Sindbād-nāmah - The Book of Sindibad

THE

BOOK OF SINDIBĀD

OR,

THE STORY OF THE KING, HIS SON, THE
DAMSEL, AND THE SEVEN VAZĪRS.

FROM THE PERSIAN AND ARABIC

WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND APPENDIX

BY

W.A. CLOUSTON,

EDITOR OF "ARABIAN POETRY FOR ENGLISH READERS,"
"THE BAKHTYAR NAMA," ETC.

"Alas, women whose love is scorned are worse than poison!"  —Somadera

PRIVATELY PRINTED.

MDCCCLXXXIV

THE present work is, I believe, the first attempt, in this country, to furnish a compendious account of the Eastern and Western groups of romances known respectively under their generic titles of the BOOK OF SINDIBĀD and the BOOK OF THE SEVEN WISE MASTERS. Wright's introduction to his edition, for the Percy Society, of an Early English metrical version of the Seven Sages may perhaps be considered as such a work, but he has confounded the Eastern with the Western versions, having been misled by Des Longchamps and other investigators, who, in this field of inquiry, according to Gödeke, “fell into such confusion in essential points that they contributed almost as much to perpetuate old errors and spread them anew as to lay and root out others.” Moreover, several important texts have been since discovered, throwing new light upon the history of both groups.—Professor Comparetti's Ricerche intorno al Libro di Sindibād, an English translation of which, by Mr. H. C. Coote, forms one of the publications for the Folk-Lore Society, is undoubtedly one of the most important contributions to the history of the romance; but it assumes the reader to be familiar with the details of the several Eastern texts, the subordinate stories being mostly referred to only by their titles, and its usefulness is consequently confined within a narrow circle, in the absence, for merely English readers, of the tales themselves. This want I have now endeavoured to supply, to the best of my ability, in the following work, which comprises:

(1) An introductory account of the structure of the Book of Sindibād, and the probable sources of the several Eastern versions; to which is prefixed a Comparative Table of the Tales in this group, designed to exhibit, at a glance, the degrees of relationship which the texts bear towards each other.

(2) An epitome, by Professor Forbes Falconer, of a Persian text, entitled Sindibād Nāma, composed in 1375, of which the only known copy is an imperfect MS. in the Library of the India Office. Falconer's work left much to be desired: of some of the Tales he gave only the titles, and others he presented in a very abridged form; it has therefore been compared with the MS.; the abridged and omitted Tales—ten in number, of which three seem to have altogether escaped his notice—translated and inserted, and several grave errors rectified. In foot-notes I have explained such references and expressions as might be obscure to some readers, and adduced from the other versions passages which correspond with, or vary from, this text.

(3) An Arabian version of the Seven Vazīrs, translated by Jonathan Scott, with corrections and additions, and similarly annotated. In my preface to it are some particulars regarding this and other Arabian texts.

(4) An Appendix, which contains variants of the Tales in both these texts—forming curious illustrations of the pedigree of popular fictions and their migrations and transformations—together with such Tales as do not occur in them, but are found in the others. Thus all the Tales of the Eastern Texts, as represented in the Comparative Table, are now brought together.

It certainly formed no part of my original design to treat of the Western Texts. These have, in some measure, preserved—from oral tradition, unquestionably—the leading ideas of the ancient original tale: the orphanhood of the accused youth; his education at a distance from his father; his step-mother's malice against him, and so on;—but, as Comparetti has observed, “there is no Eastern version which differs so much from the others as the whole Western group differs from the Eastern group, whether it be in the form of the fundamental story, or in the tales inserted in it, of which scarcely four are common to both groups.” As my work progressed, however, it occurred to me that abstracts of an Early English metrical version of the Seven Wise Masters and of the oldest European form of the romance, the Latin original of the old French metrical version, Dolopathos—discovered within recent years—with variants as found in other collections, would be acceptable to English students of the history of Fiction, which I have accordingly inserted in the Appendix.

My work is, of course, not free from errors: I trust they will be excused by those who know the difficulties that beset a task of this kind. But however imperfect it may be, it would certainly have been still more so, but for the valuable assistance which I received from several eminent scholars; especially, from Mr. J. W. Redhouse, on whose stores of learning I drew, as on former occasions, perhaps too frequently; Mr. William Platt, to whose erudition I am also much indebted; Mr. E. J. W. Gibb, author of Ottoman Poems, etc., whose great kindness of disposition is equalled by his attainments in, and enthusiasm for, Oriental literature; and to Mr. David Ross, Principal of the E.C. Training College, Glasgow, of whose classical and general scholarship I was also happily able to avail myself. That the work should be as comprehensive as possible has been my aim from the first; and, notwithstanding occasional inaccuracies and shortcomings, I venture to hope that it will prove interesting to general readers, and possibly even not altogether without its use to some of those who make a special study of the origin and spread of “old-world tales.”

W. A. CLOUSTON

GLASGOW, May, 1884.

IN a somewhat extravagant eulogium of the romance known throughout Europe from mediæval times as the History, or Book, of the Seven Sages, Görres says, that “it sprang originally from the Indian mountains, whence from primeval days it took its course as a little rivulet, and flowed in a westerly direction through Asia's wide field, and, while it proceeded for thousands of years through space and time, always spreading more and more in reaching us. Out of it whole generations and many nations have drank; and, having passed to Europe with the great tide of population, it is now also in our day and generation supplied to such a considerable portion of the public, that in regard to its celebrity and the magnitude of its sphere of influence, it reaches the Holy Book, and surpasses all classical works.” This account of the romance is very misleading. The prototype of the Seven Sages was, no doubt, an ancient Indian work (though surely not “thousands of years old”) called the Book of Sindibād, from which have sprung two groups of texts, Eastern and Western: the former derived, mediately or immediately, from a common and written source; the latter based upon oral traditions of the romance, brought to Europe by minstrels and pilgrims from the East, and preserving little more than the general plan of the original work. The Eastern group of texts must therefore be considered as having a distinct and separate history from the Western group. Like so many other Asiatic collections of fiction, this romance in its several versions consists of a number of tales and apologues, strung together by a general story, running throughout the whole work, of which the following is the outline:

A monarch, powerful, wise, and just, was very unhappy because he had not a son to succeed him on the throne, and he was now far advanced in years. After many earnest prayers to Heaven, he is at length blessed with a son, upon which he assembles the most skilful astrologers to cast his horoscope (as is still customary in the East on the birth of a male child), which is found to portend great danger to his life when he has attained his twentieth year. The king is at first greatly alarmed at this intelligence, but ultimately becomes reconciled to the decree of destiny; and, when the child is old enough, he confides him to a tutor, under whose instruction, however, in spite of all his efforts, the young prince makes no progress in learning during several years. The prince is then taken in hand by a profound sage, called Sindibād, but he, too, fails to instruct him—apparently the youth is hopelessly stupid. The king, on learning this, is enraged at the philosopher, who, nothing daunted by his failure, now boldly undertakes to teach the prince all necessary knowledge in the space of six months, at the peril of his own life. Having succeeded within less than the stipulated period, before the prince is to be presented to his father, in order to exhibit his varied accomplishments, Sindibād takes an observation of the prince's star, and discovers that he is threatened with loss of life should he utter a word during the seven following days. He communicates this to the prince, and counsels him, notwithstanding, to appear before his father, but on no account to speak until the fatal seven days are passed—for himself, he must hide from the king's wrath. Accordingly, the prince proceeds to the palace, and is warmly embraced by his father, but returns not a word in answer to the questions which are put to him. One of the king's women, secretly in love with the prince, now enters the audience-chamber, and learning that he has been apparently deprived of the power of speech, requests his Majesty's permission to try whether she cannot privately induce the prince to speak, which being granted, she takes the youth into the harem, where she tells him of her love for him, and proposes to poison the king, in order that he may at once ascend the throne. Horrified at the thought of such a heinous crime, the prince upbraids her, and flies out of the room. The damsel, fearing the consequences of her conduct, tears her garments and scratches her face, and in this condition presents herself before the king, who inquires the cause of her distress. She replies that his son, who had only feigned himself dumb, had no sooner entered her apartment than he made love to her, and proposed to poison his Majesty. Believing this false tale, the king immediately commands the executioner to put the prince to death. But this precipitate sentence coming to the knowledge of the king's Seven Vazīrs, or counsellors, they determine to save the life of the prince as long as possible, in hopes that his innocence would be established, by each of them in turn relating to the king instances of the craft and malice of women, and warning him against undue haste in affairs of importance. The First Vazīr accordingly appears before the king, and relates two stories to show that no reliance should be placed upon the accusation of a woman; after which his Majesty remands the prince to prison in the meantime. At night, however, the Damsel counteracts the effect produced in the king's mind by the vazīr's tales, by relating a story designed to exemplify the deceitful and wicked disposition of men, with the result of inducing the king to resolve once more to put his son to death. In like manner, the tales of the other vazīrs are controverted by the damsel, until the seven days are passed, when the prince, being free to speak again, informs the king of the damsel's atrocious plot against his life, and relates a number of tales, after which the wicked damsel is punished.

The repeated failures to educate the prince, the father's grief and rage, and the sage finally undertaking to instruct the youth in six months, correspond exactly with the frame of the Pancha Tantra (Five Chapters), a celebrated collection of Hindū fables, in Sanskrit, as old at least as the 6th century; and the resemblance can hardly be merely fortuitous:

“There is a city in the southern country, named Mihilārōpyam, the king of which, learned and munificent, distinguished among princes and scholars, was named Amara Sacti. He had three sons, youths of no capacity or diligence: Vasu Sacti, Bhadra Sacti, and Ananta Sacti. Observing them averse to study, the king called his counsellors, and said to them: ‘You are aware that my sons are little inclined to application, and incapable of reflection. When I contemplate them, my kingdom is full of thorns, and yields me no pleasure. It is said by the wise: “Better is a son unborn; better is a dead son, than one who is a fool. The first may cause affliction for a little while, but a fool as long as life endures.” Again: “Of what use is a cow who has no milk with her calf? Of what use is a son who has neither knowledge nor virtue? Better it is that a wife be barren, that she bear daughters or dead children, and that the family should become extinct, than that a son, endowed with your form, wealth, and family-credit should want understanding.” If, therefore, by any means their minds can be roused, do you declare it.’

“On this a counsellor replied: ‘Prince, the study of grammar alone is the work of twelve years, how then is a knowledge of Dharma, Art'ha, Kāma, and Mōksha^0-22 to be speedily conveyed?’ Another counsellor, named Sumati, observed: ‘Prince, the powers of man are limited by his transitory existence; but to acquire a knowledge of language alone demands much time. It is better that we think of some means of communicating the substance of each science in a compendious form; as it is said: “The Sabda Sāstri (Philology) is a boundless ocean: life is short, and the difficulties are many; the essence, therefore, is to be taken, as the swan extracts the milk from the water.”^0-22a There is a Brāhman, named Vishnū Sarmā, celebrated for his perfect acquisition of the sciences. To him entrust your sons, and he will render them well-informed.’ On hearing this, the king sent for Vishnū Sarmā, and addressed him: ‘Venerable Brāhman, confer a favour upon me, by instructing these princes in polite literature, and rendering them superior to the youths, their companions; in recompense of which I promise you lands of large extent.’ Vishnū Sarmā replied: ‘Hear, O king, my words. I am not a retailer of knowledge for lands and wealth; but if I do not instruct your sons in the Nītī Sāstrā (Polity), I will forego my own name. There is no need to say more. I do not utter this vaunt through any desire of wealth; for wealth is useless to any one whose passions are mortified and subdued. I wish but to gratify you, and to do the will of Saraswatī. Let it be written, therefore, that if, in six months from this day, I do not make the princes more proficient than many people in various branches of knowledge, it shall not be allowed to me, a Brāh-man, to point out the way of God.’ The king, highly gratified by this assurance, delivered his sons to him and retired; and Vishnū Sarmā, taking the princes with him, repaired to his own house, where, for their instruction, he composed these five chapters. Reading these, the princes were, in six months, highly accomplished, and the Five Tantras became famous throughout the world. Whosoever reads this work acquires the whole Nītī Sāstrā, and will never be overthrown by Indra himself.”

