Thousand & One Nights: 48th Night:



STORY BY THE SECOND DERVISH 


One day the new monarch had been riding with his equipage, at the head of his princes, viziers, lords of the realm, his eyes fell on the Envious. He turned to one of his viziers and commanded, "Bring that man, but do not alarm him or frighten him."

The vizier left and came back with the Envious. The king said, "Give him one thousand weights of gold from my treasury, provide him with twenty loads of goods he trade in, and send him with an escort to his own town." The envied bade him farewell and went away without reproaching him for his past misdeeds.

I said to the demon, "O demon, see the mercy of the Envied towards the Envious, who had envied him from the beginning, borne him great malice, pursued him, and thrown him into the well to kill him. The Envied did not respond him in the same way, and instead of punishing the Envious he forgave him and treated him magnanimously." 
O, my lady, I wept until I could weep no more and recited the following verses:

Pardon my crime, every mighty judge
Used to show some mercy to offenders.
I stand before you guilty of all sins
You know the grace and mercy 
Shall have mercy upon me, the guilty.

The demon who kidnapped the daughter of Aftimarus replied, "I will not kill you, but I will put you under a spell." Then he snatched me up and flew with me upward until I could see only the sky. Soon he came down and set me on a mountain. He took some little dust, mumbled some incantation, and sprinkled me with the dust, saying, "Leave your human form and take an ape form. At that moment I became an ape and he flew away.

I wept for nothing. Descended the mountain and found a vast desert over which I walked and came to a seashore. Looking at the vast sea I saw a ship sailing towards the shore. The ship was full of merchants and laden with spices. The merchants saw me and said, "Captain, you have risked our property and lives for an ape. He will bring bad luck wherever he goes." One of them said, "Let me kill him." Another said, "Let me shoot  him with an arrow." And a third said, "Let us drown him."

When I heard what they said, I sprang up and held the hem of the captain's gown like the supplicant, as my tears began to glow over my face. The captain and all merchants were amazed, and some of them began to feel pity for me. Captain said, "Merchants, this ape has appealed to me for protection, and I have taken him under my care. Let none of you hurt him in any way, lest he becomes my enemy."  Then he treated me kindly, and I understood whatever he said and did, although I could not respond to him with my tongue.

For fifty days the ship sailed on, and we came to a great city, vast and teeming with countless people. No sooner had we entered the port and cast anchor than we were visited by messengers from the king of the city.
They said, "Merchants, our king congratulates you on your safe arrival, sends you this roll of paper, bid each of you write one line on it. For the king's vizier, a man learned in state affairs and a skilled calligrapher, has died, and the king has sworn a solemn oath that he will appoint none in his place, save one who can write as well. Then they handed the merchants a roll of paper ten cubits long and one cubit wide, and each of the merchants, who knew how to write wrote a line. When they came to the end, I snatched the scroll out of their hands, and they screamed and scolded me, fearing that I would throw it into the sea or tear it to pieces, but I signed to them that I wanted to write on it, and they were exceedingly amazed, saying, "We have never yet seen an ape write." The captain said to them, "Let him write what he likes, and if he merely scribbles, I will beat him and chase him away, but if he writes well, I will adopt him as my son, for I have never seen a more intelligent or better behaved ape. I wish that my son had this ape's understanding and good manners." Then I held the pen, dipped it in the ink-pot and in Ruqa script wrote the following lines.

Time favours the great
Greater favours efface the minor
God will not deprive you being
 To grace father and motber.

I wrote the following in Muhaqqiq:
His pen has showered bounty
Everywhere showered bounty.

In Raihani script I wrote the following:

Whoever uses me to write shall 
Never deny one's livelihood with his stroke.

In Naski I wrote:

No writer can flee his death.
Commit nothing to paper
Except what you would like
To see on the Judgement day.

In Tuluth Script I wrote:

When love is exhausted and 
The separation is inevitable 
Turn to your pen for parting stroke.

In Tumar script I wrote:
Write genorous deeds and noble words.

I handed them what I scrolled, they took it back in amazement.

The End of Night 




















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