|
THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE
OF
SCHEHERAZADE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Truth is stranger than fiction. — Old Saying.
HAVING
had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations,
to consult the Tellmenow Isitsöornot, a work which (like
the Zohar of
Simeon
Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe, and which has
never
been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American — if we except, perhaps,
the author of the "Curiosities of American Literature;" — having had
occasion,
I say, to turn over some pages of the first-mentioned very
remarkable
work, I was not a little astonished to discover that the literary world
has hitherto been strangely in error respecting the fate of the
vizier's
daughter, Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the "Arabian
Nights";
and that the denouément there given, if not altogether
inaccurate, as
far
as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much farther.
For full information on this interesting topic, I
must refer the
inquisitive
reader to the "Isitsöornot" itself: but, in the mean time, I shall
be
pardoned
for giving a summary of what I there discovered.
It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of
the tales, a
certain
monarch, having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not only puts
her
to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, to espouse
each
night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the next morning
to deliver her up to the executioner.
Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the
letter, and with a
religious
punctuality and method that conferred great credit [page 132:]
upon him as a man of
devout feelings and excellent sense, he was interrupted one afternoon
(no
doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier, to whose
daughter,
it appears, there had occurred an idea.
Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that
she would either
redeem
the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty,
or perish, after
the
approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.
Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be
leap-year, (which
makes
the sacrifice more meritorious,) she deputes her father, the grand
vizier,
to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the king eagerly
accepts — (he had intended to take it at all events, and had put off
the
matter
from day to day, only through fear of the vizier,) — but, in accepting
it now, he gives all parties very distinctly to understand, that, grand
vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design of giving up
one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When, therefore, the fair
Scheherazade
insisted upon marrying the king, and did actually marry him despite her
father's excellent advice not to do anything of the kind — when she
would
and did marry him, I say, will I nill I, it was with her beautiful
black
eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.
It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had
been reading
Machiavelli,
beyond doubt,) had a very ingenious little plot in her mind. On the
night
of the wedding, she contrived, upon I forget what specious pretence, to
have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently near that of the royal pair
to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before
cock-crowing,
she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband, (who bore her
none
the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on the morrow,) —
she managed to awaken him, I say, (although, on account of a capital
conscience
and an easy digestion, he slept well,) by the profound interest of a
story
(about a rat and a black cat, I think,) which she was narrating (all in
an under-tone, of course,) to her sister. When the day broke, it so
happened
that this history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade,
in
the nature of things, could not finish it just then, since it was high
time
for her to get up and be bowstrung — a thing a very little more
pleasant
than hanging, only a trifle more genteel! [page 133:]
The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am
sorry to say, even
over
his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to postpone
the
fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and with the
hope of hearing that night how it fared in the end with the black cat
(a
black cat, I think it was) and the rat.
The night having arrived, however, the lady
Scheherazade not only
put
the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat, (the rat was blue,)
but
before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in the
intricacies
of a narration, having reference (if I am not altogether mistaken) to a
pink horse (with green wings) that went, in a violent manner, by
clockwork,
and was wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was
even
more profoundly interested than with the other — and, as the day broke
before its conclusion, (notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors to
get
through with it in time for the bowstringing,) there was again no
resource
but to postpone that ceremony as before, for twenty-four hours. The
next
night there happened a similar accident with a similar result; and then
the next — and then again the next; so that, in the end, the good
monarch,
having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his vow
during
a period of no less than one thousand and one nights, either forgets it
altogether by the expiration of this time, or gets himself absolved of
it in the regular way, or, (what is more probable) breaks it outright,
as
well as the head of his father confessor. At all events, Scheherazade,
who, being lineally descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the
whole
seven baskets of talk which the latter lady, we all know, picked up
from
under the trees in the garden of Eden; Scheherazade, I say, finally
triumphed,
and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.
Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as
we have it upon
record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant — but, alas! like
a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true; and I am
indebted
altogether to the "Isitsöornot" for the means of correcting the
error.
