The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XII Part 14

Meat and bread were set before the three brothers, and the prince went out. The eldest said, "The prince is a slave;" the second, "This is dog's flesh;" the youngest, "This bread has grown over the legs of a dead body." The prince heard them. He took a knife and ran to find his mother. "Tell me the truth," cried he- -"were you unfaithful to my father during his absence? A man who is here has called me a slave." "My son," replied she, "If I don't tell the truth, I shall die; if I tell it, I shall die.

When thy father was absent, I gave myself up to a slave." The prince left his mother and ran to the house of the shepherd: "The meat which you have cooked to-day--what is it? Tell the truth, otherwise I'll cut your head off." "Master, if I tell it, I shall die; if I don't I shall die. I will be truthful. It was a lamb whose mother had no milk; on the day of its birth, it was suckled by a b.i.t.c.h: that is to-day's ewe." The prince left the shepherd and ran to the house of the husbandman: "Tell the truth, or else I'll cut off your head. Three young men have come to my house, I have placed bread before them, and they say that the grain has grown over the limbs of a dead man." "I will be frank with you. I ploughed with my plough in a place where were (buried) the limbs of a man; without knowing it, I sowed some wheat, which grew up." the prince quitted his slave and returned to his house, where were seated the strangers. He said to the first, "Young man, how do you know that I am a slave?" "Because you went out as soon as the repast was brought in." He asked the second, "How do you know that the meat which was served was that of a dog?" "Because it has a disagreeable taste like the flesh of a dog." Then to the third: "How come you to know that this bread was grown over the limbs of a dead person?" "What shall I say?

It smells of the limbs of a dead body; that is why I recognised it. If you do not believe me, ask your slave; he will tell you that what I say is true."

In the same paper (col. 516) M. Rene Ba.s.set cites a somewhat elaborate variant, from Stier's "Ungarische Sagen und Marchen,"

in which, once more, the knowledge of the "quintessence of things" is concentrated in a single individual.

HUNGARIAN VERSION

A clever Magyar is introduced with his companions in disguise into the camp of the king of the Tatars, who is menacing his country. The prince, suspicious, causes him to be carefully watched by his mother, a skilful sorceress. They brought in the evening's repast. "What good wine the prince has!" said she.

"Yes," replied one, "but it contains human blood." The sorceress took not of the bed from whence these words proceeded, and when all were asleep she deftly cut a lock of hair from him who had spoken, crept stealthily out of the room, and brought this mark to her son. the strangers started up, and when our hero discovered what had been done to him, he cut a lock from all, to render his decision impossible. When they came to dinner, the king knew not from whom the lock had been taken. The following night the mother of the prince again slipped into the room, and said, "What good bread has the prince of the Tatars!" "Very good," replied one, "it is made with the milk of a woman." When all were asleep, she cut a little off the moustache of him who was lying in the bed from which the voice proceeded. This time the Magyars were still more on the alert, and when they were apprised of the matter, they all cut a little from their moustaches, so that next morning the prince found himself again foiled. The third night the old lady hid herself, and said in a loud voice, "What a handsome man is the prince of the Tatars!"

"Yes," said one, "but he is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d." When all were asleep, the old lady made a mark on the visor of the helmet of the one from whence had come the words, and then acquainted her son of what she had done. In the morning the prince perceived that all the helmets were similarly marked.[FN#502] At length he refrained, and said, "I see that there is among you a master greater than myself; that is why I desire very earnestly to know him. He may make himself known; I should like to see and know this extraordinary man, who is more clever and powerful than myself." The young man started up from his seat and said, "I have not wished to be stronger or wiser than yourself. I have only wished to find out what you had preconcerted for us. I am the person who has been marked three nights." "It is well, young man. But prove now your words: How is there human blood in the wine?" "Call your butler and he will tell you." The butler came in trembling all over, and confessed that when he corked the wine he had cut his finger with the knife, and a drop of blood had fallen into the cask. "But how is there woman's milk in the bread?" asked the king. "Call the bakeress," he replied, "and she will tell it you." When they questioned her, she confessed that she was kneading the bread and at the same time suckling her baby, and that on pressing it to her breast some milk flowed and was mixed with the bread. The sorceress, the mother of the king, when they came to the third revelation of the young man, confessed in her turn that the king was illegitimate.

