Hereupon the Caliph was agitated, and emotion so overpowered him that he could not command himself for excess of pleasure, and he exclaimed, "By Allah, good! by Allah, good! by Allah, good!"59 Asked Nur al-Din, "O fisherman, doth this damsel please thee?" and the Caliph answered, "Ay, by Allah!" Whereupon said Nur al-Din, "She is a gift to thee, a gift of the generous who repenteth him not of his givings and who will never revoke his gift!" Then he sprang to his feet and, taking a loose robe, threw it over the fisherman and bade him receive the damsel and be gone. But she looked at him and said, "O my lord, art thou faring forth without farewell? If it must be so, at least stay till I bid thee good-bye and make known my case." And she began versifying in these verses: —
When love and longing and regret are mine, ✿ Must not this body show of ills a sign?
My love! say not, "Thou soon shalt be consoled"; ✿ When state speaks state none shall allay my pine.
If living man could swim upon his tears, ✿ I first should float on waters of these eyne:
O thou, who in my heart infusedst thy love, ✿ As water mingles in the cup with wine,
This was the fear I feared, this parting blow. ✿ O thou whose love my heart-core ne'er shall tyne!
O Bin Khákán! my sought, my hope, my will, ✿ O thou whose love this breast made wholly thine!
Against thy lord the King thou sinn'dst for me, ✿ And winnedst exile in lands peregrine:
Allah ne'er make my lord repent my loss ✿ To cream60 o' men thou gavest me, one right digne.
When she had ended her verses, Nur al-Din answered her with these lines: —
She bade me farewell on our parting day, ✿ And she wept in the fire of our bane and pains:
"What wilt thou do when fro' thee I'm gone?" ✿ Quoth I, "say this to whom life remains!"
When the Caliph heard her saying in her verse: —
To Karim, the cream of men thou gavest me;
his inclination for her redoubled and it seemed a hard matter and a grievous to part them; so quoth he to the youth, "O my lord, truly the damsel said in her verses that thou didst transgress against her master and him who owned her; so tell me, against whom didst thou transgress and who is it hath a claim on thee?" "By Allah, O fisherman," replied Nur al-Din, "there befel me and this damsel a wondrous tale and a marvellous matter: an 'twere graven with needle-gravers on the eye-corners it would be a warner to whoso would be warned." Cried the Caliph, "Wilt thou not tell me thy story and acquaint me with thy case? Haply it may bring thee relief, for Allah's aid is ever nearhand." "O fisherman," said Nur al-Din, "wilt thou hear our history in verse or in prose?" "Prose is a wordy thing, but verses," rejoined the Caliph, "are pearls on string." Then Nur al-Din bowed his head, and made these couplets: —
O my friend! reft of rest no repose I command, ✿ And my grief is redoubled in this far land:
Erst I had a father, a kinder ne'er was; ✿ But he died and to Death paid the deodand:
When he went from me, every matter went wrong ✿ Till my heart was nighbroken, my nature unmanned:
He bought me a handmaid, a sweeting who shamed ✿ A wand of the willow by Zephyr befanned:
I lavisht upon her mine heritage, ✿ And spent like a nobleman puissant and grand:
Then to sell her compelled, my sorrow increased; ✿ The parting was sore but I mote not gainstand:
Now as soon as the crier had called her, there bid ✿ A wicked old fellow, a fiery brand:
So I raged with a rage that I could not restrain, ✿ And snatched her from out of his hireling's hand;
When the angry curmudgeon made ready for blows, ✿ And the fire of a fight kindled he and his band,
I smote him in fury with right and with left, ✿ And his hide, till well satisfied, curried and tanned:
Then in fear I fled forth and lay hid in my house, ✿ To escape from the snares which my foeman had spanned:
So the King of the country proclaimed my arrest; ✿ When access to me a good Chamberlain fand:
And warned me to flee from the city afar, ✿ Disappear, disappoint what my enemies planned:
Then we fled from our home 'neath the wing of the night, ✿ And sought us a refuge by Baghdad strand:
Of my riches I've nothing on thee to bestow, ✿ O Fisher, except the fair gift thou hast scanned:
The loved of my soul, and when I from her part, ✿ Know for sure that I give thee the blood of my heart.61
When he had ended his verse, the Caliph said to him, "O my lord Nur al-Din, explain to me thy case more fully." So he told him the whole story from beginning to end, and the Caliph said to him, "Whither dost thou now intend?" "Allah's world is wide," replied he. Quoth the Caliph, "I will write thee a letter to carry to the Sultan Mohammed bin Sulayman al-Zayni, which when he readeth, he will not hurt nor harm thee in aught." – And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Caliph said to Nur al-Din Ali, "I will write thee a letter to carry to the Sultan Mohammed bin Sulayman al-Zayni, which when he readeth, he will not hurt nor harm thee in aught," Nur al-Din asked "What! is there in the world a fisherman who writeth to Kings? Such a thing can never be!"; and the Caliph answered, "Thou sayest sooth, but I will tell thee the reason. Know that I and he learnt in the same school under one schoolmaster, and that I was his monitor. Since that time Fortune befriended him and he is become a Sultan, while Allah hath abased me and made me a fisherman; yet I never send to him to ask aught but he doeth my desire; nay, though I should ask of him a thousand favours every day, he would comply." When Nur al-Din heard this he said, "Good! write that I may see." So the Caliph took ink-case and reed-pen and wrote as follows, – "In the name of Allah, the Compassionating, the Compassionate! But after.62 This letter is written by Harun al-Rashid, son of Al-Mahdi, to his highness Mohammed bin Sulayman al-Zayni, whom I have encompassed about with my favour and made my viceroy in certain of my dominions. The bearer of these presents is Nur al-Din Ali, son of Fazl bin Khakan the Wazir. As soon as they come to thy hand divest thyself forthright of the kingly dignity and invest him therewith; so oppose not my commandment and peace be with thee." He gave the letter to Nur al-Din, who took it and kissed it, then put it in his turband and set out at once on his journey. So far concerning him; but as regards the Caliph, Shaykh Ibrahim stared at him (and he still in fisher garb) and said, "O vilest of fishermen, thou hast brought us a couple of fish worth a score of half-dirhams,63 and hast gotten three dinars for them; and thinkest thou to take the damsel to boot?" When the Caliph heard this, he cried out at him, and signed to Masrur who discovered himself and rushed in upon him. Now Ja'afar had sent one of the gardener-lads to the doorkeeper of the palace to fetch a suit of royal raiment for the Prince of the Faithful; so the man went and, returning with the suit, kissed the ground before the Caliph and gave it him. Then he threw off the clothes he had on64 and donned kingly apparel. Shaykh Ibrahim was still sitting upon his chair and the Caliph tarried to behold what would come next. But seeing the Fisherman become the Caliph, Shaykh Ibrahim was utterly confounded and he could do nothing but bite his finger-ends65 and say, "Would I knew whether am I asleep or am I awake!" At last the Caliph looked at him and cried, "O Shaykh Ibrahim, what state is this in which I see thee?" Thereupon he recovered from his drunkenness and, throwing himself upon the ground, repeated these verses: —
Pardon the sinful ways I did pursue; ✿ Ruth