"Le mieux," says a French proverb, "est l'ennemi du bien,"
and, in
mentioning
that Scheherazade had inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should
have
added, that she put them out at compound interest until they amounted
to
seventy-seven. [page 134:]
"My dear sister," said she, on the
thousand-and-second night, (I
quote
the language of the "Isitsöornot" at this point, verbatim,)
"my
dear
sister,"
said she, "now that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has
blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I feel
that
I have been guilty of great indiscretion in withholding from you and
the
king (who, I am sorry to say, snores — a thing no gentleman would do,)
the
full conclusion of the history of Sinbad the sailor. This person went
through numerous
other and more interesting adventures than those which I related; but
the
truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their narration, and
so was seduced into cutting them short — a grievous piece of
misconduct,
for which I only trust that Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is
not
too late to remedy my great neglect — and as soon as I have given the
king a pinch or two in order to wake him up so far that he may stop
making
that horrible noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he
pleases)
with the sequel of this very remarkable story."
Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it
from the
"Isitsöornot,"
expressed no very particular intensity of gratification; but the king
having been sufficiently pinched, at length ceased snoring, and finally
said, "Hum!" and then "Hoo!" when the queen understanding these words
(which are no doubt Arabic) to signify that he was all attention, and
would
do his best not to snore any more — the queen, I say, having arranged
these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into the
history
of Sinbad the sailor:
" 'At length, in my old age,' (these are the words
of Sinbad himself,
as retailed by Scheherazade,) — 'at length, in my old age, and after
enjoying
many years of tranquillity at home, I became once more possessed with a
desire
of visiting foreign countries; and one day, without acquainting any of
my family with my design, I packed up some bundles of such merchandise
as was most precious and least bulky, and, engaging a porter to carry
them,
went with him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival of any chance
vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region which I
had not as yet explored.
" 'Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we
sat down beneath
some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of [page
135:] perceiving a
ship,
but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I fancied that
I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound — and the porter,
after
listening awhile, declared that he also could distinguish it. Presently
it grew louder, and then still louder, so that we could have no doubt
that
the object which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge
of
the horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in
size
until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a great part
of
its body above the surface of the sea. It came towards us with
inconceivable
swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and
illuminating
all that part of the sea through which it passed, with a long line of
fire
that extended far off into the distance.
" 'As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly.
Its length was
equal
to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as wide as
the great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime and
munificent
of the caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of ordinary fishes, was
as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness throughout all that
portion
of it which floated above the water, with the exception of a narrow
blood-red
streak that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated beneath
the
surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and then as the
monster
rose and fell with the billows, was entirely covered with metallic
scales,
of a color like that of the moon in misty weather. The back was flat
and
nearly white, and from it there extended upwards of six spines, about
half
the length of the whole body.
" 'This horrible creature had no mouth that we could
perceive; but, as
if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least four
score
of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those of the green
dragon-fly,
and were arranged all around the body in two rows, one above the other,
and parallel to the blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the
purpose
of an eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger
than
the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.
" 'Although this beast approached us, as I have
before said, with the
greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy —
for
it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor wings
like
the sea-shell which is blown along in [page 136:] the manner
of a vessel; nor yet
did
it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head and its tail were
shaped
precisely alike, only, not far from the latter, were two small holes
that
served for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick
breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking, disagreeable
noise.
" 'Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was
very great; but it
was even surpassed by our astonishment, when, upon getting a nearer
look,
we perceived upon the creature's back a vast number of animals about
the
size and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them, except that
they wore no garments (as men do,) being supplied (by nature, no
doubt,)
with an ugly, uncomfortable covering, a good deal like cloth, but
fitting
so tight to the skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward,
and put them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads
were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I thought
might
have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon discovered that
they
were excessively heavy and solid, and I therefore concluded they were
contrivances
designed, by their great weight, to keep the heads
of the animals
steady
and safe upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were
fastened
black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as we keep on our
dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer — so that it was quite
impossible
for these poor victims to move their heads in any direction without
moving
the body at the same time; and thus they were doomed to perpetual
contemplation
of their noses — a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful if not
positively
in an awful degree.
