a large city containing a population which no one but God, whose name be exalted, could reckon; and when we had moored our vessel, there came to us some memlooks from the King of the city, who came on board the ship, and complimented the merchants on their safe arrival, saying, Our King greeteth you, rejoicing in your safety, and hath sent to you this roll of paper, desiring that each of you shall write a line upon it; for the King had a Wezeer who was an eminent caligraphist, and he is dead, and the King hath sworn that he will not appoint any person to his office who cannot write equally well.64 Though in the form of an ape, I arose and snatched the paper from their hands; upon which, fearing that I would tear it and throw it into the sea, they cried out against me, and would have killed me; but I made signs to them that I would write, and the captain said to them, Suffer him to write, and if he scribble we will turn him away; but if he write well I will adopt him as my son; for I have never seen a more intelligent ape. So I took the pen, and demanded the ink, and wrote in an epistolary hand this couplet:—

Two other specimens I wrote, in two different and smaller hands, and returned the paper to the memlooks, who took it back to the King; and when he saw what was written upon it, the hand of no one pleased him excepting mine; and he said to his attendants, Go to the author of this hand-writing, put upon him this dress, and mount him upon a mule, and conduct him, with the band of music before him, to my presence. On hearing this order, they smiled; and the King was angry with them, and said, How is it that I give you an order, and ye laugh at me? They answered, O King, we laugh not at thy words, but because he who wrote this is an ape, and not a son of Adam: he is with the captain of the ship newly arrived.

The King was astonished at their words; he shook with delight, and said, I would purchase this ape. He then sent some messengers to the ship, with the mule and the dress of honour, saying to them, Ye must clothe him with this dress, and mount him upon the mule, and bring him hither. So they came to the ship, and, taking me from the captain, clad me with the dress; and the people were astonished, and flocked to amuse themselves with the sight of me. And when they brought me to the King, and I beheld him, I kissed the ground before him three times, and he ordered me to sit down: so I sat down upon my knees;65 and the persons present were surprised at my polite manners, and especially the King, who presently ordered his people to retire. They, therefore, did so; none remaining but the King, and a eunuch, and a young memlook, and myself. The King then commanded that a repast should be brought; and they placed before him a service of viands, such as gratified the appetite and delighted the eye; and the King made a sign to me that I should eat; whereupon I arose, and, having kissed the ground before him seven times, sat down to eat with him; and when the table was removed, I washed my hands, and, taking the ink-case, and pen and paper, I wrote these two verses:—

Having done this, I arose, and seated myself at a distance; and the King, looking at what I had written, read it with astonishment, and exclaimed, Can an ape possess such fluency and such skill in caligraphy? This is, indeed, a wonder of wonders!—Afterwards, a chess-table was brought to the King, and he said to me, Wilt thou play? By a motion of my head I answered, Yes:—and I advanced, and arranged the pieces.67 I played with him twice, and beat him; and the King was perplexed, and said, Were this a man, he would surpass all the people of his age.

He then said to his eunuch, Go to thy mistress, and say to her, Answer the summons of the King:—that she may come and gratify her curiosity by the sight of this wonderful ape. The eunuch, therefore, went, and returned with his mistress, the King's daughter, who, as soon as she saw me, veiled her face, and said, O my father, how is it that thou art pleased to send for me, and suffer strange men to see me?—O my daughter, answered the King, there is no one here but the young memlook, and the eunuch who brought thee up, and this ape, with myself, thy father: from whom, then, dost thou veil thy face?—This ape, said she, is the son of a King, and the name of his father is Eymár:68 he is enchanted, and it was the 'Efreet Jarjarees, a descendant of Iblees, who transformed him, after having slain his own wife, the daughter of King Aḳnámoos. This, whom thou supposedst to be an ape, is a learned and wise man.—The King was amazed at his daughter's words, and, looking towards me, said, Is it true that she saith of thee? I answered, by a motion of my head, Yes:—and wept. The King then said to his daughter, By what means didst thou discover that he was enchanted?—O my father, she answered, I had with me, in my younger years, an old woman who was a cunning enchantress, and she taught me the art of enchantment:

I have committed its rules to memory, and know it thoroughly, being acquainted with a hundred and seventy modes of performing it, by the least of which I could transport the stones of thy city beyond Mount Ḳáf, and make its site to be an abyss of the sea, and convert its inhabitants into fish in the midst of it.—I conjure thee, then, by the name of Allah, said her father, to restore this young man, that I may make him my Wezeer. Is it possible that thou possessedst this excellence, and I knew it not? Restore him, that I may make him my Wezeer, for he is a polite and intelligent youth.

She replied, With pleasure:—and, taking a knife upon which were engraved some Hebrew names, marked with it a circle in the midst of the palace. Within this she wrote certain names and talismans, and then she pronounced invocations, and uttered unintelligible words; and soon the palace around us became immersed in gloom to such a degree, that we thought the whole world was overspread; and lo, the 'Efreet appeared before us in a most hideous shape, with hands like winnowing-forks, and legs like masts, and eyes like burning torches; so that we were terrified at him. The King's daughter exclaimed, No welcome to thee!—to which the 'Efreet, assuming the form of a lion, replied, Thou traitress, how is it that thou hast broken thine oath? Did we not swear that we would not oppose one another?—Thou wretch, said she, when didst thou receive an oath?—The 'Efreet, still in the form of a lion, then exclaimed, Take what awaiteth thee!—and, opening his mouth, rushed upon the lady: but she instantly plucked a hair from her head and muttered with her lips, whereupon the hair became converted into a piercing sword, with which she struck the lion, and he was cleft in twain by the blow; but his head became changed into a scorpion. The lady immediately transformed herself into an enormous serpent, and crept after the execrable wretch in the shape of a scorpion, and a sharp contest ensued between them; after which, the scorpion became an eagle, and the serpent, changing to a vulture, pursued the eagle for a length of time.

