Thousand & One Nights: 92nd Night

On ninety second night Shahrazad said:

I heard O happy King Ja'far said to the Caliph:

Badr al-Din closed his shop and followed his son, without knowing that he was his son. They reached the city gate. He kept following them.
The eunuch looked back, and he saw Badr al-Din behind them.

He said, "Damn it, what do you want?"
"Noble lord, when you departed," replied Badr al-Din, "I felt that my soul had left me and gone with you; besides as I have some business outside the Victory Gate, I thought that I would come out to finish it and return."

The eunuch was angry and said to Ajib, "See, this is what I feared, and this is what you have done to me. When one is blind, one does not see ahead. Because we entered his shop, and ate an unfortunate mouthful, he takes liberties with us, and follow us." Ajib turned around and seeing the cook follow him, reddened with anger and said to the eunuch, "Let him walk like any Muslim, but if he turns in the same direction when we come outside the city and towards our tend, we will know that he is following us." Then he bowed his head and walked on. The eunuch followed him.

They came to the Plain of Pebbles, and drew near their tents, when Ajib turned around and saw Badr al-Din still following them. Fear and anger caught him. His grandfather might find out where he had gone. And the cook was following him. His eyes were fixed on him. Fear griped Ajib, he bent to the ground and picked up a stone, and threw it at his father. It struck him on the forehead, cutting it open from the eyebrow to eyebrow, and he fell down in a swoon, with blood streaming down over his face, while Ajib and the eunuch headed towards the tent.

When Badr al-Din came to himself, he wiped away the blood, and taking off his turban, bandaged his wound with it, blaming himself and saying, "I wronged the boy, in closing my shop and following him, making him think that I was some treacherous or lewd fellow." Then he returned to his shop, where every now and then he would feel a bit of nostalgia for his mother in Basra, weep for her and recite the following verses:

Ask fair play you wrong fate
Fate is not meant to be fair
Take what comes to you
Trouble one day, fair the other.

Day broke and Shahrazad the story.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

( 16 )CHARLES DICKENS: DAVID COPPERFIELD: CHAPTER 16: I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE

Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again.  I went, accompanied by Mr Wickfield to the scene of my future studies- a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that suited very well to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral tower to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass plot - and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong. Doctor Strong looked almost as rusty, to my thinking, as the tall iron rails and gates outside the house; and almost as stiff and heavy as the great stone urn that flanked them, and were set up, on the top of red brick wall, at regular distances all round the court, like sublimated skittles for Time to play at.  Doctor Strong was in his library, with his clothes not particularly well brushed, and his hair not particularly combed, his knee-small unbraced, his long black gaiters unbuttoned, and his shoes  yawning like two caverns on the hearth-rug.  Turning upon me a lustreless eye, t...
Read more

Sailing Around Erethraean Sea: Three

Updated 29/11/2024 Below the Calf-Eaters there is a little market-town on the shore after sailing about four thousand stadia from Berenice, called Ptolemais of Hunts, from which the hunters started for the interior under the dynasty of Ptolemies. This market town has true land to rtoise in small quantities; it is white and smaller in the shells. And here also is found a little ivory, like that of Adulis. But the place has no harbour, and is reached by small boats. 1. Calf-Eaters: Cattle rearing nomadic tribes. 2. Stadia is the plural of stadion. Ten  stadia= one mile. 3. Ptolemais of Hunts: Ptolemies Theron is the exact Greek term,  located at the Bay of Anfile or Amphila Bay on the coast of Eritrea. Facing the bay is Hando island. It is, in fact, a double bay, an inner bay within, between promontories M'edr and Lelisa. End of the Section 
Read more

Sailing Around Erythraean Sea: Seven

In Section six the unknown sailor was at Zula (ancient Adulis). He had been giving an account of imports and exports to Zula and other ports he covered earlier. From this place the Arabian Gulf trends toward the east and become narrow just before the Gulf of Avalites.  After about four thousand stadia [about four hundred miles or six hundred and forty kilometres] for those sailing eastward along the same coast there are other Berber market-towns, known as the "far-side ports; lying at intervals one after the other without harbours but having roadsteads where ships can anchor and lie in good weather. The first is called Avalites; to this place the voyage from Arabia to far-side coast is shortest. Here there is a small market-town called Avalites, which must be reached by boats and rafts. There are imported into this place, flint glass assorted, juice of sour grapes from Diospolis,  dressed cloth assorted, made for the Berbers; wheat, wine and a little tin. There are exported f...
Read more