" 'When the monster had nearly reached the shore
where we stood, it
suddenly
pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted from it a
terrible
flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke, and a noise that
I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the smoke cleared away, we saw
one of the odd man-animals standing near the head of the large beast
with
a trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it to his mouth) he
presently
addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable accents, that, perhaps,
we
should have mistaken for language, had they not come altogether through
the nose.
" 'Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss
how to reply, as I
could in no manner understand what was said; and in this [page
137:] difficulty I
turned
to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, and demanded of
him his opinion as to what species of monster it was, what it wanted,
and
what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed upon its back. To
this
the porter replied, as well as he could for trepidation, that he had
once
before heard of this sea-beast; that it was a cruel demon, with bowels
of sulphur and blood of fire, created by evil genii as the means of
inflicting
misery upon mankind; that the things upon its back were vermin, such as
sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a little larger and more savage;
and
that these vermin had their uses, however evil — for, through the
torture
they caused the beast by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded
into
that degree of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit
ill,
and so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.
" 'This account determined me to take to my heels,
and, without once
even
looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while the
porter
ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction, so that, by
these means, he finally made his escape with my bundles, of which I
have
no doubt he took excellent care — although this is a point I cannot
determine,
as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.
" 'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of
the men-vermin
(who
had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken, bound
hand
and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam out again
into
the middle of the sea.
" 'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a
comfortable home to
peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, I
made
the best of my condition and exerted myself to secure the good-will of
the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exercise
authority
over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this endeavor that, in a few
days,
the creature bestowed upon me various tokens of its favor, and, in the
end,
even went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it was
vain
enough to denominate its language; so that, at length, I was enabled to
converse with it readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent
desire
I had of seeing the world.
" 'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle
diddle, grunt unt
grumble,
hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner [page
138:] — but I beg
a
thousand
pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not conversant with the
dialect
of the Cock-neighs, (so the man-animals were called; I presume because
their
language formed the connecting link between that of the horse and that
of the rooster.) With your permission, I will translate. 'Washish
squashish,'
and so forth: — that is to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad,
that
you are really a very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing
which is called circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so
desirous
of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage
upon the back of the beast.' "
When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far,
relates the
"Isitsöornot,"
the king turned over from his left side to his right, and said —
"It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear
queen, that you omitted,
hitherto,
these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think them exceedingly
entertaining and strange?"
The king having thus expressed himself, we are told,
the fair
Scheherazade
resumed her history in the following words: —
"Sinbad went on in this manner, with his narrative —
'I
thanked the man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very
much
at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the
ocean;
although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the world, by no
means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we went — so to say —
either up hill or down hill all the time.' "
"That, I think, was very singular," interrupted the
king.
"Nevertheless, it is quite true," replied
Scheherazade.
"I have my doubts," rejoined the king; "but,
pray,
be so good as to
go on with the story."
"I will," said the queen. 'The beast,' continued
Sinbad,
'swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill, until, at length, we
arrived
at an island, many hundreds of miles in circumference, but which,
nevertheless,
had been built in the middle of the sea by a colony of little things
like
caterpillars.' "*
"Hum!" said the king.
" 'Leaving this island,' said Sinbad — (for
Scheherazade, it must [page 139:] be
understood, took no notice of her husband's ill-mannered ejaculation) —
'leaving
this island, we came to another where the forests were of solid stone,
and so hard that they shivered to pieces the finest-tempered axes with
which we endeavored to cut them down.' "*
"Hum!" said the king, again; but Scheherazade,
paying him no
attention,
continued in the language of Sinbad.
" 'Passing beyond this last island, we reached a
country where there
was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles [page
140:] within the
bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater
number of far more
spacious
and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in all Damascus and
Bagdad.
From the roofs of these palaces there hung myriads of gems, liked
diamonds,
but larger than men; and in among the streets of towers and pyramids
and
temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony, and swarming
with
fish that had no eyes.' "*
"Hum!" said the king.
" 'We then swam into a region
of the sea where
we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents of
melted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles
long;†
while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a quantity of ashes
that
the sun was entirely blotted out from the heavens, and it became darker
than the darkest midnight; so that when we were even at the distance
of
a hundred and fifty miles from the mountain, it was impossible to see
the
whitest object, however close we held it to our eyes.' "‡
"Hum!" said the king.