Mr. Tawney refers to the Chevalier de Mailly's version of the Three Princes of Serendip (Ceylon): The three are sitting at table, and eating a leg of lamb, sent with some splendid wine from the table of the emperor Bahram. The eldest maintains that the wine was made of grapes that grew in a cemetery; the second, that the lamb was brought up on dog's milk; while the third a.s.serts that the emperor had put to death the son of the wazir.

And that the latter is bent on vengeance. All these statements turn out to be well-grounded. Mr. Tawney also refers to parallel stories in the Breslau edition of The Nights; namely, in Night 458, it is similarly conjectured that the bread was baked by a sick woman; that the kid was suckled by a b.i.t.c.h, and that the sultan is illegitimate; and in Night 459, a gem-cutter guesses that a jewel has an internal flaw, a man skilled in the pedigrees of horses divines that a horse is the offspring of a female buffalo, and a man skilled in human pedigrees that the mother of the favourite queen was a rope-dancer. Similar incidents occur in "The Sultan of Yemen and his Three Sons," one of the Additional Tales translated by Scott, from the Wortley-Montague MS., now in the Bodleian Library, and comprised in vol. vi. of his edition of "The Arabian Nights Entertainments," published at London in 1811.

An a.n.a.logous tale occurs in Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's recently- published translation of the "History of the Forty Vezirs (the Lady's Fourth Story, p. 69 ff.), the motif of which is that "all things return to their origin:"

TURKISH a.n.a.lOGUE

There was in the palace of the world a king who was very desirous of seeing Khizr[FN#503] (peace on him!), and he would even say, "If there be any one who will show me Khizr, I will give him whatsoever he may wish." Now there was at that time a man poor of estate, and from the stress of his poverty he said to himself, "Let me go and speak to the king, that if he provide for me during three years, either I will be dead, or the king will be dead, or he will forgive me my fault, or I shall on somewise win to escape, and in this way shall I make merry for a time." so he went to the king and spake these words to him.[FN#504] the king said, "An thou show him not, then I will kill thee," and that poor man consented. Then the king let give him much wealth and money, and the poor man took that wealth and money and went to his house. Three years he spent in merriment and delight, and he rested at ease till the term was accomplished. At the end of that time he fled and hid himself in a trackless place and he began to quake for fear. Of a sudden he saw a personage with white raiment and shining face, who saluted him. The poor man returned the salutation, and the radiant being asked, "Why art thou thus sad?" but he gave no answer. Again the radiant being asked him and sware to him, saying, "Do indeed tell to me thy plight, that I may find thee some remedy." So that hapless one narrated his story from its beginning to its end, and the radiant being said, "Come, I will go with thee to the king, and I will answer for thee." So they arose.

Now the king wanted that hapless one, and while they were going some of the king's officers who were seeking met them, and they straightway seized the poor man and brought him to the king.

Quoth the king, "Lo, the three years are accomplished; come now, and show me Khizr." The poor man said, "My king, grace and bounty are the work of kings--forgive my sin." Quoth the king, "I made a pact; till I have killed thee, I shall not have fulfilled it." And he looked to his chief vezir and said, "How should this be done?" quoth the vezir, "This man should be hewn in many pieces and then hung up on butchers' hooks, that others may see and lie not before the king." Said that radiant being, "True spake the vezir;--all things return to their origin." Then the king looked to the second vezir and said, "What sayest thou?"

he replied, "This man should be boiled in a cauldron." Said that radiant being, "True spake the vezir;--all things return to their origin." The king looked to the third vezir and said, "What sayest though?" the vezir replied, "This man should be hewn in small pieces and baked in an oven." Again said that elder, "True spake the vezir;--all things return to their origin." Then quoth the king to the fourth vezir, "Let us see what sayest thou?" The vezir replied, "O king, the wealth thou gavest this poor creature was for the love of Khizr (peace on him!). he, thinking to find him, accepted it; now that he has not found him he seeks pardon.

This were befitting, that thou set free this poor creature for love of Khizr." Said that elder, "True spake the vezir;--all things return to their origin." Then the king said to the elder, "O elder, my vezirs have said different things contrary the one to the other, and thou hast said concerning each of them, ?True spake the vezir; - all things return to their origin.' What is the reason thereof?" that elder replied, "O king, thy first vezir is a butcher's son; therefore did he draw to his origin.

Thy second vezir is a cook's son, and he likewise proposed a punishment as became his origin. Thy third vezir is a baker's son; he likewise proposed a punishment as became his origin.