The resemblance between the leading idea of the tale of Sindibād and the biblical story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar is very obvious. But the incident is found in an Egyptian romance—the oldest extant fairy tale—which dates from the 14th century B.C., “when Pharaoh Ramses Miamun, the founder of Pithom and Ramses, ruled at Thebes, and literature celebrated its highest triumphs at his brilliant court: nine pre-eminent savans were attached to the person of the king, the contemporary of Moses.”^0-24 The following is an abstract of the first part of this ancient tale (it is among the papyri in the British Museum):

The story relates to two brothers, of the same mother and father; the name of the elder was Anapou (Anubis), that of the younger was Satou. Anapou, being the head of the house, married, and he treated his younger brother as his son. (Some obliterations here occur, but it appears that Satou was a skilful feeder of cattle, and that he led his brother's herds every day to the pasture, and brought them back at night to their stalls.) “When the season of tillage arrived, the elder brother said to him: ‘Let us take the teams and go to plough, for the land appears [i.e., the water of the inundation had subsided], and is fit for culture. When we have ploughed it, you shall fetch the seed.’ So the young man proceeded to execute what his elder brother told him.” The story goes on to the following effect: The ploughing being finished, the elder brother sends the younger home to fetch seed. On arriving at the house, the young man finds his brother's wife engaged in combing her hair. He asks her for corn, and she bids him go to the granary and help himself, while she completes her toilette. Satou fetches one of the largest baskets, in order to carry back as much corn as possible. On his return from the granary, laden with barley and wheat, the lady compliments him upon his strength, and addresses him in precisely the same fashion as the wife of Potiphar addressed the Hebrew Joseph. Satou indignantly rejects her advances, and departs with his load, promising, however, to observe the strictest silence as to what had occurred. The wife of Anapou determines to be revenged; and when the husband returns in the evening, he is astonished to find his wife stretched on the bed, apparently lifeless, stripped of her clothes, and with all the outward semblance of having been the victim of violent outrage. “Who has been speaking with thee?” he inquires. “No man hath spoken to me,” is the reply, “but thy brother, when he came to fetch corn.” And she then proceeds to tell the story, mutatis mutandis, and concludes with conjuring her husband to take summary vengeance upon the offender. “The elder brother became as furious as a panther; he sharpened his sword, and took it in his hand. Then he went and stood behind the door of the stall, ready to kill his younger brother on his arrival in the evening with his cattle. When the sun set, Satou came back, according to his daily wont. As he approached, the cow which walked first said to her keeper: ‘Methinks thy elder brother is yonder, with his sword ready to kill thee when thou comest near him.’ He heard the words of the first cow, and then came another and said the same. Then he looked under the door of the stall, and he saw the feet of his brother, who stood behind the door, sword in hand. He threw his load on the ground, and began to run as fast as he could, and his brother pursued him, sword in hand.” Satou invokes the aid of the sun-god Ra, who causes a wide river full of crocodiles to flow between the two brothers. The younger calls to the elder to wait until next day, when he will give a full explanation. Accordingly, when the sun rises, he relates the true state of the affair, reproaches his brother with his credulity, and, calling the sun to witness his innocence, he inflicts a grievous mutilation upon himself, and falls fainting on the bank of the river. The elder brother is much afflicted, but is unable to go to his assistance on account of the crocodiles. Satou at length recovers, and announces his intention of quitting his brother's company and of retiring to the valley of the acacia, a remote place, apparently beyond the limits of Egypt.^0-26

Such is the earliest example of the aphorism, “The woman whose love is scorned is worse than poison.” Classical legend affords another instance in the tale of Phædra and Hippolytus, and it is probable that the same incident has often actually occurred in different countries and times.—M. Paulin Paris cites the following anecdote, as being historically true, and as having exercised a certain influence on the oldest French form of the romance (Dolopathos), in which the name of the prince, like that of one of the victims in this tragedy, is Lucinian:

Fausta, the daughter of the tyrant Maximian, was the second wife of the great Constantine. For a long time she had the most decisive influence over that prince, and she had stopped at nothing to ensure the success and glory of his reign. She had actually sacrificed to the interests of the emperor the honour and the life of her father. Crispus, son of the first wife, having long appeared to inspire her with an almost maternal love, afterwards Fausta manifested entirely contrary feelings. Whether for the purpose of opening for her own children the path to the throne, or to take revenge of the slight shown to her by her step-son, she accused Crispus of meditating to kill his father, and of wishing to soil the nuptial couch. To give more colour to her imposture, she included in the same accusation the young Lucinian, the son of the hateful Lucinius, and then hardly fourteen years of age. Constantine, too easily persuaded of the crimes of which the two princes were accused, condemned both to the last punishment which they would have merited had they been guilty. But the unhappy father was not long before he repented himself of his credulity; he learned at the same time of the misconduct and infidelity of Fausta, and the execution of that princess was the just expiation of the death of Crispus and Lucinian.^0-28

And Keller has remarked that two pictures by Dierick Stuerbout (circa 1462) exhibit a similar history; the Baron Von Keverberg describes them thus: These pictures represent a tragic history, told in an ancient chronicle of the town of Louvain, entitled Legende Dorée (Golden Legend), as having happened in the year 985. It informs us that the Emperor Otho had caused an illustrious count to be beheaded. The empress had conceived a violent love for him, and had falsely accused him of the same crime, because he would not respond to her adulterous passion. The tragic end of the count is the subject of the first picture. In the second his weeping widow is kneeling before the emperor. Holding in one hand the bleeding head of her husband, and in the other a red-hot iron, she proves the innocence of the dead count. Otho, enraged, condemned the empress to the flames, wherein she paid the penalty of her crime.^0-28a

In the Turkish romance of the Forty Vazīrs, it is related (by the 17th Vazīr) that a certain young man, at Mecca, during the season of pilgrimage, and when famine prevailed, went to purchase some wheat of a woman, who at first refused to sell him any, but afterwards promised him a load of wheat on condition that he would make merry with her. But the good youth repelled her advances, upon which she threatened to call her neighbours and complain against him. He then stole into an inner room, intending to mutilate himself (like the Egyptian Satou), when, lo! the wall miraculously opened, and he found outside ten camels laden with wheat—the gift of Allah, as a reward of his piety and virtue.

But the frame of the Book of Sindibād rests (as Professor Benfey has pointed out) on a story out of the life of Asoka, the great defender of Buddhism. After the death of his first wife, Asandhimitra, he made one of his female servants his queen. This second wife had fallen in love with, but had been rejected by, a son of the king by another wife, Pad-mavati, the name of the son being Dharmavivardhana, or (from his beautiful eyes) Kunāla. The son was sent by his father against Takshasila, which was in revolt. During the prince's absence, the king was seized with a dangerous malady, and determined to set Kunāla on the throne. The queen, foreseeing that this would be her ruin, promised to heal the king's disorder. This she did; and being offered by the king any gift she might ask, she desired the favour of exercising the regal power for seven days, and employed this time in sending to Takshasila and having the prince's eyes put out. The blind son comes before his father as a lute-player, and is recognised, and the Queen is burnt.^0-30

The story has deeply penetrated Indian literature. In a Telegū palm-leaf manuscript entitled Sārang-dhara Charita, described by Dr. H. H. Wilson, the hero, Sārangdhara, is the son of Rājamahendra, king of Rājamahendri, whose step-mother Chitrāngī falls in love with him. He rejects her advances, on which she accuses him to the king of attempting to violate her, and the king orders him to have his feet cut off, and to be exposed in the forest to wild beasts. There a voice from heaven proclaims that the prince in his former life was Jayanta, minister of Dhaval Chandra, who, being envious of Sumanta, one of his colleagues, contrived to hide the slippers of Sumanta under the bed of the queen. The king, finding them and ascertaining whose they were, commanded Sumanta to be exposed to wild beasts after having his legs and hands cut off; in retribution of which Jayanta, now Sārang-dhara, suffers the like mutilation. He acknowledges the justice of the sentence, and his wounds are healed by a Yogī. A voice from heaven apprises the king of the innocence of his son, and he takes Sārangdhara back and puts Chitrāngī to death. Sārangdhara adopts a religious life.—In the Tamil version, when the prince has been mutilated and cast into the jungle, his dead mother's lamentations are heard by the Siddhas, who restore the prince's limbs, and a voice from heaven apprises the king of Chitrāngī's guilt.—Again: In the Kumara Rāma Charita, Ratnangī, one of the wives of Rāja Kāmpila, became enamoured of Kumara Rāma, his youngest son, and importuned him to gratify her desires. Finding him inexorable, her love was changed to hatred, and she complained to Kāmpila that Rāma had attempted her chastity. Kāmpila in a rage ordered Rāma to be put to death instantly, with his four chief leaders. The minister Bachapa, however, secreted Rāma and his friends in his palace, and decapitating five ordinary criminals, produced their heads to the rāja as those of his intended victims. Kāmpila soon repented of his haste, and the prince's death was the subject of universal sorrow. After some time Rāma reappeared, and the Princess Ratnangī, on hearing of this, hanged herself, by which Kāmpila was satisfied of the innocence of his son.^0-31

To the sporadic part of the family of the Sindibād belong the Turkish romance of the Forty Vazīrs, the Persian Ten Vazīrs (generally called the Bakhtyār Nāma), and the Hindū Alakeswara Kathā.—The frame of the Forty Vazīrs corresponds pretty closely with that of the Book of Sindibād, but the eighty subordinate tales, related by the vazīrs and the lady alternately, are, with but one or two exceptions, quite different from those found in the several texts of the Seven Vazīrs, or Wise Men. This romance is said to have been composed, from an old Arabian work, entitled, The Forty Mornings and Forty Evenings, early in the 15th century.—The plan of the Bakhtyār Nāma (or the Ten Vazīrs) is essentially different from the frame of the Sindibād books, in which, as we have seen, the prince must keep strict silence for seven days, he is tempted by one of his father's women, who falsely accuses him, and the vazīrs, or wise men, save his life from day to day, by relating tales to the king, until the period of danger to the prince is past. All this is precisely reversed in the Bakhtyār Nāma, the outline of which is as follows:

A king, flying with his wife from his kingdom, which is in revolt, is obliged to abandon his newly-born son near a well. The infant is found by a robber-chief, who adopts and educates him as his own son. Meanwhile the king recovers his kingdom. It happens that the robber-chief, at the head of his band, attacks a large caravan, and is defeated, many of his followers being killed or taken prisoners, and among the latter is the robber-chief's adopted son. When the prisoners are brought before the king, he is struck with the grace and beauty of the youth—his own son, but, of course, unknown to him—pardons him and takes him into his service. One evening the young man, dazed with wine, wanders into the private apartments of the palace, seeking his way out, and, not knowing what he is doing, lays himself down on the royal couch, and falls asleep. In this condition he is discovered by the king, who, concluding that the queen must be privy to the youth's presence there, is naturally furious, sends for the queen, and accuses her of infidelity, which she denies; and the king causes her and the young man to be confined separately, until he has considered what had best be done. In the morning the prime vazīr, who is envious of the youth's favour with the king, having learned the particulars of the affair of the preceding night, obtains leave to visit the queen, and assures her that his Majesty would not be convinced that she was innocent, and counsels her, if she would save her own life, to accuse the youth (who is only the son of a robber, he reminds her) of having stolen unawares into the harem, and professed love to her. After much persuasion, she at length consents to the vazīr's proposal, and having accused the young man, the king gives orders for him to be brought before him and put to death. But the youth speaks eloquently in his own behalf, and incites the king's curiosity to hear a certain tale in illustration of the evils of precipitation, which, leave being granted, he relates, and is then sent back to prison. Next morning the second vazīr presents himself before the king, and urges him to put the youth to death. The young man is again brought forth to be executed, when he obtains leave to relate another story, showing the deplorable consequences of rashness, after which he is once more remanded to prison. In this manner, each of the Ten Vazīrs in turn seeks the youth's destruction, and he pleads his own cause by means of eloquent speeches and impressive tales, until the eleventh day, when he is led out to execution, and his foster-father the robber-chief, recognises him, hastens to the king, and implores the life of the youth whom he had found in the wilderness so many years ago; and showing the jewels which were upon the infant, the king sees with horror that he was about to murder his own son, and puts the envious vazīrs to an ignominious death.