" 'After quitting this coast, the beast continued
his
voyage until we
met with a land in which the nature of things seemed reversed — for we
here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred feet
beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf a
forest
of tall and luxuriant trees.' "§
"Hoo!" said the king. [page 141:]
" 'Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a
climate where the atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel,
just as our own does feathers.' "*
"Fiddle de dee," said the king.
" 'Proceeding still in the same direction, we
presently arrived at the
most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there meandered
a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river was of
unspeakable
depth, and of a transparency richer than that of amber. It was from
three
to six miles in width; and its banks, which arose on either side to
twelve
hundred feet in perpendicular height, were crowned with ever-blossoming
trees, and perpetual sweet-scented flowers, that made the whole
territory
one gorgeous garden; but the name of this luxuriant land was the
kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable death.' " [[†]]
"Humph!" said the king.
" 'We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after
some days, came to
another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous
animals
with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These hideous beasts
dig
for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a funnel shape, and line
the
sides of them with rocks, so disposed one upon the other that they
fall
instantly, when trodden upon by other animals, thus precipitating them
into the monsters' dens, where their blood is immediately sucked, and
their
carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an immense distance
from
"the caverns of death.' " † [[‡]]
"Pooh!" said the king.
" 'Continuing our progress, we perceived a district
abounding with vegetables
that
grew not upon any soil but in the air.‡ [[*]] [page
142:] There
were others that sprang
from
the substance of other vegetables;*
[[†]] others that
derived their
sustenance
from the bodies of living animals;†
[[‡]] and
then, again, there were
others
that glowed all over with intense fire;‡
[[¶]] others that moved from place to place
at pleasure;§ and
what is still more wonderful, we
discovered
flowers that lived and breathed and moved their limbs at will, and had,
moreover, the detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other
creatures,
and confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment
of appointed tasks.' "||
"Pshaw!" said the king. [page 143:]
" 'Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in
which the bees
and
the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that they
give
daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise men of the
empire. The king of the place having offered a
reward for the solution of two
very
difficult problems, they were solved upon the spot — the one by the
bees,
and the other by the birds; but the king keeping their solution a
secret,
it was only after the most profound researches and labor, and the
writing
of an infinity of big books, during a long series of years, that the
men-mathematicians
at length arrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon
the spot by the bees and by the birds.' " *
"Oh my!" said the king.
" 'We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we
found ourselves
close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a flock
of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty miles long; so
that,
although they flew a mile during [page 144:] every minute, it
required no less than
four hours for the whole flock to pass over us — in which there were
several
millions of millions of fowls.' "*
"Oh fy!" said the king.
"'No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which
occasioned us great
annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of
another
kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met in my former
voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes on your
seraglio,
oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head that we
could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was of a
prodigious
fatness and roundness, of a soft looking substance, smooth, shining and
striped with various colors. In its talons, the monster was bearing
away
to his eyrie in the heavens, a house from which it had knocked off the
roof, and in the interior of which we distinctly saw human beings, who,
beyond doubt, were in a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate
which awaited them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of
frightening
the bird into letting go of its prey; but it merely gave a snort or
puff,
as if of rage, and then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack which
proved
to be filled with sand!' "
"Stuff!" said the king.
"'It was just after this adventure that we
encountered a continent
of
immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was
supported
entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had
no fewer than four
hundred
horns.' " †
"That, now, I believe," said the king,
"because I have read
something
of the kind before, in a book."
" 'We passed immediately beneath this continent,
(swimming in between
the legs of the cow,) and, after some hours, found ourselves in a
wonderful
country indeed, which, I was informed by [page 145:] the
man-animal, was his own
native
land, inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated the
man-animal
very much in my esteem; and in fact, I now began to feel ashamed of the
contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him; for I found that
the man-animals in general were a nation of the most powerful
magicians,
who lived with worms in their brains,*
which,
no
doubt, served to
stimulate
them by their painful writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous
efforts
of imagination.' "
"Nonsense!" said the king.