But thy fourth vezir is of gentle birth; compa.s.sion therefore becomes his origin, so he had compa.s.sion on that hapless one, and sought to do good and counselled liberation. O king, all things return to their origin."[FN#505] And he gave the king much counsel, and at last said, "Lo, I am Khizr," and vanished.[FN#506]

The discovery of the king's illegitimate birth, which occurs in so many versions, has its parallels in the story of the Nephew of Hippocrates in the "Seven Wise Masters," and the Lady's 2nd Story in Mr. Gibb's translation of the "Forty Vezirs." The extraordinary sensitiveness of the third young Brahman, in the Vetala story, whose side was scratched by a hair that was under the seventh of the mattresses on which he lay, Rohde (says Tawney), in his "Greichische Novellistik," p. 62, compares with a story told by Aelian of the Sybarite Smindyrides, who slept on a bed of rose-leaves and got up in the morning covered with blisters. He also quotes from the Chronicle of Tabari a story of a princess who was made to bleed by a rose-leaf lying in her bed.[FN#507]

The eleventh recital of the Vetala is about a king's three sensitive wives: As one of the queens was playfully pulling the hair of the king, a blue lotus leaped from her ear and fell on her lap; immediately a would was produced on the front of her thigh by the blow, and the delicate princess exclaimed, "Oh! oh!"

and fainted. At night, the second retired with the king to an apartment on the roof of the palace exposed to the rays of the moon, which fell on the body of the queen, who was sleeping by the king's side, where it was exposed by her garment blowing aside; immediately she woke up, exclaiming, "Alas! I am burnt,"

and rose up from the bed rubbing her limbs. The king woke up in a state of alarm, crying out, "What is the meaning of this?"

then he got up and saw that blisters had been produced on the queen's body. In the meanwhile the king's third wife heard of it and left her palace to come to him. And when she got into the open air, she heard distinctly, as the night was still, the sound of a pestle pounding in a distant house. The moment the gazelle- eyed one heard it, she said, "Alas! I am killed," and she sat down on the path, shaking her hands in an agony of pain. Then the girl turned back, and was conducted by her attendants to her own chamber, where she fell on her bed and groaned. And when her weeping attendants examined her, they saw that her hands were covered with bruises, and looked like lotuses upon which black beetles had settled.

To this piteous tale of the three very sensitive queens Tawney appends the following note: Rohde, in his "Greichische Novellistik," p. 62, compares with this a story told by Timaeus, of a Sybarite who saw a husbandman hoeing a field, and contracted rupture from it. Another Sybarite, to whom he told the tale of his sad mishap, got ear-ache from hearing it. Oesterley, in his German translation of the Baital Pachisi, points out that Grimm, in his "Kindermarchen," iii. p. 238, quotes a similar incident from the travels of the Three sons of Giaffar: out of four princesses, one faints because a rose-twig is thrown into her face among some roses; a second shuts her eyes in order not to see the statue of a man; a third says, "Go away; the hairs in your fur cloak run into me;" and the fourth covers her face, fearing that some of the fish in a tank may belong to the male s.e.x. He also quotes a striking parallel from the "Elites des contes du Sieur d'Onville:" Four ladies dispute as to which of them is the most delicate. One has been lame for three months owing to a rose-leaf having fallen on her foot; another has had three ribs broken by a sheet in her bed having been crumpled; a third has held her head on one side for six weeks owing to one half of her head having three more hairs on it than the other; a fourth has broken a blood-vessel by a slight movement, and the rupture cannot be healed without breaking the whole limb.[Poor things!]

THE PRINCE WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE PICTURE.--Vol. XI. p. 153.

In the Persian tales of "The Thousand and One Days," a young prince entered his father's treasury one day, and saw there a little cedar chest "set with pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and topazes;" on opening it (for the key was in the lock) he beheld the picture of an exceedingly beautiful woman, with whom he immediately fell in love. Ascertaining the name of the lady from an inscription on the back of the portrait, he set off with a companion to discover her, and having been told by an old man at Baghdad that her father at one reigned in Ceylon, he continued his journey thither, encountering many unheard-of adventures by the way. Ultimately he is informed that the lady with whose portrait he had become enamoured was one of the favourites of King Solomon. One should suppose that his would have effectually cured the love-sick prince; but no: he "could never banish her sweet image from his heart."[FN#508]