The latter then transformed himself into a black cat, and the King's daughter became a wolf, and they fought together long and fiercely, till the cat, seeing himself overcome, changed himself into a large red pomegranate, which fell into a pool; but, the wolf pursuing it, it ascended into the air, and then fell upon the pavement of the palace, and broke in pieces, its grains becoming scattered, each apart from the others, and all spread about the whole space of ground enclosed by the palace. The wolf, upon this, transformed itself into a cock, in order to pick up the grains, and not leave one of them; but, according to the decree of fate, one grain remained hidden by the side of the pool of the fountain. The cock began to cry, and flapped its wings, and made a sign to us with its beak; but we understood not what it would say. It then uttered at us such a cry, that we thought the palace had fallen down upon us; and it ran about the whole of the ground, until it saw the grain that had lain hid by the side of the pool, when it pounced upon it, to pick it up; but it fell into the midst of the water, and became transformed into a fish, and sank into the water; upon which the cock became a fish of a larger size, and plunged in after the other.

For a while it was absent from our sight; but, at length, we heard a loud cry, and trembled at the sound; after which, the 'Efreet rose as a flame of fire, casting fire from his mouth, and fire and smoke from his eyes and nostrils: the King's daughter also became as a vast body of fire; and we would have plunged into the water from fear of our being burnt and destroyed; but suddenly the 'Efreet cried out from within the fire, and came towards us upon the leewán,69 blowing fire at our faces. The lady, however, overtook him, and blew fire in like manner in his face; and some sparks struck us both from her and from him: her sparks did us no harm; but one from him struck me in my eye, and destroyed it, I being still in the form of an ape; and a spark from him reached the face of the King, and burned the lower half, with his beard and mouth, and struck out his lower teeth: another spark also fell upon the breast of the eunuch; who was burnt, and died immediately. We expected destruction, and gave up all hope of preserving our lives; but while we were in this state, a voice exclaimed, God is most great! God is most great! He hath conquered and aided, and abandoned the denier of the faith of Moḥammad, the chief of mankind!70—The person from whom this voice proceeded was the King's daughter: she had burnt the 'Efreet; and when we looked towards him, we perceived that he had become a heap of ashes.

The lady then came to us, and said, Bring me a cup of water:—and when it was brought to her, she pronounced over it some words which we understood not, and, sprinkling me with it, said, Be restored, by virtue of the name of the Truth, and by virtue of the most great name of God, to thy original form!—whereupon I became a man as I was at first, excepting that my eye was destroyed. After this, she cried out, The fire! the fire! O my father, I shall no longer live, for I am predestined to be killed. Had he been a human being, I had killed him at the first of the encounter. I experienced no difficulty till the scattering of the grains of the pomegranate, when I picked them up excepting the one in which was the life of the Jinnee: had I picked up that, he had instantly died; but I saw it not, as fate and destiny had appointed; and suddenly he came upon me, and a fierce contest ensued between us under the earth, and in the air, and in the water; and every time that he tried against me a new mode, I employed against him one more potent, until he tried against me the mode of fire; and rarely does one escape against whom the mode of fire is employed. Destiny, however, aided me, so that I burned him first; but I exhorted him previously to embrace the faith of El-Islám.

Now I die; and may God supply my place to you.—Having thus said, she ceased not to pray for relief from the fire; and lo, a spark ascended to her breast, and thence to her face; and when it reached her face, she wept, and exclaimed, I testify that there is no deity but God, and I testify that Moḥammad is God's Apostle!—We then looked towards her, and saw that she had become a heap of ashes by the side of the ashes of the 'Efreet.

We were plunged into grief on her account, and I wished that I had been in her place rather than have seen that sweet-faced creature who had done me this kindness reduced to a heap of ashes: but the decree of God cannot be averted. The King, on beholding his daughter in this state, plucked out what remained of his beard, and slapped his face, and rent his clothes; and I also did the same, while we both wept for her. Then came the chamberlains and other great officers of the court, who, finding the King in a state of insensibility, with two heaps of ashes before him, were astonished, and remained encompassing him until he recovered from his fit, when he informed them of what had befallen his daughter with the 'Efreet; and great was their affliction. The women shrieked, with the female slaves, and continued their mourning seven days. After this, the King gave orders to build, over the ashes of his daughter, a great tomb with a dome, and illuminated it with candles and lamps: but the ashes of the 'Efreet they scattered in the wind, exposing them to the curse of God. The King then fell sick, and was near unto death: his illness lasted a month; but after this he recovered his health, and, summoning me to his presence, said to me, O young man, we passed our days in the enjoyment of the utmost happiness, secure from the vicissitudes of fortune, until thou camest to us, when troubles overcame us.

Would that we had never seen thee, nor thy ugly form, on account of which we have been reduced to this state of privation: for, in the first place, I have lost my daughter, who was worth a hundred men; and, secondly, I have suffered this burning, and lost my teeth: my eunuch also is dead: but it was not in thy power to prevent these afflictions: the decree of God hath been fulfilled on us and on thee; and praise be to God that my daughter restored thee, though she destroyed herself. Now, however, depart, O my son, from my city. It is enough that hath happened on thy account; but as it was decreed against us and thee, depart in peace.

So I departed, O my mistress, from his presence; but before I quitted the city, I entered a public bath, and shaved my beard. I traversed various regions, and passed through great cities, and bent my course to the Abode of Peace,71 Baghdád, in the hope of obtaining an interview with the Prince of the Faithful, that I might relate to him all that had befallen me.