" 'Among the magicians, were domesticated several
animals of very
singular
kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were iron and
whose
blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had black stones for his
usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet, he was so strong and
swift
that he would drag a load more weighty than the grandest temple in this
city, at a rate surpassing that of the flight of most birds.' "†
"Twattle!" said the king.
" 'I saw, also, among these people a hen without
feathers, but bigger
than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her
blood,
like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly related,) was
boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or black stones.
This
hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred chickens in the day; and,
after birth, they took up their residence for several weeks within the
stomach of their mother.' "‡
"Fal lal!" said the king.
" 'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a
man out of brass
and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he
would
have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the exception of the
great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid.§
Another of
these magi constructed (of
like material) a creature that put to [page 146:] shame even
the genius of him who
made it; for so great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it
performed
calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required the
united
labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year.*
But a still more
wonderful
conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing that was neither man nor
beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixed with a black matter
like
pitch, and fingers that it employed with such incredible speed and
dexterity
that it would have had no trouble in writing out twenty thousand copies
of the Koran in an hour; and this with so exquisite a precision, that
in
all the copies there should not be found one to vary from another by
the
breadth of the finest hair. This thing was of prodigious strength, so
that
it erected or overthrew the mightiest empires at a breath; but its
powers
were exercised equally for evil and for good.' "
"Ridiculous!" said the king.
" 'Among this nation of necromancers there was also
one who had in
his
veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting
down
to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was thoroughly
roasted upon its floor.† Another had
the
faculty of converting the
common
metals into gold, without even looking at them during the process.‡
Another had such a delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to
be invisible.§ Another had such
quickness
of
perception that he
counted
all the separate motions of an elastic body, while it was springing
backwards
and forwards at the rate of nine hundred millions of times in a
second.' "||
"Absurd!" said the king.
" 'Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid
that nobody ever
yet
saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick
out
their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his [page 147:]
will.* Another had
cultivated
his voice to so great an extent that he could have made himself heard
from
one end of the earth to the other.†
Another had so long an arm that
he could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter at Bagdad — or
indeed
at any distance whatsoever.‡ Another
commanded
the lightning to come
down to him out of the heavens, and it came at his call; and served him
for a plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of
them
made a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two
brilliant
lights.§ Another
made ice in a red-hot
furnace.|| Another directed
the sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did.¶
Another took this
luminary
with the moon and the planets, and having first weighed them with
scrupulous
accuracy, probed into their depths and found out the solidity of the
substance
of which they were made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so
surprising
a necromantic ability, that not [page 148:] even their
infants, nor their commonest
cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist
at
all, or that for twenty millions of years before the birth of the
nation
itself, had been blotted out from the face of creation.' "*
"Preposterous!" said the king.
" 'The wives and daughters of these incomparably
great and wise
magi,' "
continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed by these
frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of her
husband — " 'the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are
every thing
that is accomplished and refined; and would be every thing that is
interesting
and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from
which
not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and fathers has,
hitherto,
been adequate to save. Some fatalities come in certain shapes, and some
in others — but this of which I speak has come in the shape of a
crotchet.' "
"A what?" said the king.
" 'A crotchet,' " said Scheherazade. " 'One of the
evil
genii who are
perpetually
upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads of these
accomplished
ladies that the thing which we describe as personal beauty, consists
altogether
in the protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the
small
of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the direct
ratio
of the extent of this hump. Having been long possessed of this idea,
and
bolsters being cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since
it was possible to distinguish a woman from a dromedary ——'" [page
149:]
"Stop!" said the king — "I can't stand that, and I
won't. You have
already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I
perceive
is beginning to break. How long have we been married? —— my conscience
is getting to be troublesome again. And then that dromedary touch — do
you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you might as well get up and be
throttled."
These words, as I learn from the Isitsöornot,
both
grieved and
astonished
Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of scrupulous
integrity,
and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with
a good grace. She derived, however, great consolation, (during the
tightening
of the bowstring,) from the reflection that much of the history
remained
still untold, and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had
reaped
for him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable
adventures.
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