Thousand & One Nights: 42nd Night: Second Dervish to continue.

After I was robbed, I fared on, and when night approached, I climbed the sideof a mountain and took shelter in a cave till daybreak. Then I journeyed till nightfall, feeding on plants and fruits of the earth, and slept till daybreak. For a month I travelled like this, until I came to a fair, peaceful and prosperous city teeming with people and full of life. The winter had departed with its frosts and spring had arrived with it roses. The streams were flowing, the flowers blooming, and the birds singing. It was like the city of which the poet said:
Behold a peaceful city, free from fear
Whose wonders make it a heaven.

I felt glad. I felt sad. Glad to reach it. Sad of my wretched situation. I was so tired from walking that I was pale with exhaustion. My face and hands and feet were chapped, and I felt overwhelmed with worry and grief. I entered the city, not knowing where to go, and chanced by a tailor sitting in his shop. I greeted him, and he returned my greeting, and detected in me traces of better days, he welcomed me, and inviting me to sit with him, talked freely to me. He asked me who I was, and I told him about myself and what happened to me. He felt sad for me and said,
"Young man, do not reveal your secret to anybody for king of this city is your father's great enemy, and there is a blood feud between them."
Then he brought some food, and we ate together. When it was dark he gave me a recess, next to his in the shop, and brought to me a blanket.

I stayed with him for three days. He asked me, "Don't you have any skill, with which you can earn your bread?"
I replied, "I am a jurist, a man of letters, a poet, a grammarian, and a calligrapher."

He said, "Such skills are not much in demand in our city."

I replied, "By God, I have no other skills."

He said, "Gird yourself, take an axe and rope, and go and hew wood in the wilderness for your livelihood. But lest you perish, keep your secret to yourself. Don't let anyone know who you are, until God sends you relief." He bought me an axe and a rope, and put me under the charge of certain woodcutters. I went out with them, cut wood all day long, and came back, carrying my bundle on my head. I slod the wood for half a dinar and brought the money to the tailor. In such work I spent an entire year.

One day I went out into the wilderness, and having penetrated deep, I came to a thick patch of trees in a meadow irrigated by running streams. When I entered the patch, I found the stump of a tree, and when I drug around it with my axe and shoveled the earth away, I came upon a ring that was attached to a wooden plank. I raised the plank, and beneath it I found a staircase. I descended the steps, and as I reached the bottom, I came to a subterranean palace, solidly built and beautifully designed. A palace so splendid that a better one I have never seen. I walked inside and saw a beautiful girl who looked as radiant as a brilliant pearl or the shining sun and whose speech banished all sorrow and captivated even the sensible and the wise. She was about five feet tall, with a beautiful figure, firm breasts, soft cheeks, and a fair complexion. Through the night of her tresses, her face beamed, and above her smooth bosom, her mouth gleamed as the poet said of one like her:
The radiant brows and tresses, 
Rosy cheeks and glittering smiles
Meet here to ravage my heart.

The Dawn and the story was interrupted.


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