It will thus be seen that the frame of the Bakhtyār Nāma is very remotely related to the Sindibād books: in place of a dumb prince and his seven defenders, we have an eloquent youth defending himself against his ten false accusers. I have been at the trouble of sketching the frame of this romance, because it is commonly included in the Sindibād cycle, by writers, too, who ought to know better.^0-34

The third romance of the sporadic group, the Ala-keswara Kathā, closely resembles the tale of Bakhytār and the Ten Vazīrs: this is a story, written in the Tamil language, of the rāja of Alakapur, and his four ministers, who, “being falsely accused of violating the sanctity of the inner apartments, vindicate their innocence and disarm the king's wrath by relating a number of stories,” one of which is the familiar tale of the Lost Camel, found also in the Talmud.^0-35

MUCH obscurity surrounds the early history of the Book of Sindibād, notwithstanding the important discoveries of European scholars during the last thirty years. The work of Des Longchamps is often misleading, and his theories regarding the introduction of the romance into Europe and the pedigree of the Eastern texts are now, for the most part, set aside— being superseded by the laborious investigations of such learned and acute men as Baethgen, Benfey, Brockhaus, Comparetti, Gödeke, Keller, Montaiglon, Mussafia, Nöldeke, Paulin Paris, etc.; but when and where the original work was composed, and how it was first spread abroad, are questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. True, Ma'sūdī, who has been styled the Herodotus of the Arabs, in his great historical work, Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, written about A.D. 943-4, speaking of the Indian kings, says: “In the reign of Kūrūsh lived As-Sindibād, who is the author of the Story of the Seven Vazīrs, the Preceptor, the Boy, and the Wife of the King. This is the work,” he adds, “which is called the Book of Sindibād.” And nearly to the same purpose is the evidence lately found, some sixty years earlier than Ma'sūdī, viz., Al-Ya'qūbī, who wrote about A.D. 880, and who says, also referring to the ancient Indian kings: “To them belongs Kush,^0-36 who was in the time of Sindibād the Wise; and this Kush composed the Book of the Craft of Women.” But from these writers we only learn that, according to tradition, the romance was originally written in India. That either the sage Sindibād or the mythical king Kūrūsh, or Kūsh, was the author is, of course, absurd: there is no more reason to suppose that Sindibād was the author of the work which bears his name than that Vishnū Sarmā composed the Pancha Tantra, or Bidpai the Kalila wa Dimna. Farther, we see that the romance was well known—and almost certainly in an Arabic form—about A.D. 880. But, according to the Fihrist, Abān Lāhiqī, who died A.D. 815-16, composed the tale in rhymed couplets, which throws its date back to the early years of the 9th century, and the prose version from which it was derived may have been fifty years older—dating about the middle of the 8th century.

The oldest extant text derived directly from an Eastern source was until lately assumed to be the Greek version, entitled Syntipas^0-37 (evidently a corruption of Sindibād), composed, by one Andreopulos, from the Syriac, as we are informed in his prologue:

“This book which thou seest, (my) friend, is (the work) of the fabulist Syntipas, according to the Syrians, nay, rather (according to) the wise prose-writers of the Persians: which being drawn up in the Syrian language, I, Andreopulos, worshipper of Christ, the last [or humblest] of authors, have indited this book, and translated it into the Greek phraseology of the present time. Having been appointed, this work (is) at the command of Gabriel, the renown of grandees, the august Duke of the city of Melitene—(he) who is truly a devout dweller in the house of Christ—who also decided these (fables) should be set forth, because they do not exist in the books of the modern Greeks. For this collection especially denounces evil-doers, and at the close eulogises deeds admirably achieved.”

To Professor Comparetti belongs the honour of having identified the august Duke Gabriel, at whose command the work was translated, with the prince of the same name who ruled in Melitene between 1086 and 1100; the date of the Greek version may thus be referred to the last decade of the 11th century.^0-38 In the preface the book is stated to be translated into Syriac from the work of “Mousos the Persian.” A unique but, unfortunately, imperfect MS. of the Syriac text was discovered by Rödiger, and printed, with a German translation, by Baethgen, in 1879.^0-38a “There can be no doubt,” says Nöldeke, in a most interesting and important review in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xxxiii, “that this is the Syriac book translated into Greek by Andreopulos. Both agree in the general course of the narrative, and also in the brevity of the introduction. Even in details, the Syntipas shows itself to be, not indeed a literal translation, but yet a translation tolerably correct as to the sense. Hence we must conclude that the parts wanting in the Syriac text stood as they are found in Syntipas. But the style of the two is very different. The Syriac narrates plainly and naturally; Syntipas is prolix, ornate, and turgid… The greater prolixity arises simply from the manner of the translator: even his additions are as strong a contrast to the mode of the original as the rest.”—The work of Musa the Persian (presumably written in the Arabic, from the Pahlavī) is now apparently lost, but it must have been extant in the middle of the 13th century, since a Castilian rendering, from the Arabic, made in 1253,^0-39 corresponds in most respects with the Syriac and its Greek derivative. About the same time a Hebrew version^0-39a was composed, probably also from the Arabic, in which many liberties are taken with the original— stories omitted, others inserted, names given to the seven counsellors, etc.

To recapitulate: the Book of Sindibād was brought from India, its native country, to Persia, where it was translated into Pahlavī (as were the Fables of Bidpai in the 6th century); from Pahlavī, Musa rendered it into Arabic, about the middle of the 8th century; from Arabic it was translated into Syriac, into old Spanish, and into Hebrew; from Syriac into Greek. Thus far, satisfactory; but not so, when we inquire into the source of Persian texts.

According to Daulat Shāh, the tale of Sindibād was composed in Persian verse by Azraqī, who died at Herāt, A.D. 1132 (A.H. 537). This work seems no longer extant; but it is cited in the Jehangīrī Dictionary (A.D. 1576): “Whoever sees, O king, the counsels of Sindibād well knows that therein the poet's art is difficult.” And Sa'dī probably quotes from it in his Bustān: “How charmingly has this subtle remark been expressed in (the book of) Sindibād, saying: ‘Love is a fire, O my son; advice, a wind.’ With wind does fierce fire become more aspiring, (as) by beating does a leopard become more enraged.”

Another Persian poetical version, entitled Sindibād Nāma, was written, by an unknown author, in A.D. 1375, an epitome of which is contained in the present volume. The author informs us that his royal patron one day taxed him with being lazy: “Perform,” said the king, “such an achievement with the sword of the pen as shall live as long as swords are wielded. Turn into verse, during my reign, some prose work, that my memory may be perpetuated: let it be the Tale of Sindibād.” To this the poet replied: “If God grant me his aid, and if my life be spared, I will turn into verse that celebrated book.” Having stated the year when his poem was composed (A.H. 776), proceeding to the tale, he begins: “An Arabian by descent, but speaking the Persian tongue, has thus informed me, in eloquent language, that there lived in India a sage and mighty monarch,” and so on (see pp. 5-7). It thus appears that the Tale of Sindibād was known to our poet and his royal patron only in a prose form, the author of which was an Arab by descent, which Falconer thought might afford ground for conjecture that the Arab had found the tale in the language of his family and translated it from Arabic into Persian: the usual process by which works in Pahlavī were returned in later ages to the Persians was through the Arabic.

But there was a modern Persian prose version in this country some forty years since, purporting to be derived from the Pahlavī through the Darī, which has long escaped notice in the investigation of the genealogy of the Book of Sindibād. It is thus referred to by Mr. W. H. Morley, in a letter to Mr. E. W. Lane, dated August, 1841, which is printed in Lane's translation of the Thousand and One Nights, vol. iii, p. 681:

“Some time since the Oriental Translation Committee were kind enough to lend me a manuscript from their library, comprising four volumes and containing a collection of tales in the Persian language. Many of these I translated with a view to publication, but one story (occurring in the 4th volume) which is similar in construction to the Bakhtyār Nāma,^0-41 and is preceded by a very curious preface, I reserved for more particular consideration at a future period. On reading the twenty-third number of your excellent translation of the Alf Laila wa Laila I was struck by finding in the Abstract of the Story of the King, and his Son, the Damsel, and the Seven Vazīrs the name of the sage As-Sindibād, and the circumstances related in the introduction coincided with those in the Persian story above alluded to. I suspected that they must be identical, and was fully satisfied that they were so, when on referring to the MS. I found that the same tales occurred in both. The great importance of the Persian version consists in its preface, which is omitted both in your edition and the MS. of the British Museum, and which is exceedingly valuable as an evidence of the Persian origin of the story. The preface states that the book is named the Kitāb-i Sindi-bād , and that it was collected from the sages of 'Ajam. It then says: ‘This book was originally in the Pahlavī tongue, and till the time of the Amīr Nāsiru-'d-Dawla Abū Muhammad Nūh bin Mansūr Sāmānī, it had not been translated by any person, the Amīr commanded that the Kh'āja Amīd Abū-'l-Fawaris Fatādzarī should translate it and set right the discrepancies and errors he might find therein. In the year 338 [A.D. 949] the aforesaid Kh'āja undertook the task, and converted it into the Darī language.’ The author of the preface, Muhammad bin 'Alī bin Muhammad bin Husayn Az-Zahīr Al-Kātib As-Samarqandī, then mentions that he has rendered the Darī translation into modern Persian, and dedicates his work to Abū-'l Muzaffar Qilij Tamghāh Khāqān.”^0-43

The Arabic version referred to by Morley as agreeing with his text is that of the Seven Vazīrs in the Thousand and One Nights—based, of course, upon the old Arabic text derived from the Pahlavī, but composed at a much more recent period than any of the other Eastern versions. The introduction is abridged and garbled; a number of the original tales have been suppressed and others substituted. Morley's statement that the same stories occur in both his text and that of Lane must be understood in a restricted sense, otherwise his text was considerably later than the 12th century. He probably meant that certain stories in Lane's version also occurred in his text.—The approximate date of the modern Persian version of As-Samarqandī is, according to Morley, A.H. 590 (A.D. 1193), when a prince of a somewhat similar name to that of the author's patron, Tamghāh Khāqān, flourished. Azraqī's poem was composed about 70 years before that date, and if the foregoing account be accurate, it was doubtless derived from the Darī text. But even had we not good reason to believe that the work existed in Arabic long before the date of the Darī translation, it were almost incredible that it should remain in the Pahlavī till A.D. 949. Possibly, something has been omitted in the preface quoted by Morley—mention of the intermediate Arabic text may have been deliberately suppressed by some copyist, if not indeed by As-Samarqandī himself. Let us rather conclude that from the Arabic the work was translated into the Darī in the 10th century, and suppose that As-Samarqandī was the very “Arabian by descent, but speaking the Persian tongue,” whose version furnished the groundwork of the Sindibād Nāma. According to this view, the genealogy of the romance would be as follows:

>genealogy<

The tale of the Seven Vazīrs occurs in three printed texts of the Thousand and One Nights: the text edited by Macnaughtan, at Calcutta; that edited by Habicht and Fleischer, at Breslau; and the edition printed at Būlāq (sometimes called the Cairo text), which corresponds pretty nearly with the Calcutta text, and which was the basis of Lane's translation. It is also found in the Rich MSS. Nos. 7404, 7405, 7406, an imperfect copy of the Nights brought from Bagdād, of which an analysis was published in the Asiatic Journal, 1839— the Seven Vazīrs is in the third volume of this MS; and in the fragment of a MS. of the Nights procured in Bengal, now, I believe, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.^0-45 Although these versions are much corrupted from the original, such as we now possess it in the oldest Eastern texts, yet, says Professor Nöldeke, “a few of the stories are fairly preserved in almost the sequence of words; and it may be asked whether a careful examination of all the texts of this part of the Thousand and One Nights might not give a considerably better text. At all events, I am disposed to lay upon this form of the book—which is still Arabic —a somewhat greater value than has hitherto been done.”

Yet another version of the Seven Vazīrs is found in the Persian collection of Nakhshabī, entitled Tūtī Nāma, Parrot-Book, composed early in the 14th century, from an older Persian book of similar character, based upon a Sanskrit work, of which the Suka Saptatī, Seventy Tales of a Parrot, is a modern redaction. In this version,^0-46 the damsel does not relate any stories, six of the vazīrs have one story each, the seventh has none, but directs, on the 7th day, that the prince be questioned, after which the damsel is condemned to death, and the king abdicates the throne in favour of his son.—Professor Nöldeke thinks that the prose Persian text used by the author of the Sindibād Nāma was the same as that from which Nakhshabī derived the tales of his 8th Night, and that it was probably the Sindibād of Muhammad bin 'Alī Daqā'iqī of Hājī Khalīfa, No. 7259. This author is perhaps the same with As-Samarqandi, also a Muhammad bin 'Alī. At all events, Nöldeke's theory of one text having been used for both versions is certainly strengthened by the circumstance, hitherto unnoticed, that the Story of the Father-in-Law is found in both, and in no other known texts of the Sindibād; and, farther, by the fact that the Story of the Libertine Husband, which in the Greek and other texts is fused with the Story of the Go-Between and the She-Dog, appears in both as a separate tale, which it assuredly was originally, and so occurs in the Suka Saptatī.

Professor Comparetti has attempted, with great ingenuity, to explain the fusion of the stories of the She-Dog and the Libertine Husband. An Arabian writer of the 10th century, Muhammad bin Al-Warraq, mentions two texts of the Book of Sindibād, a Greater and a Lesser. According to Comparetti, originally the vazīrs had but one story each, and a second set was added at a later period, thus constituting the Greater Sindibād, which he considers is for us represented by the Syntipas, where the second tales thus appear:

Six of this new series were taken from the Suka Saptatī (the tale of the Parrot being adapted from the frame), the fourth forming, as in that collection, two tales, originally thus:

“There was some one, however, who wished to introduce the tale of the Burnt Cloth, and in order to do this he united the story of the fifth vazīr with that of the fourth, and put the new tale in the vacant place.” But in the Persian Sindibād Nāma we find not only the Story of the Burnt Cloth (though in a very different form), but also the two others still separate; from which it would appear that this text represents a more ancient version than that from which the others were derived. But Comparetti would perhaps be disposed to consider this deduction as being more specious than sound. His theory, however, is not favoured by Professor Nöldeke, who has pointed out that in two MSS. of the Fihrist is a passage stating that the Larger Sindibād was translated by Asbagh bin 'Abdu-'l-'Azīz bin Sālim Sijjistānī, and bore the name of Aslam and Sindbād, and “since in all our existing texts there is not a word about Aslam or a similarly written name, we may pretty confidently conclude that they represent the lesser book.”—The name of Aslam might have been that of the prince; and the larger work probably disappeared soon after the smaller form of it became popular—just as Kāderī's abridgment of the Tūtī Nāma seems to have almost wholly superseded the original work of Nakhshabī. The facility with which manuscript copies of the smaller work could be multiplied would alone account for the disappearance of the other.

All the six vazirs' tales in Nakhshabī occur also in the Suka Saptatī, and five are second tales in the Greek, Syriac, and old Castilian texts—that of the second vazīr, the Libertine Husband, is in these the concluding portion of the story of the She-Dog.—Professor Brock-haus regarded Nakhshabī's version of the Seven Vazīrs as the most ancient, from its greater simplicity, only the vazīrs relating tales on the subject of the deceit of women. “In this,” he remarks, “the oldest of the French versions, Dolopathos, strangely enough, agrees with this Persian redaction, no doubt by chance.” In the case of Dolopathos, the simple form clearly indicates the manner in which the tale came into France, viz., by oral tradition. The monkish author of the original Latin text would probably exercise his own judgment both in amplifying and embellishing the frame, and in his choice of the subordinate stories. Of the eight tales (seven told by the wise men and one by the tutor), three only, the first two and the last, are, so far as I am aware, found in later texts, in which, however, the woman is given stories, and, in place of the tutor, the prince relates the final tale.^0-49

By reference to the Comparative Table of Eastern Texts, it will be seen that the Persian Sindibād Nāma has, exclusively, four tales in the introduction. Of these, Gödeke has pointed out that the second, third, and fourth occur, almost exactly in the same forms, in the Avadānas, or Indian apologues, translated by Stan. Julien from the Chinese, and that “they thus reach back to a time when the Buddhist teaching had extended to China, which, according to Chinese state annals, happened as far back as the first century of the Christian era.”^0-49a In a note on this, Comparetti, in p. 30 of his Researches, remarks that the fact of these tales being of Buddhist origin proves nothing—they may well have been introduced at a recent period. But surely not in forms so near the originals? In the conclusion of this text it has two additional tales, one of which, the Four Liberators, is unquestionably very ancient. It is admitted on all hands that in the Syriac and Greek texts the introduction is considerably abridged. In the Persian, both introduction and conclusion are much more detailed—in short, there is nothing in the plan of the poem to indicate suppression or curtailment, considering the deficiencies in the MS., which are, unfortunately, both numerous and serious.^0-50 But it will perhaps be contended that in this the poet has used the freedom of enlarging upon his original, and also of suppressing portions and substituting others, or that the author of his original had done so. Let us see what reasons there are to assume the Greek text to be the best representative of the Book of Sindibād as it was translated into Arabic from the Pahlavī—when, we do not know; but say, the middle of the 8th century.^0-51 The only certain date we possess is that of the Greek text, namely, the latter years of the 11th century. The Syriac version may have been composed from the Arabic one hundred years before the Greek, or about A.D. 990. Now, regarding the Persian Sindibād Nāma: this was written so late as 1375, from a prose version, “translated from the Arabic,” as is generally assumed, from the author's statement that “an Arabian by descent, but speaking the Persian tongue,” had furnished him with the material of his poem. But unless we are to consider the preface of As-Samarqandī to his text in the MS. described by Morley (see above, p. xli) as a tissue of fabrications, from first to last, it will at least be conceded that he translated it out of the Darī into modern Persian, and, if so, the Arabic was certainly the source of that Darī version; and between A.D. 949, the date of the Darī, and A.D. 990, the possible date of the Syriac (and it might have been even later), the Arabic text may have undergone alterations such as we find in the Syriac, Greek, and old Castilian versions. The Sindi- bād Nāma—poem though it is—may therefore more faithfully reflect the Book of Sindibād than the older texts. All this, of course, is little better than conjecture; a comparison of the Persian prose text described by Morley with the poem which may have been based upon it (the Sindibād Nāma) would probably satisfactorily settle the whole question, and it is to be hoped that the missing MS. will yet be discovered.

The name of Sindbād^0-52 is familiar to every schoolboy in Europe through the fascinating Arabian tale of the Voyages of the venturous merchant, Sindbād the Sailor, as he is commonly but erroneously styled. “It is singular,” says Hole, in his Remarks on that tale, “that the names of both the narrator and auditor, Sindbād and Hindbād, are derived, not from the Arabic, but the old Persian language. Bād [ābād] signifies a city; Sind and Hind are the territories on either side of the Indus. Sind indeed is the original name, as Hind is of those countries which lie between it and the Ganges.” But this etymology of the name is rejected by Benfey, who derives it from Siddhapatī, lord of sages, or sorcerers: Siddhi being a Sanskrit word, signifying “perfection of power,” and those beings called Siddhas, who are supernaturally endowed, figure frequently in Indian fictions. Applied to a mere mortal, Siddhapatī would indicate that such a man was wise beyond all others. The termination bād could in no case be identified with ābād, a place or an abode.

To what cause, it may be asked, does the Book of Sindibād, as represented more or less closely in Asiatic and European versions, owe its unfailing popularity during so many ages of the world's history? The leading incident, of a youth being in imminent danger of death in consequence of the malice of his stepmother, has, no doubt, ever had a peculiar fascination for readers of all ranks and ages; but it is chiefly, as I think, due to the circumstance that most of the subordinate tales turn upon the wickedness, profligacy, and craft of women. This is not only a characteristic of Muslim tales, inspired probably by the low estimate which the Prophet of Mecca is credited by tradition with having entertained of the female sex, but it also pervades much more ancient Indian fictions. These attributes, as Dr. H. H. Wilson has observed, probably “originate in the feelings which have always pervaded the East unfavourable to the dignity of women. But we are not to mistake the language of satire, or the licentiousness of wit, for truth, or to suppose that the pictures which are thus given of the depravity of women owe not much of their colouring to the malignity of men. The avidity with which this style of portraiture was adopted and improved upon in Europe shows that either the women of Christian Europe were still more vicious than those of India, or the men were still less disposed to treat them with deference and esteem. It is in this respect that stories of domestic manners contrast so remarkably with the inventions of chivalric romance; and the homage paid in the latter to the virtues and graces of the female sex is a feature derived, in all probability, from that portion of their parentage which comes from the North, woman being ever held in higher honour amongst the Teutonic nations than amongst those of the South of Europe or of the East, and contributing, by the elevating influence she was permitted to enjoy, to their moral exaltation and martial superiority.”

Our old English jest-books abound in tales of the levity and perverseness of women, which are paralleled in the popular literature of all other European countries. The well-worn story of the man whose perverse wife was drowned, and he sought her against the stream, alleging to his neighbours that she would be sure to float up the river instead of being carried with the current, is also domiciled in Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia.—An Eastern anecdote to the same purpose seems a commentary on a saying ascribed to Muhammad that a man should always do the opposite of what his wife advises: A young man once went on the roof of his house to repair it, and having finished the task, called to his wife, and asked her how he should come down. She answered: “You are a young and active man; what hinders you from jumping down?” He jumped accordingly, and dislocated his ankle, which confined him to the house for many months; and even when able to go about a little, his ankle was still out of its place. He again had occasion to repair his roof, and when he had done, he asked his wife how he should come down this time. “O, by the stairs, to be sure,” quoth she. But when he reflected how he had come to grief by following his wife's advice formerly, he resolved to jump down, which he did, and, behold, his ankle returned to its proper place.

It would appear that collections of “proverbs” against women were common in England in the days of Chaucer, if we may credit the Wife of Bath, whose fifth husband, Jankins, clerk of Oxenforde, we are told, had a book comprising tales of the wickedness of wives, which he frequently pored over with pleasure. One evening he was reading aloud portions of his book, which so incensed his spouse that she tore three leaves out of it, and then knocked him backwards into the fire. Her husband, who was but half her age, bounded up and felled her to the floor. Lying moaning, as if at the point of death, she begged him to stoop down, that she might kiss him in token of her forgiveness. The husband bent down, when, instead of kissing, she bit him on the cheek. The end of the brawl was that he became very penitent and burnt his book.

The sages of ancient Greece were no whit behind the fablers of India in their bitter sayings about women. Thus Antiphanes: “In a woman one thing only I believe, that when she is dead she will not come to life again; in all else I distrust her until she is dead;” and Menander: “Of all wild beasts on earth or in sea, the greatest is woman;” again: “Where are women there are all kinds of mischief;” and Diogenes, seeing some women who had been hanged from the boughs of an olive-tree, said: “I wish all trees bore that kind of fruit.”

Whether Somadeva is to be credited with all the spiteful remarks upon women in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, or he has merely versified what he found ready to hand in the Vrihat Kathā, some are conceived in the most malignant spirit; for example: “Women, like prosperous circumstances, are never faithful to any one in this world;” again: “A fickle dame is like a sunset, momentarily aglow for every one;” and again: “Do not put yourself in the power of a woman: the heart of a female is a tangled maze.” But he is not always unjust: “Here and there you will find a virtuous woman, who adorns a glorious family as the streaks of the moon adorn a broad sky.”

THE following analytical account of a unique Persian MS. poem, entitled Sindibād Nāma, or the Book of Sindibād, belonging to the Library of the India Office, was published by Professor Forbes Falconer in the Asiatic Journal, vols. xxxv and xxxvi, 1841. By the courtesy of Dr Rost, I have been favoured with a loan of this manuscript, which is beautifully written in the ta'līq character, and adorned with numerous paintings. Unfortunately, several lacuna occur throughout the volume, and thirty leaves are misplaced. It now comprises about 170 folia, and 5000 couplets. The original numbering of the leaves seems to have been cut away when it received its present Oriental binding, as many of the full-page pictures are imperfect at the top, and the re-numbering is in a different hand from that of the text, and made consecutive, notwithstanding the displaced and missing leaves. Owing probably to the defective condition of the MS., Falconer has altogether overlooked one story (the title of which is written in faint blue ink at the foot of a page) and the remains of two others; from which it is evident that in this text, as in all others of the Eastern group of the Sindibād, each of the Seven Vazīrs had originally two stories. He states that in his analysis he has “sometimes, for the purpose of giving the reader a better idea of the work and of the author's style, freely used his own diffuse and Orientally fanciful expressions and imagery; and sometimes compressed his narrative and trimmed his exuberance (for compression and curtailment were necessary in analysing a work of such extent); and sometimes, especially when the tale was already familiar to readers in other works, or objectionable in its nature, satisfied himself with giving the title, or a reference to the corresponding portion of the Greek version. Those who know the difficulties of Persian poetry,” he justly adds, “and the disadvantage of possessing but a single manuscript, will not only excuse, but will even lay their account with meeting, occasional misapprehensions of the sense.”

An account of the several Eastern texts of the Book of Sindibād being given in the introductory pages of the present volume, Falconer's preliminary observations on the same subject need not be here reproduced; indeed, they are rather out of date, so many important discoveries regarding this work having been made of recent years. His plan of leaving some of the tales untranslated must be unsatisfactory to students of the genealogy of popular fictions, since it is only by comparing different versions of these stories that their original forms can be ascertained. Stories which are not objectionable are therefore now presented as fully as the state of the manuscript permits, and the additions and corrections printed within square brackets; while such of Falconer's notes as have been retained are distinguished by the letter F from those for which I must be held responsible.

W. A. C.

AFTER the customary opening with an invocation and address to the Deity, a chapter in praise of the Prophet, a complaint against fortune, and an exhortation to contentment and abandonment of the world, the author proceeds, in the fifth chapter, to inform the reader that he had himself no thought of composing a poem, no desire to plunge into such a sea of difficulty; that he was too sensible of his own want of genius to think of such an undertaking; but that one night his Majesty—that King whose fortune is awake, and whose equal the eye of Time beholds not even in its dreams—addressed him, and, while he complimented him on his talents, complained that he did not sufficiently exert them. “He observed,” says the poet, “that the nightingale should not sit for ever songless, nor the parrot mute; that I possessed the gift of eloquence and sweet discourse; but that I was lazy, lazy, lazy! ‘Perform,’ said he, ‘such an achievement, with the sword of the pen, as shall live as long as swords are wielded. Turn into verse, during my reign, some prose work, that my memory may be perpetuated: let it be the Tale of Sindibād.’ With downcast looks, I replied: ‘If God grant me his aid, and if my life be spared, I will turn into verse that celebrated book.’

“I gave ear (for to neglect a commandment is a fault, especially a supreme command of a king), and when seventy-six [years] were added to 700,⁶ in the reign of the sultan resembling Jamshīd;^6a the king of the world; the refuge of the khalifate; the possessor of the throne, the signet, and the diadem; who plucks up by the roots violence and oppression; the asylum of Arabia; the crown-bestower of Persia; the munificent, bold, and dauntless king, before whose prowess lion and tiger flee;—I composed the following work, and thus reared an edifice proof against all the assaults of Time, and not such a structure that any one can designate as the ‘house of the spider.’”

The chapter in which the tale commences affords, in the opening couplet, another allusion to the author of the prose work, of which this is a poetical paraphrase, informing us that the poet's original was written in Persian, but that its author was an Arab by descent. Perhaps this might afford some ground for the conjecture that the Arab had found the tale in the language of his family, and translated it from Arabic into Persian. Loiseleur Des Longchamps, however, who was not acquainted with the existence of the present work, was of opinion that the tale was first translated into Persian (from the Sanskrit), and from Persian into Arabic.

“An Arabian by descent, but speaking the Persian tongue, has thus informed me in eloquent language, that there reigned in India a sage and mighty monarch, ⁷ the bricks of whose palace were not of stone or marble, but of gold; the fuel of whose kitchen was fresh wood of aloes; who had brought under the signet of his authority the kingdoms of Rūm and Abyssinia; and to whom were alike tributary the Ethiop Mihrāj (Mahārāj) and the Roman Qaysar. He was distinguished above all monarchs for his virtue, his clemency and justice. But, although he was the refuge of the khalifate, he was not blessed with an heir: life and the world appeared profitless to him, because he had no fruit of the heart in the garden of his soul.”

One night, while reclining on his couch, sad and thoughtful, consumed with grief like a morning taper, he heaved a deep sigh, upon which one of his favourite wives (he had a hundred in his harem),⁸ advancing towards him and kissing the ground, inquired the cause of his distress. He discloses it. His wife consoles him, encourages him to hope, and assures him that if he prayed, his prayers would be answered; but that at all events it was his duty to be resigned to the will of God. “Prayer is the only key that will open the door of difficulty.” The king fasted for a whole week, and was assiduous in his devotions.^8a One night he prayed with peculiar earnestness and self-abasement till morning. The companion of his couch was one of his wives, fairer than the sun, and the envy of a perī. He clasped her in his embrace, exclaiming: “There is no strength, no power, save in God!” and he felt assured in his heart that his prayer was granted.

In due time a son is born to him. Eager to testify his gratitude, he bestows munificent gifts, and lavishes his treasures on all. The babe is entrusted to a nurse. The most distinguished astrologers are commanded to cast his nativity. Among their number was one of the most skilful explorers of the heavens, who, upon completing his observations, intimated to the king that his son would be fortunate above other monarchs; but that a danger awaited him, from which, however, it was likely, thanks to his auspicious fortune, that no injury would accrue.⁹ His Majesty is filled with anxiety at this information, but at length becomes resigned to the will of Heaven, and acknowledges that the decrees of destiny cannot be countervailed. When the prince had attained his tenth year, his father the sultan confided him to the care of a learned preceptor. “Base copper has by care been transmuted into gold; and a worthless stone converted to a gem.” That accomplished and erudite professor devoted his whole time to the education of the prince; but all his exertions were unavailing. “However loudly he shouted, that mountain gave back no echo; however much he sowed, in that soil no grain sprang up.” His pupil knew not ab-u-jadd (father and grandfather) from abjad; could not distinguish Muhammad from Auhad. When asked how many make thirty, he replied, “ten;” and to the question, What is night? he answered, “the moon.” When asked about the thorn, he spoke of “fresh dates;” when desired to say fire, he said “fuel.” His father was in constant uneasiness about the prince, and made frequent inquiries as to his progress. When he found him, year after year, in the same state of perfect ignorance, his wrath was kindled against the blameless and unhappy preceptor, whom he reproached for the backwardness of his son.

He then called together the philosophers of the city, each of whom was the Aristotle of his age; and after desiring them to be seated, and showing them the most flattering attentions, he detailed to them all the circumstances connected with his son's history, and the cause of his anxiety. “Wretched,” said he, “is he who digs the mine, or rather, who vexes his own soul; who expects to find gold, and grasps but dust! With vows I implored God to grant me this son; I now repent me that I have asked him. How well said the sailor to the captain of the ship: ‘Leave the concerns of God to God!’ The unleavened mass hath not become leavened; nor hath one spoonful of butter been obtained from ten skins of milk! Tell me,” continued the king, “what expedient shall I adopt to remedy this, and who is the person best qualified to carry it into execution? I have none to succeed me in the kingdom save this son. Deliberate, therefore; and when your counsel is matured, a course of conduct may be founded on it.”

The sages, who were seven in number, bowed the head in token of obedience, and expressed their wishes for his Majesty's prosperity and happiness. It was then arranged that they should meet for the purpose of discussing the matter together. The learned master, of whom this tale remains as a memorial (says the writer of the poem), thus proceeds: Those experienced sages accordingly one day met in private consultation, and conversed freely on the subject. One of them observed: “O wise men, how can the pulp of colocynth supply the place of sugar? The tree which, when ten years old, has yielded no fruit, the labour of ten years has been entirely thrown away upon it.” Another remarked: “Never can the rose spring from the dry willow: how can the musk-willow bear, as its fruit, the musk-bag?”

One of those worthies, who had not his equal, who had no rival among those whom you know (i.e., among the seven), a buzurjmihr,¹² experienced in affairs, a sage resembling Aristotle—his name Sindibād^12a —said, in reply to these observations: “The hawk which has dwelt free and happy in its nest is, nevertheless, subjected to a master; learns from the falconer to soar and seize its prey, and to return when called, and quietly perch on the hand of kings. Why should not the prince, too, be capable of being taught the art of government and the duties of his station? Despair not: everything may be effected by labour and determination. The fortress of the mine must be stormed ere the ruby can be obtained.” The other sages warmly applauded the wisdom of Sindibād, and assured him that they considered him the fittest person to whom the important and difficult charge of the prince's education could be entrusted. Sindibād replied, that he was not to be moved by their compliments and flattery; that he saw as little advantage likely to result to him from such a course as the monkey derived from the stratagem of the old fox. They requested him to tell them the story, upon which he began:

ONCE upon a time an old fox was put to great shifts for his subsistence, and resolved to exert all his wits to procure it. After offering up a prayer for success to his endeavours, he set out and ran. When he had advanced some way he saw a fish; he was delighted, and congratulated himself on his good fortune; but, upon reflection, he perceived that the case was one which called for wariness and circumspection; for the place was a dry uncultivated valley, without water, a spot where one sees not a fish, save in his dreams. Neither sea was there nor fishmonger's shop. Advancing two miles, he met a young monkey, upon seeing whom he felt that he had found the key wherewith to unlock his difficulty. He ran up to him, saluted him, and said: “Well met! The gazelles and the wild asses send you their salutations through me, and beg that you will come to their assistance against the tyranny of the lion, who is never satiated with shedding innocent blood. Come, that we may bestow on you the royal crown. They are waiting for your Majesty farther on the road.” The monkey was deceived by these flattering expressions, and his ambition threw him into the pitfall. “Advance,” said he, “and lead the way.” When they reached the spot and saw the fish, “You,” said the fox, “have the first claim to this morsel, for you are my prince and sovereign.” The monkey, blinded by his cupidity, went forward to seize the fish, and was instantly caught in a snare from which he was unable to escape. Upon this, the fox sat down quietly to eat the fish. “What means this?” inquired the monkey. “From whose table is this dainty?” “The poor,” replied the fox, “cannot afford to flee from bread. Fetters and imprisonment befit the dignity of kings: make not, O sage, your mind uneasy.”

The philosophers were loud in their praises of Sindibād on his concluding this tale, and compared him to the sun, and themselves to the motes in the sunbeam. “If I am not wiser than yourselves,” replied he, “I am at least not inferior to you in wisdom. Your case and my own, in this respect, reminds me of the camel, the wolf, the fox, and the pumpkin.” They requested to hear the story, and Sindibād related it as follows:

AN old wolf and a fox, intimate friends, were once travelling together. A short way before them they saw a camel, who joined them, and the three together took the road to the village of the camels. Their only provision for the journey consisted of a pumpkin. They travelled on for a long time, up hill and down dale, till, exhausted by the heat of the road, their eyes became black with thirst. At length they reached a pond full of water, and sat down on its brink. The pumpkin was produced, and after some discussion, it was agreed that this prize should belong to him who was the eldest among them.

First the wolf began: “Indian, Tajik, and Turk, know, that my mother bore me one week before God had created heaven and earth, time and space; consequently, I have the best right to this pumpkin.”

“Yes,” said the old and crafty fox, “I have nothing to object to this account; for on the night your mother bore you, I was standing by in attendance. That morning it was I that lit the taper, and I burned beside your pillow like a morning taper.”

When the camel had heard their speeches to an end, he stalked forward, and, bending down his neck, snapped up the pumpkin, observing: “It is impossible to conceal a thing so manifest as this—that with such a neck, and haunches, and back as mine, it was neither yesterday nor last night that my mother bore me.” [1]¹⁶

The sages again expressed their admiration of the wisdom of Sindibād, and all agreed that he alone was competent to undertake the difficult task. Repairing into the presence of the king, they acknowledged that they were but babes in wisdom compared with Sindibād; upon which his Majesty, addressing the philosopher, begged him to undertake the management and education of the prince. Sindibād consented, expressing his hope and confidence that his efforts would be successful. He accordingly applied himself with zeal to the education of the prince, but all his efforts were fruitless; all his instructions were like writing upon water. The king, hearing of this, was much concerned. Never does a parent wish ill to his child, but, on the contrary, desires that he may be better than himself. In anger he said to Sindibād: “All your boasted care and exertion have proved but wind; your promises were but the sound of the bell and the drum. Does not even the wild beast, which cannot be taken in the net, become tame at last by persevering efforts? Had due diligence been bestowed upon my son, the rust would have been effaced from the mirror of his mind.”¹⁷ “Sire,” replied Sindibād, “I have made every exertion, and tried every art; but when fate seconds not our efforts, we are not to blame.” Then, kissing the foot of the throne, he observed: “The situation of myself and the young prince resembles that of the King of Kashmīr with the elephant and the elephant-keeper.” The king desiring to hear the story, Sindibād related it as follows:

IN the time of the Masters of the Elephant,^17a there reigned over Kashmīr a wise and prudent king, who had conquered the whole kingdom of Hindūstān, from Serendil (Ceylon)¹⁸ to Rūm and Syria, and to whom were subject all the princes of the world. This sovereign had collected elephants instead of steeds, and in greater numbers than fleas or ants. A certain prince once sent to his court a wild elephant of prodigious size and impetuosity. The king desired the elephant-keeper to tame him, promising him ample rewards when he had succeeded. After the labour and constant care of three years, the skilful man had not only subdued his ferocity, but made him pliable as wax. He, therefore, brought him to the appointed place, and exhibited him to the king, who was satisfied with his success; and the royal litter being adjusted, his Majesty seated himself in it, by way of trial. No sooner had he mounted, than, like a demon that leaps from a bottle^18a —like a lion rushing from a thicket— the elephant darted off with the monarch, and flew with the speed of lightning over hill and dale. The prince, with no guide to control or govern the animal, abandoned all hope of life, and all expectation that “the elephant would think again of Hindustan.”¹⁹ Raising his hands to heaven, he prayed for deliverance. When the divine mandate issues forth, elephant and ant are alike impotent to resist it. Tired with the long journey (for it was now evening), and having eaten nothing, the elephant turned and took his way homeward. When he reached his stable, he stooped down, and the prince dismounted unhurt. Enraged with the keeper, he ordered him to be trodden like the ant under the feet of the elephant. Fettered and manacled, he was thrown under the furious animal. Finding himself in this situation, he thus reflected: “The prey that is entangled in the net struggles whether it will or not; and it is never too late to hope for deliverance.” He implored the king to forgive one whose hair had grown gray in the service; but he refused. Long he continued to entreat forgiveness, but the king was still inexorable. At length, again repairing into the presence of his Majesty, he renewed his entreaties. “I taught the elephant,” said he, “whatever was proper; but, as fortune favoured me not, it was of no avail. If the king will spare my life, I will give proof of my assertion.” When his Majesty heard this, and beheld the poor man's orphan children at his feet, he ordered him to be unfettered. The keeper then proved the perfect tameness of the animal by giving it orders to perform a variety of feats, all which it executed. Then addressing the king, he said: “I have taught this animal to perform with its various members the whole of the feats which are practised; but what avails it when his heart, which is the sultan of the body,²⁰ listens not to my orders?”

“In short,” observed Sindibād, “what occurred to the elephant-keeper arose from certain evil aspects in his horoscope, and from no fault of his. Thus, O king,” continued the sage, “I have examined the horoscope of the prince, and find that all that was evil in it is past; he will henceforward be prosperous. I will now proceed to teach him all I know, to shower upon him all the learning that I have amassed. When six months shall have elapsed from this date, I will have imparted to him the fruit of thirty years' study.”²¹

The ministers and courtiers of the king were amazed at such language, and considered his words as an empty boast. “Attempt it not,” said one of them: “seeing that your six years' labour has been fruitless, how can this be accomplished in six months?” Another courtier said: “Seeing he learned nothing in his childhood, how can he become a master when he is grown up?”

There is here a deficiency in the manuscript, viz., after fol. 25, probably of one leaf; and two leaves that ought to follow are misplaced and incorrectly numbered—fols. 14 and 15.

The king, now satisfied that Sindibād had not been wanting in his exertions, continues him in his office of preceptor to the prince. Sindibād accordingly resumes his instructions. At fol. 14 the author is describing the philosopher's preparations for his lectures; the beginning of the chapter is wanting. Sindibād caused the walls of a lofty palace to be covered over with plaster, so smooth as to have the appearance of a mirror. On one compartment were delineated the signs of the zodiac, with the divisions into degrees and minutes; the fixed stars; the planets, with their courses. On another compartment he drew a map of the world, and represented the noxious and salutary qualities of things, of which some are the cause of disease and others the cure. On a third compartment were inscribed the principles of commerce, religion, and morality; and one's duties towards his superiors and equals. On a fourth were exhibited the principles of music and melody, and the distinctions of the musical modes. On a fifth, the rules of justice, the ceremonial of princely dignity, and the forms of equity.²³ When the whole was completed, Sindibād thus addressed his pupil: “Prince, the time for application has now arrived; be diligent; it is no time for slumber. The virtues that adorn kings come not by inheritance; they must be acquired.” The prince listened with attention to the instructions of his master. Much did he study; many a bitter cup of poison did he drink. His mind, clear as a mirror, reflected the knowledge depicted on the walls. His progress was rapid, and in a short time he became deeply learned.

When the appointed period was completed, Sindibād said to his pupil: “Praise be to the Lord and Creator of the world, that, through his grace, I shall not be put to shame before men! When, to-morrow, I take you before the sultan, you will see how they will bite their nails.^23a Rest assured of this, that of all your equals in age not one will be a match for you.” Sindibād then during the night took an observation to ascertain the destiny of the prince, and found that an intricate snare threatened his pupil. He was confounded and perplexed by this new difficulty.^23b But it is vain to contend against destiny: when it descends, the eye becomes blind. “Be not cast down,” said he to the prince, “at the caprice of fortune, but to-morrow, when you appear before the king, whatever questions you may be asked, answer nothing. Bear up for this week; the next, your affairs will become prosperous. If but a word escape your lips, your life and head will be endangered. Lo! I hasten to conceal myself, and no one shall see me for one week, for my life is in peril.²⁴ I will wait to see whether the two dice of heaven will turn up three sixes or three aces.”

The whole of the next chapter is wanting in the manuscript, but the title of it is given at the end of fol. 15, as follows: “The king sits in state, and sends for the prince and Sindibād, but the latter is nowhere to be found. His Majesty questions the prince, who makes no reply.” The title and commencement of the next chapter are also wanting. At fol. 26 the poem proceeds:

A peri-faced moon²⁵ (one of the wives of his Majesty), fair as a hūrī^25a of Paradise, was secretly enamoured of the prince, but had hitherto found no opportunity of meeting him alone, or of telling him her love. Upon hearing the account of his resolute silence when questioned, she said to herself: “Every occasion has its fitting language;” and repairing to the king, she asked his permission to take the prince to the harem, under pretence of endeavouring to extort from him the secret of his silence. This was granted. But with her also the prince was dumb. At length she declares her passion for him, and offers to put him in possession of the kingdom in return for his confidence. Upon this the prince, forgetting in his surprise his promise to Sindibād, breaks silence by asking her how this was to be done. “Easily,” replied she; “by one drop of poison which I will administer to the king.” Horror-struck at the idea of such a crime, the prince, after earnestly reprobating it, quits the apartment.

The damsel is alarmed when she reflects on the danger of her situation should the prince reveal the treachery which she had proposed, when the seven days shall have passed, and he shall break silence.²⁶ Full of these apprehensions, she rushed from her apartment into the presence of the king, and, in affected agitation, called loudly for his protection. In answer to his inquiries as to the cause of her alarm, she replied: “My reputation is scattered to the winds! No sooner had I conducted the prince into the harem than he began to say: ‘The reason of my silence is, that my heart is ensnared in your tresses, and my soul slain by the curve of your eyebrows. Now that fortune has put it in my power, I entreat you to lend me your assistance. I have a secret to impart to you. I mean to seize upon the kingdom. The leaders of the troops are already secured in my favour. You can effectually aid me in my purpose by administering poison to my father.’”

To this false accusation the king gives credit; and, believing that the prince thirsted for his blood, commands that he should be ignominiously put to death. The executioner is ordered to behead him. Meanwhile, the vazīrs,²⁷ who were met together in council, on hearing this inconsiderate sentence, were greatly concerned. The eldest addresses them on the necessity of warning his Majesty of the danger of precipitation, and of the folly of trusting to the testimony of women; giving it as his conviction that the charge, if inquired into, would be found to be false, and that the innocence of the prince would be ultimately established. Another of the vazīrs was of opinion that, as they had not been consulted on the subject, it was unnecessary for them to interfere, and that silence was their safest course. To this argument the eldest vazīr replied, that if they neglected to listen to his advice, the same thing might happen to them at last as befell the monkeys. The vazīrs requesting to hear what that was, he thus related:

WHEN you have quitted Nihāwand, going out by the Lion's Gate, there lies beyond it a village called Būzīna-Gard,^27b the neighbourhood of which is thickly inhabited by monkeys. There, amid the trees laden with fruit, and by a running stream, the monkeys used to congregate. The surrounding forest was full of them; and there reigned over them a sage monarch, named Rūz-i-bih,²⁸ who, in magnanimity and generosity, was no monkey, but a lion, and who, although aged, had all the vigour of youth. His cheek like the ruddy rose, his beard white; he was ever fresh and gay, like the red willow. Much had he experienced of the world's red and white; much of its hot and cold. His subjects were all obedient and loyal, secure and happy. Their granaries were well stored with figs and walnuts; and they had herds of goats browsing in the forest— a paradise—rather, the model of the Garden of Iram^28a —a place where pleasure was rife and pain unknown! In the forest was a mountain as high as Alwand.²⁹ Thither this king having on one occasion gone to hunt, and looking towards the town and market which were on it, he saw, at the corner of a street, a goat constantly butting at an old woman. Calling to him the leaders of his army, he desired them to look in that direction, and observe what was going on. The king was himself of opinion that, as the flocks were all his own subjects, it was his duty to interfere; but the general of the army thought the matter too trifling to be noticed. The dispute waxed high, and, as the officers of the army sided with their general, the monarch abdicated, and withdrew to another country, and they chose a new king.

The goat still continued its practice of butting at the old woman; and one day that she had been to ask fire from a neighbour, the goat struck her so violently with his horns when she was off her guard as to draw blood. Enraged at this, she applied the fire which she held to the goat's fleece, which kindled, and the animal ran to the stables of the elephant-keeper, and rubbed his sides against the reeds and willows. They caught fire, which the wind soon spread, and the head and face of the warlike elephants were scorched. When the news reached the sovereign to whom the elephants belonged, he sent for the chief-keeper, and asked him what was best to be done for the cure of the elephants. “I have heard one skilled in such matters affirm,” replied he, “on the authority of an ancient leech, that when elephants are scorched, the best remedy is the fat of monkeys rubbed gently over them with the hand.” Upon this the king gave orders that horsemen should go forth and scour the whole forest, hunting down every animal they should find of the monkey tribe. Accordingly, an innumerable band issued forth, searching mountain and forest; and the general of the monkeys was made prisoner. He inquired: “Whose are these troops, and why is this night attack and slaughter of our race?” He was told the circumstances in detail, and he then recollected, but too late, the words of his sage and foreseeing monarch.

When the eldest vazīr had ended, all the others applauded him, and acknowledged the wisdom of his counsel. It was therefore agreed that every morning one of their number should repair into the presence of the king, and relate tales illustrative of the craft and deceitfulness of women, in the hope that when one week had thus passed the fortunes of the prince would have become prosperous.

Accordingly, the First Vazīr, after having gone to the executioner and desired him to delay till further orders, waited upon his Majesty, and after humble prostration, complimented him on his justice, but warned him of the cunning of women, and cautioned him to avoid precipitation. “The word,” said he, “which has once escaped the lips, the arrow which has once left the bow, have ceased to be under your control.³¹ Perhaps you may one day repent your rashness, and grieve for what you have done, like the foolish man who slew his parrot without a crime.” The king desired him to relate the story, and he began:

THERE once lived in Egypt a confectioner, who had a very beautiful wife, and a parrot^31a that performed, as occasion required, the office of watchman, guard, policeman, bell, or spy, and flapped his wings did he but hear a fly buzzing about the sugar. This parrot was a great annoyance to the wife, always telling the suspicious husband what took place in his absence. One evening, before going out to visit a friend, the confectioner gave the parrot strict injunctions to watch all night, and desired his wife to make all fast, as he should not return till morning. No sooner had he left, than the woman went for her old lover, who returned with her, and they passed the night together in mirth and feasting, while the parrot observed all. In the morning the lover departed, and the husband, returning, was informed by the parrot of what had taken place; upon which he hastened to his wife's apartment, and beat her soundly. She thought to herself, who could have informed against her, and asked a woman who was in her confidence whether it was she. The woman protested, “by what is hidden and what is open,”³² that she had not betrayed her; but informed her that in the morning, upon his return, the husband stood some time before the cage, and listened to the talking of the parrot. When the wife heard this, she resolved to plot the destruction of the bird.

Some days after, the husband was again invited to the house of a friend, where he was to pass the night. Before departing, he gave the parrot the same injunctions as before. His heart was free from care, for he had his spy at home. The wife and her confidante then planned how they might destroy the credit of the parrot with its master. For this purpose, they resolved to counterfeit a storm, which they effected by means of a hand-mill, placed over the parrot's head, which the lover worked, by a rush of water, by blowing a bellows, and by suddenly uncovering a taper hid under a dish. Thus did they raise such a tempest of rain and lightning, that the parrot was drenched and immersed in a deluge. Now rolled the thunder—now flashed the lightning—the one from the noise of the hand-mill, the other from the reflection of the taper. “Surely,” thought the parrot to itself, “the deluge has come on, and such a one as perhaps Noah never witnessed.” So saying, he buried his head under his wing, a prey to terror. The husband, on his return, hastened to the parrot, to inquire what had happened during his absence. The bird replied, that he found it impossible to convey an idea of the deluge and tempest of last night; that it would take years to describe the uproar of the hurricane and storm. When the shopkeeper heard the parrot talk of last night's deluge, he said: “Surely, O bird, you are gone mad. Where was there—even in a dream—rain or lightning last night? You have utterly ruined my house and ancient family. My wife is the most virtuous woman of the age, and all your accusations of her are false.” In anger, he dashed the cage upon the ground, tore off the parrot's head, and threw it from the window. Presently, his friend, coming to call upon him, saw the parrot in this condition, with head torn off, and without wings or plumage. Being informed of the circumstances, he suspected some trick on the part of the wife, and said to the husband: “When your wife leaves home to go to the bath, compel her confidante to disclose the secret.” As soon, therefore, as his wife went out, the husband entered his harem, and insisted on the woman telling him the truth. She detailed the whole story, and the husband now bitterly repented having killed the parrot, of whose innocence he had proof.³⁴

“I will now,” continued the vazīr, “relate to your Majesty a still pleasanter tale to the same purpose, illustrating the craft of women.” The king expressed a wish to hear it, and the vazīr proceeded:

IN the kingdom of Balqīs^35a and city of Sapā, there lived a tailor, of whose wife a young officer became enamoured. When the tailor was from home, the officer sent his servant with a message to the wife. The slave, being a handsome youth, found favour with her, and stayed so long, that the officer's patience being exhausted, he proceeded himself to the house. Aware of his approach, the woman concealed the slave in an inner apartment. While the officer was with her, the husband was heard knocking at the door. The woman, afraid to hide the officer in the other apartment, lest he should discover his slave there, devised the following escape from her difficulty. She desired her lover to draw his sword, feign to be in a violent passion with her, and, abusing her in opprobrious terms, to rush out of the house past her husband, without saying a word to him. The officer having done so, and the husband entering, the wife hastens to his embrace. “Be thankful,” cried she, “that we are delivered from such a calamity! This morning, a lad rushed in here, trembling like a reed, and entreating me to save his life. I concealed him in that apartment. That furious man, whom you saw, burst in upon me, and asked, ‘Where is the boy, my slave?’ I replied that he was not here, and that I had not seen him; upon which he darted away in a passion. Enter the closet, and quiet the lad's fears. He is an orphan, and without relations.” The simple husband did so, and having soothed and consoled the lad, sent him away with good wishes. [4]

“I have related this tale,” added the vazīr, “to show the cunning of women: believe not their words. I will vouch for the prince's innocence with my life.” The king reflected for a while, and then, remanding the youth to prison, retired to his private apartment.

Next morning, the Damsel, hearing of the impression which had been made upon his Majesty by the eloquence of one of his vazīrs, and how her plans were thus overthrown, again presented herself, and, complaining loudly of her wrongs, implored justice. She reminded his Majesty of a day of retribution; accused him of protecting one who had looked on his harem with an eye of sin; denounced the vazīr as corrupt and a receiver of bribes; and as bent upon bestowing the sovereignty on the prince by the death of his master. “If,” said she, “your Majesty will not listen to my advice, the same thing will happen to you which happened to the washerman through his son.” “Relate it,” said the king; and she began:

I HAVE heard from an Ethiop washerwoman, who learned it from her husband, that there once lived in Egypt, on the banks of the Nile, a washerman, by name Noah, who was—like an atom—all day in the sun, and—like a fish—all the year round in the water: who would have washed with his soap the blackness from an Ethiop. This man had a darling son, who was headstrong, good-for-nothing, and foolish; and who, as soon as he saw his father in the water, would seat himself on his father's ass, and drive it into the river. The father was in constant terror lest the boy should fall into the water and be drowned, or lest a crocodile should seize him. One day, the boy, as usual, mounted the ass, and rode with such fury into the river, that at once the water reached his head. At one moment he was—like an oyster—under water; the next—like a bubble—on its surface. As soon as the father learned that his son was drowning, he rushed into the water, in the hope of saving him, and caught him by the hand. The lad grasped at his father, and seized him by the hair. Both sank, and were drowned together. [5]

The king, reflecting upon this tale, changes his purpose, and orders the executioner to do his duty.

The Second Vazīr now sends a message to the executioner, desiring him to delay the execution for a short time; he then hastens into the presence of the king, and, after obeisance made, breaks out into invectives against women, and concludes by saying: “If your Majesty listens to the wiles of women, you will repent it, as the partridge did of killing his mate.” The king desired to hear the tale, and the vazīr said:

ONCE upon a time two partridges dwelt together in the closest intimacy—like two souls in one body, or like two bodies in one shirt; and between them was neither duality nor separation. In their vicinity lived a hawk, that from morning to night preyed on young partridges, and that occasioned the male bird constant apprehension, for he was a troublesome and meddlesome neighbour. When you buy a house anywhere, first take care to examine well its neighbourhood. This hawk was ever on the watch, and never allowed a young bird to escape, while the parents were in continual terror, and scarcely ventured to thrust their heads out of the nest. One night the male partridge proposed to his wedded partner that they should leave their home, saying: “I will go to the confines of Ray to escape the oppression of this bird of evil omen. There will I provide a home, and collect corn and grain. I have there two relations, who are my friends. Do thou, too, follow me thither, for this is no home, but a prison—a net.” His mate shed tears, while he continued: “Follow after me to those friends; for no one would, for the sake of his own ease, expose his family to destruction.”

While they were thus conversing, the hoopoe paid them an unexpected visit. “What has happened,” inquired he; “and why is the good-wife weeping?” They detailed to him their circumstances, the annoyance occasioned by their neighbour, and their resolution of removing. The hoopoe observed: “In Ray there prevails a pestilence; it is the abode of plague, of misery, and woe. I have visited the most distant confines of the earth, and have seen something of every country you can mention. Do not imagine that there is in the whole earth a spot of security and peace like Shīrāz—whose very rubbish and thorns are pleasanter than roses; whose every pebble is a ruby, and whose dust is gold! Musalla,⁴⁰ with the stream of Ruknābād flowing through it, is a paradise, with Kauthar^40a in the midst. Sweet, too, is the air of its Ja'farābād,^40b whose breezes perform the work of the Messiah.^40c In the environs of that amber-scented city^40d there is a pleasure-ground like Paradise, in which is a delightful fountain, resembling the Fountain of Life. There partridges are abundant, hence it is called the Fountain of Partridges. Beyond it is another fountain, which you might suppose to be that of Kauthar. In that quarter a single ear of corn yields two stacks. A cousin of mine is the shaykh of the district. Still further on is the City of the Peacock, where you might stop a few days.”

When the partridge heard this, he smiled, and said to the hoopoe: “O bird, full of understanding! in this desert of grief you are the Khizar⁴¹ of my path; well have you spoken, and you are indeed my friend!” Then embracing him closely, he bade him adieu, and set out on his journey, accompanied by his spouse. The delighted partridge ceased not smiling with joy at his escape from his bad neighbour. He ate not— drank not—but travelled on from morn to night—from even till morn. Thus he proceeded till he reached the place of security, and beheld from the top of a mountain the Stream of Birds. Then did his mate exclaim to him: “Gratitude and praise! thanks without bound or limit! It is indeed a blessed abode—a charming spot! In this delightful retreat they fixed their habitation, and sorrow had now given place to happiness. The joy of youth—the season of spring— an affectionate mistress, and the margin of a stream; this is the new-wine of life—and more needs not— happy he who has this within his reach!

The happy day on which the pair arrived at that spot was the night of the middle of the month Āzar (i.e. vernal month). On every bush roses were blowing; on every branch a nightingale was plaintively warbling. The tall cypress was dancing in the garden; and the poplar never ceased clapping its hands with joy! With loud voice, from the top of every bough of the willow, the turtle-dove was proclaiming the glad advent of spring! The diadem of the narcissus shone with such splendour, that you would have said it was the crown of the emperor of China! On this side, the north wind, on that, the west were, in token of affection, scattering dirhams at the feet of the rose. The earth was musk-scented; the air musk-laden!⁴²

Two affectionate and loving friends find themselves at home wherever they go. The relations of the male partridge and the neighbours heard of his arrival, and hastened to visit him. One kissed his face, another brushed from his plumage the dust of the journey. Such affection did they conceive for each other, that they were never apart: all day, wandering about desert and country; all the year, roaming joyously without a care. I need not say that no cultivated fields or houses were there; that there was no night attack, or plunder, or ravaging; for not even a land-measurer passed that way; no burner of (the herb) alkali came there to give any one a headache. As the father did not wrong the son, the son sought not to take his father's life. As the daughter used not violence towards her mother, brother did not deprive brother of eyesight. Happy that time, those days, that age! when none had a quarrel with his neighbour. The world being then free from the ills of strife, the eye of the arrow saw not the face of the bow.

Thus passed some years over them, during which care or grief visited them not. But triumph not, O friend, in prosperity; still look forward to the evening and the night of grief. Bid the young think of the sorrows of age; let the aged reflect on the sufferings of death. There chanced to come on such a year of drought, that it was impossible to procure a drop of water from the fountains, and a hundred ears of corn yielded not a single grain. Locusts drank from the cup of every one. Not merely the store of the poor was exhausted, but even the granary of kings was empty. People went to Egypt and to Syria to procure corn, as in the time of Joseph (on whom be peace!). When the eye of the partridge awoke from sleep, he found himself destitute of provision. His mate said: “It matters not; let us practise devotion, and be satisfied with what little there may be. It is better to be content with barley-bread than to carry one's request before the king.” The male partridge replied: “You pass your days in difficulty; yet sorrow not, for grief as well as joy will pass away. Six days' journey off is the City of the Peacock; there, perhaps, corn may be procured. I have there a friend, by name Durrāj,⁴⁴ from whom I can borrow something.” He thus spoke, and, embracing his mate, went forth, and took the way of the mountains.

The male partridge departed; the female remained behind, and sang her sad songs. The master is the stay of the house; when he leaves it, it falls. He was absent about five months, for he loitered long upon the road. When winter came, and the cloud rained camphor from the sky, and ice closed fast the eye of the fountain, suddenly the male partridge returned from his journey, and entered to take his spouse to his bosom. He beheld her changed; her neck slender, her body swollen. When he saw her thus apparently pregnant, all his affection for her was at an end. “I see,” said he, “that I have involved myself in calamity. I have left a giddy wife at home! Fine housekeeping this! A rare husband I! In my absence you were about your own affairs;—tell me from whose granary is this grain?” His mate vowed by 'Isa and by Maryam⁴⁵ that he suspected her wrongfully. “No one has seen my face since you left; no one has beheld a feather of me. You are my only treasure in life; you are father, relation, every tie of my soul.” The enraged husband, however, gave her no credit, but tore off the head of his helpless mate. With her blood they wrote on her tomb: “Shed not innocent blood; if you wish not your own disgrace, do it not! He acts wisely who acts with reflection.” The partridge repented of what he had done, and that he had acted on mere suspicion. “Where,” said he, “can I meet with a companion like her?—one who was ever contented and accordant, and who bore patiently with my reproaches!”

The birds of that quarter, hearing of his return, waited on him to congratulate him on his arrival. When they saw his wretched mate weltering in her blood, their hearts burned with compassion for her. One asked: “Why have you slain your mate? No one entered this house. I will answer for it that this poor wretch had no crime.” The husband told the whole story with tears. They assured him with one voice that he had acted precipitately; that he was mistaken grievously; that in that city a disease had been raging for some time, by which the crop was swollen; but that a certain grass was a cure for it. “Why,” said they, “did you not tell your case to any one?” The male bird was distracted at hearing this, and reproached himself bitterly. He lit up a fire, and burnt his house and home. He procured poison, which he took, and died. If he deprived another of life, he saved not his own! [6]

“Hence,” remarks the vazīr, “your Majesty may see the danger of precipitation.” He then relates, in further illustration of the cunning of women, the

[THERE was a righteous man in Qandahār, simple and pure of heart, upright, gracious, and exceeding clement. In origin and race he was the leader of men. He was very God-fearing and abstemious; at times standing all night at prayer, and at times fasting. He had a wife, fair-spoken and sweet of speech, who would have carried off the palm amongst a hundred marvels of beauty. She was very young; the good-man was very old: I will not say she was without plans and resources. When the good-man is old, and the wife young, what sayest thou, and seest thou, then, O youth? The youthful wife loved the youthful.

One day the old man took a piece of gold out of his purse, gave it to the woman, and said: “Buy some husked rice⁴⁷ with this.” Having adorned her person with Chinese brocade, she went out veiled. She proceeded to the bazaar, where she saw a handsome youth, decked in loveliness from head to foot. A balance was hung up in his shop; candy and sugar were poured out. When the woman saw this loveling from afar, she writhed and heaved a sigh from her liver.^47a She brought out the piece of gold and laid it down, saying: “Give me husked rice for this gold.” The youth said: “There is no need of the gold; I will give thee presently rice with sugar on the top: do thou rest thyself a moment.”—As he was young, and she was young, the (recollection of the) old man could find no room between them. He brought the rice and put it before her; he also put some sugar on the top of it. The woman took off her veil and wrapped both of them therein; then she went into an inner apartment, which had a private way out on that side, and sat down.

A leaf, fol. 57, is wanting here; but from other versions we may suppose that the story went on to relate that, the grocer having given his servant a secret signal, while he and the lady were conversing together, the lad substituted sand in place of the rice and sugar; that she took up her parcel and returned home; and the old man, on discovering its strange contents, naturally inquired what this meant. Perceiving the trick of the grocer, she readily replied (fol. 58):

“When I was making for the bazaar from the street, at that narrow place at the head of the market, a young camel, that had broken away from the rope attached to its nose-ring, had got loose from the file (of camels), like a mountain suddenly sprang to foot, like a rock suddenly moved from its place, roared and so terrified me, that my breath was taken away. In that place where I turned and fled, the piece of gold fell from my hand into the dust.⁴⁹ I looked much for it, but could not find it; and as it was drawing late, I took away some of the dust of the road in my veil.” The good-man, out of his simplicity of heart, believed her tale, and said: “Who wert thou, to be without fear? Thou knowest gold and dust to be one in my sight.” He then gave her another piece of gold, saying: “Buy husked rice at that place thou knowest.” So she took the gold, again put on her veil, and returned to the shop of her lover.]^49a

falconer: ‘Go, withhold thy hand from this evil occupation. They are all the servants of their Maker; all of them live by his command. What advantage canst thou derive by depriving them of life? What benefit canst thou reap from sacrificing an ant?’”

“Sire,” replied the prince, “the law sanctions hunting and the chase; and since it is permitted by the Prophet, whence is this prohibition, and why this severity of rebuke?”

In short, the king, seeing that he was bent on going, cautioned him to be on his guard against evil and danger; and his Majesty's favourite minister, in whom he had the fullest confidence, received instructions to attend and take charge of the prince, but was desired by the king not to conduct him to the desert of Rūdān, as it was infested with ghūls. They set out, and the vazīr proposed that they should proceed to Shemsī Ghūrān, which abounded in wild asses. Another of the vazīrs, however, who had long borne envy towards the premier, and who was secretly the enemy of his sovereign, worked on the prince by his insinuations against the minister, drew him aside from his train, when they were near Shemsī Ghūrān, into a tent, and persuaded him to drink a cup of wine. The prince was then about to repose in the tent, when a cry arose that a wild ass was started.⁵² The prince sprang up, mounted his steed, and rode on in pursuit of the animal, and never reined in until it suddenly disappeared as if the earth had swallowed it up.

The prince looked on every side, and beheld before him a charming lady, beautiful as a perī—her stature straight as a box-tree; her mouth small as the end of a hair; her waist a hair's breadth. One wonders not to find a rose growing by a fountain; but if it is found springing from a salt-marsh, it may well cause surprise. The prince was galloping in pursuit of a wild ass, and if he missed it, he found an antelope; he was in search of a serpent, and found the treasure in its stead.⁵³ “A table,” thought he to himself, “has descended from heaven.”—“O envy of hūrī and perī,” said he, addressing her, “for human being possesses not such beauty, thou art an angel, and Paradise is thy home; say, what wouldst thou in this world of gloom?”^53a The damsel replied: “One must not hide one's complaint from the physician. I once beheld thee at a distance, from my terrace. I had ascended to look for the new moon, when, to my unexpected good fortune, the sun appeared. (Thus) one sought the moon, and found the sun; one looked for the Goblet, and found Jam-shīd. ⁵⁴ Since thou art the amber and I the straw, tell me, how can I preserve my heart? O captivating youth, the heart is a source of affliction;—I would not wish even an infidel the misfortune to have his heart enslaved.”—The prince was carried away by his desires; for the fountain was in sight, and his lip was parched. The damsel pointed to her abode, and led the way, while the prince rode on after her till they reached a desolate spot. She entered, and cried out: “Come and see what I have brought hither by my contrivance!”⁵⁵ From every corner the black ghūls^55a rushed out. The prince, on seeing them, was alarmed for his life, and conning a prayer,^55b fled to the desert. He urged on his steed, while the female pursued him, begging him not to desert her thus cruelly.—“Excuse me,” said the prince; “I am not my own master, but in the hands of another [i.e. his steed]. Whatever I sew, he undoes; I go not willingly, but he flies with me.”—The damsel continues to entreat; but the prince persists in not returning.

Although the pages of the manuscript are numbered consecutively, a leaf is wanting here. The conclusion may be guessed from Syntipas, where, as soon as the prince had uttered a prayer, the damsel falls powerless on the ground, unable longer to pursue him; while the prince sets off at full speed, and reaches home in safety. [7]

The commencement of the next chapter is wanting, but it, of course, contained the order of the king for the execution of his son, which is stayed by the Third Vazīr, who, repairing to the foot of the throne, intercedes for the prince. He counsels the king to put no faith in slaves. “If you desire a son,” said he, “ask in marriage the daughter of the emperor of China; for whenever you have a son by a slave, he will be of evil disposition, and ill-affected towards you: a beggar will be introduced to your court, and a black seated on your throne. Listen not to the advice of the worthless; slay not your son rashly; otherwise you will repent, as the officer did of killing his cat.” The vazīr then relates the

[IN a city of Cathay there dwelt a good and blameless woman with her husband. By-and-by she bore him a son, and thereupon died. The man got a nurse to bring up the child. Now he had a cat, of which he was very fond, and to which his wife had been also much attached.

One day the man went out on some business, and the nurse also had left the house, no one remaining but the infant and the cat. Presently a frightful snake came in, and made for the cradle to devour the child. The cat sprang upon it, and after a desperate fight succeeded in killing it. When the man returned, he was horrified at seeing a mangled mass lying on the floor. The snake had vomited so much blood and poison that its form was hidden, and the man, thinking that the cat, which came up to him, rubbing against his legs, had killed his son, struck it a blow, and slew it on the spot. But immediately after he discovered the truth of the matter, how the poor cat had killed the snake in defence of the boy, and his grief knew no bounds.]⁵⁷

“Shed not, then, the blood of your innocent son,” proceeds the vazīr. “If the officer had reflected, he would not have acted so rashly. Slay not a prince on the testimony of a woman. Women are fickle and inconstant, and pray at ten qiblas⁵⁸ in one day. I will now, with your Majesty's permission, relate a story, still more entertaining than the last, of the merchant's wife and the old woman who conducted her to a lover.”

AN old man had married a young and beautiful wife. The husband used frequently to go to his farm in the country, leaving his wife in town. Upon those occasions she threw off all restraint, and met many lovers; and an old woman acted as her go-between. The husband once, on returning to town, instead of going home, applies to the old woman to introduce him to a mistress; and his own wife, not knowing whom she was to meet, is induced to grant him an assignation. She manages so well to dissemble her own confusion, and reproaches him so naturally, that he never suspects her guilt, but entreats on his knees to be forgiven his infidelity. [9]

The king's resolution is again shaken by those tales, and he remands his son to prison.

The Damsel now presents herself a fourth time, and demands justice, threatening, if it is refused, to drink a cup of poison which she holds in her hand. She relates the

AN old monkey, finding himself a burden to his wife and family, takes leave of them, and wanders forth into the world. After suffering much distress, he at last reaches a spot in a forest full of every sort of fruit, and abounding in figs so delicious that you would have supposed them composed of sugar and milk. Here, reposing from the fatigues of travel, he slept long and soundly. When he awoke, he performed his ablutions in the stream, and ate some fruit. Although his heart burned when he thought of his family and relations, of what avail was it to grieve? Having here abundance of provision, he quitted not the spot the whole year. He reserved a quantity of the fruit on the branches for the winter. In the meantime a boar, fleeing from the combat, with his face bathed in blood and the stream flowing from every hair of his body, appeared in the forest, like sudden death entering a door. After lying for a week in feebleness, the wounded boar went about in search of food, but in vain, it being now winter. At length he saw the monkey seated on a fig-tree, every branch of which was laden with figs. He implored the monkey to give him some food; upon which it threw him down a lapful of fresh figs, a mun or more. These he quickly devoured, and still demanded more, until he had eaten ten muns, and the tree was stripped of fruit. The boar now threatened, and the monkey prayed to heaven for deliverance; upon which the boar, springing upon the tree, fell back, broke its neck, and expired. [10]

“Fear, then, that God by whom this was brought about, and grant me justice,” added the Damsel, “remembering that the throne of tyrants shall be overturned.”

The king is now more determined than ever on the death of his son, and orders wood to be brought together, that he may be burnt by the executioner; upon which the Fourth Vazīr presents himself, and intercedes for the prince. To show the danger of trusting in women, he relates the

who conducted his wife to the son of the king of Kanūj.⁶¹ —He next relates the

[IN the city of Shūstar (in Khūzistān, Persia) a gay young gallant, riding to the chase one day, sees a perī-faced damsel at a lattice-window, and immediately falls in love with her. He engages a crafty old woman to intercede with the lady in his behalf, but she indignantly refuses to entertain any lover, and sends the go-between away unsuccessful. After some little time the old woman disguises herself as a devotee, and thus contrives to obtain admission to the house, soon gains the confidence of the servants, and ultimately becomes the familiar companion of the lady herself. One day this artful and hypocritical old hag secretly feeds the lady's she-dog with cakes strongly seasoned, which cause the creature's eyes to water as though it wept. The lady, observing this, expresses her surprise, and asks the old woman the cause. At first she pretends to be averse to explain the reason why the dog wept, but, after much entreaty, she informs the lady that the dog was once a beautiful damsel, who had been changed into that form as a punishment for rejecting a lover's suit. Alarmed at this tale, the lady confesses that she had refused to receive the addresses of a youth who had professed his love for her through an old woman; but now, lest she should in like manner be transformed into a she-dog, she is willing to grant him an interview. The crafty old go-between hastens to the amorous youth and informs him of the success of her trick; and soon after the lady and her lover are united.]⁶²

[There is here a very considerable displacement in the leaves of the MS., and some deficiencies occur throughout the remainder of the volume. The prince was doubtless remanded when the fourth vazīr had concluded his second story, as above; and the Damsel, of course, appeared for the fifth time, and urged the king to put his son to death, but it is impossible to say whether she told a story on this occasion, as all this portion of the text is wanting. We must now turn from folio 86 to folio 127 (the intervening leaves being misplaced), where we find but three pages remaining of what is evidently the first story of the Fifth Vazīr, from which it can only be conjectured that it relates to a lady who had dissipated, with her paramour, her husband's wealth, during his absence. From what remains, it may be entitled the

WHEN the lady was excited with wine, her lover came into her mind, and she lost her wits, and forgot where she was. The old companion leapt into her suddenly, and with a dagger she cut her hair to the roots. She scratched her cheek with her nails, till her face was bathed in blood. At dawn the lady went forth from the house, confused as her own tresses. When she reached home she began to weep; tore her collar and bared her head—her face all wounds with her nails. She raised her cries and wail to the moon; twisted her hairs round her fingers, pulled them out, and strewed them by handfuls all the way home, so that her path resembled the Milky Way therewith; saying that her husband's days were come to an end—a stranger had unexpectedly told her that news. The women gathered in her street, and they all became as disordered as her hair. One said: “The poor thing! see how, fair creature, for the death of her husband, she has cut off her hair!” Another said: “See her face, how she has torn it into wounds! See what she has done to her bosom!” There now befell wailings in that dwelling; the mansion was filled with the weeping of mourners. She prepared a worthy wake for her husband, and gave food.⁶⁴ —After a month had elapsed, her lord came home. Like fire from iron, the woman leapt out, and exclaimed: “Take care, O young man—you outside-cheat! I knew not if thou wast in the bath stoke-hole or in the tomb. For thy death have I cut off my hair from the roots, and torn all my face with my nails. With whom have you been in close converse? Tell me, with whom have you been in close search? If I had a little once, not an atom now remains;—for this reason, of thy ten houses not a farthing has been left. What an evil day was that on which we were joined!” Thus did she vent her ill-temper. Her lord said: “O kind companion, what may it all be? Let no harm come to thy life.” He then made up for all the expenses that had befallen, and paid all the money she had borrowed.—Thus do women practise sleight-of-hand; with craft thus do they split hairs. Though a woman were a phœnix, she were best plucked of feathers; though she were a noble falcon, she were best with her head wrung off. None knows the tricks and spells of women;—make mourning a duty under her sway, and weep blood.⁶⁵

“If his Majesty,” continued the Fifth Vazīr, “is not wearied by these headache-giving tales, I will relate another example.”