Two instances of falling in love with the picture of a pretty woman occur in the "Katha Sarit Sagara." In Book ix., chap. 51, a painter shows King Prithvirupa the "counterfeit presentment" of the beauteous Princess Rapalata, and "as the king gazed on it his eye was drowned in that sea of beauty her person, so that he could not draw it out again. For the king, whose longing was excessive, could not be satisfied with devouring her form, which poured forth a stream of the nectar of beauty, as the partridge cannot be satisfied with devouring the moonlight." In Book xii., chap. 100, a female ascetic shows a wandering prince the portrait of the Princess Mandaravati, "and Sundarasena when he beheld that maiden, who, though she was present there only in a picture, seemed to be of romantic beauty and like a flowing forth of joy, immediately felt as if he had been pierced with the arrows of the G.o.d of the flowery bow [i.e. Kama]." In chapter 35 of Scott's translation of the "Bahar-i-Danish," Prince Ferokh-Faul opens a volume, "which he had scarcely done when the fatal portrait of the fair princess who, the astrologers had foretold, was to occasion him so many perils, presented itself to his view. He instantly fainted, when the slave, alarmed, conveyed intelligence of his condition to the sultan, and related the unhappy cause of the disorder." In Gomberville's romances of Polexandre, the African prince, Abd-el-Malik, falls in love with the portrait of Alcidiana, and similar incidents occur in the romance of Agesilaus of Colchos and in the Story of the Seven Wazirs (vol.

vi.); but why multiply instances? Nothing is more common in Asiatic fictions.

THE FULLER, HIS WIFE, AND THE TROOPER.--Vol. XI. p. 157.

In addition to the versions of this amusing story referred to on p. 157--all of which will be found in the second volume of my work on "Popular Tales and Fictions," pp. 212-228--there is yet another in a Persian story-book, of unknown date, ent.i.tled, "Shamsa u Kuhkuha," written by Mirza Berkhorder Turkman, of which an account, together with specimens, is given in a recently- published little book (Quaritch), "Persian Portraits, a sketch of Persian History, Literature, and Politics," by Mr. F. F.

Arbuthnot, author of "Early Ideas: a Group of Hindoo Stories."

This version occurs in a tale of three artful wives--or, to employ the story-teller's own graphic terms, "three whales of the sea of fraud and deceit: three dragons of the nature of thunder and the quickness of lightning; three defamers of honour and reputation; namely, three men-deceiving, lascivious women, each of whom had from the chicanery of her cunning issued the diploma of turmoil to a hundred cities and countries, and in the arts of fraud they accounted Satan as an admiring spectator in the theatre of their stratagems.[FN#509] One of them was sitting in the court of justice of the kazi's embrace; the second was the precious gem of the bazaar-master's diadem of compliance; and the third was the beazle and ornament of the signet-ring of the life and soul of the superintendent of police. They were constantly entrapping the fawns of the prairie of deceit within the grasp of cunning, and plundered the wares of the caravans of tranquillity of hearts of strangers and acquaintances, by means of the edge of the scimitar of fraud. One day this trefoil of roguery met at the public bath, and, according to their h.o.m.ogeneous nature they intermingled as intimately as the comb with the hair; they tucked up their garment of amity to the waist of union, entered the tank of agreement, seated themselves in the hot-house of love, and poured from the dish of folly, by means of the key of hypocrisy, the water of profusion upon the head of intercourse; they rubbed with the brush of familiarity and the soap of affection the stains of jealousies from each other's limbs. After a while, when they had brought the pot of concord to boil by the fire of mutual laudation, they warmed the bath of a.s.sociation with the breeze of kindness, and came out. In the dressing-room all three of them happened simultaneously to find a ring, the gem of which surpa.s.sed the imagination of the jeweler of destiny, and the like of which he had never beheld in the storehouse of possibility.

In short, these worthy ladies contended with each other for possession of the ring, until at length the mother of the bathman came forward and proposed that they should entrust the ring to her in the meanwhile, and it should be the prize of the one who most cleverly deceived and befooled her husband, to which they all agreed, and then departed for their respective domiciles.[FN#510]

Mr. Arbuthnot's limits pertained only of abstracts of the tricks played upon their husbands by the three ladies--which the story- teller gives at great length--and that of the kazi's wife is as follows:

The kazi's wife knows that a certain carpenter, who lived close to her, was very much in love with her. She sends her maid to him with a message to say that the flame of his love had taken effect upon her heart, and that he must make an underground pa.s.sage between his house and her dwelling, so that they might communicate with each other freely by means of the mine. The carpenter digs the pa.s.sage, and the lady pays him a visit, and says to him, "To-morrow I shall come here, and you must bring the kazi to marry me to you." The next day the kazi goes to his office; the lady goes to the carpenter's house, and send him to bring her husband, the kazi, to marry them. The carpenter fetches him, and, as the kazi hopes for a good present, he comes willingly enough, but is much surprised at the extreme likeness between the bride and his own wife. The more he looks at her, the more he is in doubt; and at last, offering an excuse to fetch something, he rushes off to his own house, but is forestalled by his souse, who had gone thither by the pa.s.sage, and on his arrival is lying on her bed. The kazi makes some excuses for his sudden entry into her room, and, after some words, goes back to the carpenter's house; but his wife had preceded him, and is sitting in her place. Again he begins the ceremony, but is attracted by a black mole on the corner of the bride's lip, which he could have sworn was the same as that possessed by his wife.

Making more excuses, and in spite of the remonstrances of the carpenter, he hurries back to his house once more; but his wife had again got there before him, and he finds her reading a book, and much astonished at his second visit. She suggests that he is mad, and he admits that his conduct is curious, and returns to the carpenter's house to complete the ceremony. This is again frequently interrupted, but finally he marries his own wife to the carpenter, and, having behaved in such an extraordinary manner throughout, is sent off to a lunatic asylum.

For the tricks of the two other ladies, and for many other equally diverting tales, I refer the reader to Mr. Arbuthnot's pleasing and instructive little book, which is indeed an admirable epitome of the history and literature of Persia, and one which was greatly wanted in these days, when most men, "like the dogs in Egypt for fear of the crocodiles, must drink of the waters of information as they run, in dread of the old enemy Time."

I have discussed the question of the genealogy of this tale elsewhere, but, after a somewhat more minute comparative a.n.a.lysis of the several versions, am disposed to modify the opinion which I then entertained. I think we must consider as the direct or indirect source of the versions and variants the "Miles Gloriosus" of Plautus, the plot of which, it is stated in the prologue to the second act, was taken from a Greek play. It is, however, not very clear whether Berni adapted his story from Plautus or the "Seven Wise Masters"; probably from the former, since in both the lady is represented, to the captain and the cuckold, as a twin sister, while in the S. W. M. the crafty knight pretends that she is his leman, come from Hungary with tidings that he may now with safety return home. On the other hand, in the S. W. M., as in Plautus, the lovers make their escape by sea, an incident which Berni has altered to a journey by land--no doubt, in order to introduce further adventures for the development of his main plot. But then we find a point of resemblance between Berni and the S. W. M., in the incident of the cuckold accompanying the lovers part of their way--in the latter to the sea-sh.o.r.e; while in Plautus the deceived captain remains at home to prosecute an amour and get a thrashing for his reward (in Plautus, instead of a wife, it is the captain's slave- girl). It is curious that amidst all the masquerade of the Arabian story the cuckold's wife also personates her supposit.i.tious twin-sister, as in Plautus and Berni. In Plautus the houses of the lover and the captain adjoin, as is also the case in the modern Italian and Sicilian versions; while in Berni, the S. W. M., the Arabian, and the Persian story cited in this note they are at some distance. With these resemblances and variations it is not easy to say which version was derived from another. Evidently the Arabian story has been deliberately modified by the compiler, and he has, I think, considerably improved upon the original: the ludicrous perplexity of the poor fuller when he awakes, to find himself apparently transformed into a Turkish trooper, recalls the nursery rhyme of the little woman "who went to market her eggs for to sell," and falling asleep on the king's highway a pedlar cut off her petticoats up to the knees, and when she awoke and saw her condition she exclaimed, "Lawk-a-mercy me, this is none of I!" and so on. And not less diverting is the pelting the blockhead receives from his brother fullers--altogether, a capital story.

TALE OF THE SIMPLETON HUSBAND.--Vol. XI. p. 162.

The "curious" reader will find European and Asiatic versions of this amusing story in "Originals and a.n.a.logues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales." Published for the Chaucer Society, pp. 177-188 and (in a paper contrived by me: "The Enchanted Tree") p. 341-364.

TALE OF THE THREE MEN AND OUR LORD ISA.--Vol XI. p. 170.

Under the t.i.tle of "The Robbers and the Treasure-Trove" I have brought together many European and Asiatic versions of this wide- spread tale in "Chaucer a.n.a.logues," pp. 415-436.

THE MELANCHOLIST AND THE SHARPER. -- Vol. XI. p. 180.

A similar but much shorter story is found in Gladwin's "Persian Moonshee," and storybooks in several of the Indian vernaculars which have been rendered into English: