Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange (Hardcover Classics) (6 page)

Most of the tales contained in
Tales of the Marvellous
should not be classed as folklore. Moreover, they do not have the appearance of stories that first circulated orally before being written down, and neither are there indications that they were part of the professional storytellers’ repertoire and were told in the market place or on street corners. Instead the tales, which display creative ingenuity and even at times erudition, must be classed as literature. Perhaps we should regard them as very early and impressive examples of pulp fiction.

  
1
Paul Bowles’s introduction to his translation of Larbi Layachi’s,
A Life Full of Holes
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), published under Layachi’s pseudonym Driss ben Hamed Charhadi, p. 10.

  
2
The titles of the stories in the missing second volume are as follows: ‘Salma and al-Walid’, ‘The Thief of the Barmecides’, ‘Jamila the Bedouin’, ‘Sa‘da and Hasan’, ‘Fawz and al-‘Abbas’, ‘The Female Singer Hawza’, ‘The Drinker Ahmad’, ‘Ardashir Son of Mahan’, ‘The Golden Pigeon’, ‘Ahmad al-‘Anbari’, ‘The Ebony Horse’, ‘Al-‘Aquluqi (The Attendant)’, ‘Badr and the Vizier’, ‘Shams al-Qusur’, ‘Salman’, ‘The Island of Bamboo’, ‘The Island of Diamonds’, ‘The Confused King’, ‘King Shaizuran’, ‘Bayad and Riyad’, ‘Tahir Son of Khaqan’, ‘Abu’l-Faraj al-Isfahani’, ‘The Slave Girl Who Swallowed the Piece of Paper’.
   In a minority of cases the stories that go with these titles can be identified. ‘The Ebony Horse’ is found in late manuscripts of the
Nights
. ‘Badr and the Vizier’ appears under the title ‘The Story of King Badr al-Din Lulu and his Vizier Atamulk, Surnamed the Sad Vizier’ in a compilation of stories put together by François Pétis de la Croix under the title
Les Mille et Un Jours
. First published in 1712, this collection, which drew on diverse sources, has been edited and republished by Paul Sebag (Paris: Phébus, 2003). ‘The Golden Pigeon’ features in at least two Arabic manuscripts. The love story of ‘Bayad and Riyad’ similarly survives in two manuscripts, in this case originating in Spain or Morocco.

  
3
E. P. Thompson,
The Making of the English Working Class
, 3rd edn (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1980), p. 12.

  
4
Al-Asma‘i, quoted in Michael Dols,
Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 315.

  
5
J. Huizinga,
The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
, trans. F. Hopman (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955), p. 9.

  
6
A. S. Byatt,
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye: Five Fairy Stories
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1994), pp. 123–4.

  
7
Walter Map, quoted in Carolly Erickson,
The Medieval Vision: Essays in History and Perception
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 198–9.

  
8
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, trans. Brian Stone, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 111.

  
9
Bernard Lewis,
Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 20.

10
Byatt,
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye
, pp. 134–5.

11
Captain Buzurg ibn Shahriyar,
The
Book of the Wonders of India
, trans. G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville (London: East-West, 1981), p. 23.

12
Ibn Khaldun,
The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History
, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 3 vols., 2nd edn (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), vol. 2, p. 319.

13
Ibid., p. 324.

14
‘Abd al-Rahmâne al-Djawbarî,
Le Voile arraché
, trans. René R. Khawam, 2 vols. (Paris: Phébus, 1979), vol. 1, p. 243.

15
Das Buch der wundersamen Geschichten: Erzählungen aus der Welt von 1001 Nacht
, trans. Ulrich Marzolph (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1999), p. 654.

16
Paul Willemen,
Pier Paolo Pasolini
(London: British Film Institute, 1977), p. 74.

17
Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen (eds.),
The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia
, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, CA, and Oxford: ABC Clio, 2004), vol. 2, p. 688.

18
Ibid., p. 523.

There is very little to read on
Tales of the Marvellous
in English, apart from a page in Robert Irwin,
Arabian Nights: A Companion
(London: Allen Lane, 1984), and a short article in Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen (eds.),
The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia
(Santa Barbara, CA, and Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2004). There is an article by Ulrich Marzolph, ‘As Woman Can Be: The Gendered Subversiveness of an Arabic Folktale Heroine’,
Edebiyât
, 10 (1999), pp. 199–218 (on ‘Arus al-‘Ara’is); see also Ulrich Marzolph, ‘Narrative Strategies in Popular Literature: Ideology and Ethics in Tales from the Arabian Nights and Other Collections’,
Middle Eastern Literatures
, 7 (2004), pp. 171–82 (mostly on ‘Abu Muhammad the Idle’), and Geert Jan Van Gelder, ‘Slave-Girl Lost and Regained: Transformations of a Story’,
Marvels and Tales
, 18 (2004), pp. 201–17 (on ‘Talha, the Son of the Qadi of Fustat’). Those interested in the various motifs and tale types in
Tales of the Marvellous
and how they feature in other Arab stories should consult Hasan M. El-Shamy,
Folk Traditions of the Arab World: A Guide to Motif Classification
, 2 vols. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995).

There is an extensive secondary literature on
Tales of the Marvellous
in German. Hans Wehr published the edited Arabic text as
Das Buch der Wunderbaren Erzählungen und Seltsamen Geschichten
(Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1956). This edition formed the basis of the translation by Hans Wehr, Otto Spies, Max Weisweiler and Sophia Grotzfeld, edited by Ulrich Marzolph and published as
Das Buch der wundersamen Geschichten: Erzählungen aus der Welt von 1001 Nacht
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1999). Those who seek more detailed information on the stories and, in particular, the classification of the story elements according to tale types must consult this book. Also the relationship between
Tales of the Marvellous
and the
Nights
is discussed in the appendix to the sixth
volume of Enno Littmann’s translation of the
Nights
,
Die Erzählungen aus den Tausendundein Nächten
, 2nd edn (Berlin: Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft, 1953), and in Heinz and Sophia Grotzfeld’s
Die Erzählungen aus ‘Tausendundeiner Nächt’
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984). The two Bedouin stories and ‘Sul and Shumul’ have been discussed by Sophia Schwab in an unpublished PhD. thesis, ‘Drei arabische Erzählungen aus dem Beduinenleben untersucht und übersetzt’ (Munster, 1965). In French the classification of the stories is discussed in Aboubakr Chraibi’s
Les Mille et Une Nuits: Histoire du texte et classification des contes
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008). Jean-Claude Garçin has argued for a late date for the manuscript of
Tales of the Marvellous
in
Pour une lecture historique des Mille et Une Nuits: Essai sur l’édition de
Bulaq
(
1835
)
(Arles: Sindbad/Actes Sud, 2013).

The thematic articles in volume 2 of Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen (eds.),
The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia
(Santa Barbara, CA, and Oxford: ABC Clio, 2004) will also be found useful in providing a social and cultural background to the tales in
Tales of the Marvellous
. Hugh Kennedy,
The Court of the Caliphs: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004) provides a very readable account of the history and culture of the Islamic heartlands in the eighth and ninth centuries. On ‘Aja’ib, see Mohammed Arkoun, Jacques le Goff, Tawfiq Fahd and Maxime Rodinson,
L’Étrange et le merveilleux dans l’Islam médiéval
(Paris: Editions J. A., 1978), the Louvre exhibition catalogue
L’Étrange et le merveilleux en terres d’Islam
(Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001) and Roy Mottahedeh, ‘ ‘Aja’ib in
The Thousand and One Nights
’, in Richard Hovannisian and Georges Sabbagh (eds.),
The Thousand and One Nights in Arabic Literature and Society
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 29–39. Captain Buzurg ibn Shahriyar’s treatise on the wonders of the sea has been translated by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville as
The Book of the Wonders of India: Mainland, Sea and Islands
(London: East-West, 1981).

On the occult, see Emilie Savage-Smith (ed.),
Magic and Divination in Early Islam
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); Marina Warner,
Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights
(London: Chatto & Windus, 2011); Amira El-Zein,
Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009). On prophecy, see Toufic Fahd,
La Divination arabe: Études religieuses, sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de l’Islam
(Paris: Sindbad, 1987). So
far there is very little secondary literature on Arab treasure hunting, but see Irwin,
The Arabian Nights: A Companion
, chapter 8.

On sex, see Abdelwahab Bouhdiba,
Sexuality in Islam
, translated by Alan Sheridan (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985); Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot (ed.),
Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam
(Malibu, CA: Undena Publications, 1987).

Of the stories presented in this text, this is the most seriously affected by lacunae. These cover the introduction of Prince Kaukab, who is the son of King Fulk, king of both
Saihun
and Jaihun, while his unnamed mother has had an important if unrecorded role to play in causing the exile from Saihun of the villain. This man, ‘the chamberlain’, is found in the service of Farah, whom Fulk appointed as ruler of Jaihun and who is generally referred to as ‘the king’. Yaquta is Farah’s daughter, once wrongly described as his sister
.

They say – and God knows better and is more glorious and nobler – that amongst the stories of ancient times and past peoples is one that is suited to the intelligence of men of understanding who both ask and give. There was a great, powerful and distinguished king named Fulk, who commanded the obedience of his subjects, whom he treated with generosity. He was strong and powerful and could seize wild beasts with his bare hands. His reputation spread, and he humbled lions in their thickets and abashed powerful kings. He had a servant named Farah, whom his father had brought up with him and of whom he thought so highly that, when his territories increased, he handed over half of them for Farah to rule, exercising authority over their peoples. Fulk ruled what was known as Saihun while Farah ruled Jaihun and its surroundings.

Life was easy for the inhabitants of these lands; there was no enemy for them to fear and no bloodshed, and so they enjoyed a life of ease, eating and drinking untroubled by sadness. Fulk himself was a generous man, prodigal with gifts, a distributor of robes of honour. One day as he was riding outside his city with his men a messenger approached him, and at the sight the escort drew up in two lines watching him. The man dismounted and approached the king on foot.

[lac.]
When the king heard this he said: ‘How did this dog get on to the mainland?’ [
lac.]
The vizier said: ‘That is the way to the left of town,’ but the king said: ‘He is safe and, by the Lord of the
Ka‘ba
, no one will reach him.’ He then concealed what he was thinking from the vizier, and the vizier did not return to the subject. They had pigeons with them and wherever they arrived the vizier would release them, and so the king would know what nobody else knew.

As for the commander of the citadel, when they reached it he came down, kissed the ground and sent out provisions, as well as stores of all kinds. [Kaukab] gave generous gifts and camped beneath the citadel in
order to hunt, he being a great and generous prince. Pigeons were carried in cages behind the hunters and sent off every morning so that the king might enjoy hearing what his son was doing.
[lac.]
The king and the prince’s mother were relieved as the time mentioned by the astrologer had passed.

The prince told his companions to take provisions for three days and form a great circle within which to hunt. Afterwards they could go back to strike camp and return home, this being a long distance away. He told the vizier that there was no need for him to come with them and he could stay as last man in the camp. He himself rode out lightly equipped with the commander of the citadel, and after two days they came to a depression shaped like the palm of a hand in which there were so many beasts that they crowded against each other.

He called for the mare that was mentioned earlier, tightened the girths around its flanks and mounted. He then struck in his spurs and dropped the reins, at which the mare bounded off like a lightning flash up a high hill and down the other side, where it galloped across open country. The prince, who thought that his men were following him, reached a place where there was water, which he spurred the mare to cross. It pricked up its ears, blew out its nostrils and reared up so as to show the hollows behind the top of its legs. The prince hit it on the rump with his whip but then saw that it was confronted by a lion. He drew his sword, made for the lion and struck it on the forehead, from which the blade emerged gleaming through its blood.

He rode on until sunset, when he dismounted on a mountain and said: ‘My father and the astrologer were right in what they said as there can be no doubt that I am facing death.’ He was distressingly tired and felt regret when this was no longer of any use. He released the mare, which began to circle round him before coming back to graze, going on doing this until late evening, while the prince neither slept nor ate nor drank. The mare, whose girths had been loosened, came up to him and nudged his feet with its head while blowing through its nose, while for his part he rubbed its face.

When he mounted and rode on, he came across a narrow worn track, which he followed until he came to a mountain in which there was a defile, along which he rode for the rest of the day and all through the night until morning. In the distance could be seen an obscure, dark and stinking lake, and when he got there he dismounted gloomily and, taking some filth from it, he put it over his heart. He unbridled the mare in
a show of sympathy, but although it started to graze, what it cropped tasted too foul to be ingested. As the prince had been suffering from sleeplessness he closed his eyes and lost consciousness.

Just then at the edge of the lake a boat appeared, and from it ten black men, as big as buffaloes, emerged and pounced on him before he could resist. When they had seized him the mare shied away and galloped off like a wild beast up into the mountains, but as it had never been there before it lost its way.

So much for the prince, but as for his escort, they were at a loss to know what had happened to him and went around searching for him unsuccessfully throughout the desert. When they had despaired because of his lengthy absence the vizier said: ‘I told him, but he did not accept what I said, and now what is past is past.’ He sent word to the king and insisted that he would stay where he was until God granted him relief from his sorrows by allowing him a sight of the prince.

He did this, while the king, on hearing the news, was reduced to helplessness and had the horses’ tails clipped in sorrow for the loss of his son. He filled the night watches with his cries, while the boy’s mother almost killed herself with grief and cut off her hair, as did her maids. The citizens wore black mourning and all the king’s men were filled with grief.

The king built a tomb for his son in his palace and stayed beside it, mourning and lamenting like a mother bereaved of her child and as restless as a grain of corn in a frying pan. The prince’s mother and her maids were shrieking and, with the spread of the news, the king lost all powers of endurance.

He sent everywhere to look for information, and word reached the servant of what had happened to the prince after he had been sent as a messenger. The chamberlain to whom he had gone had made him his doorkeeper and put him in charge of his affairs, allowing him to do what he wanted. When he heard of what had happened to the prince and that the secret had come out he made a show of grief in front of the son of the king’s servant. So much for the king.

The vizier and his men stayed where they were for eighteen days after the prince had gone missing. Meanwhile the mare had gone up the mountains and over the hills, facing fearful perils, until God brought it to the right path, which it began to follow. It had become emaciated through lack of fodder but when it reached the vizier’s camp it caught sight of the other horses and approached them snuffling. There were
people all around it, but it went on until it reached its stall, where it fell down dead. This was an even greater blow to the escort than the absence of the prince, and the vizier shed bitter tears as he stripped it of its trappings and buried it in a shroud out of respect for the king and the prince. He then gave orders for the party to move and he rode on with them until he had reached home. The day of their arrival was one of great solemnity as the only one missing from their ranks was the young Kaukab, for whom they turned their saddles upside down and lowered their banners.

So much for them, but as for the prince, when the black men had seized him he remained tied up for the rest of the day until nightfall. His captors then went to a narrow gulf whose fresh water was whiter than milk and sweeter than honey. They followed this until late evening, when they went ashore and collected wood for a fire. When it had blazed up they brought up the prince and threw him down, still tied up, and looked at one another. One of them told them that he should be given food lest he die, but they did not accept the suggestion.

Kaukab went up to them, behaving as though he was one of them. He had heard that the king’s chamberlain was of Magian stock and amongst them was a brother of his. And when they saw what he was doing they asked him what his religion was. ‘It is that of my father Ghasab, the king’s chamberlain.’ On hearing this, they went up to him and kissed the ground in front of him, exclaiming: ‘He is the brother of our leader! We have a gift for him, and tomorrow we shall be on the Saihun.’

They gave Kaukab something to eat and, after eating it, he sat until nightfall when they spread bedding for him in an attractive place, making him welcome. He slept until morning, when he sat looking at the water until afternoon. What he could see was a large stretch of water with clashing waves into whose stinking waters our [
sic
] gulf entered. This led to the open sea and was the way home for the blacks.

They went to a spot where, after taking their evening meal, they spent the night and they went on like this for ten days, after which they were in sight of castles, fields and estates. When the owner of one of these was approached with a request for food he produced enough for a whole month together with wines of various types and he extended a welcome to Kaukab.

After three days the company left and moved to a large and splendid island with many trees and fruits of many kinds, carpeted with saffron, where they stretched their legs after having moored their boat to a stake.
Kaukab decided to keep nothing back from them and when they asked him for his story he said: ‘We were out hunting and I followed a gazelle, but when I failed to catch it I became confused and didn’t know how to get back to my companions.’

The blacks believed his story and, after eating and drinking peacefully, they drank wine as the breeze blew and the water flowed while the trees rustled gently in the moonlight. They went on like this until dawn, by which time they fell into a drunken sleep to make up for their sleepless night. While they were unconscious Kaukab got up, exclaiming: ‘God is greater!’, and cut their throats before dragging them to the river, into which they sank like stones.

Kaukab then removed the stake to which the boat was moored, and it set off as fast as lightning. It was only a short time before he came in sight of land, where people were swarming like locusts. Porters came and removed the boat’s cargo, taking it to an inn and leaving the boat moored to the shore. Kaukab himself put on magnificent clothes and started to go around the city inspecting its shops.

So much for him, but as for the drowned bodies of the blacks, when they floated to the surface, people cried out that their throats had been cut, and word of this reached the chamberlain. He and the sultan came with three others and when they had looked at the faces, the sultan said: ‘Let them go to hell.’ One of them, however, whose name was ‘Umar, was recognized, and the chamberlain sent his servant to the citadel, where the doorkeeper was given the news. He went to the black slave, who had taken the food to the boat and who was mortally afraid of him, and asked him about those who had been on board. He named them one by one and added that with them had been a young boy with a moon-like face who said that he was your eldest son. On hearing this, the chamberlain told him to go off and to say nothing if anyone questioned him.

The chamberlain thought over the details of his plan and asked those around him whether anyone had come ashore from the boat. An old man with jug-like ears and a rope tied round his waist came up to him and said respectfully: ‘Master, I saw someone wearing a face veil followed by two porters who were carrying all his bedding and belongings.’ The chamberlain called for the head porter and consulted him privately, after which the man left briefly before coming back to speak to him and the chamberlain then, surrounded by men, went to the door of the inn.

Before Kaukab knew what was happening, when he looked up there
was the chamberlain and a crowd of people around him. The chamberlain sent a mamluk to tell him to come to his house, which he quickly did, going in and sitting with the mamluk as he was instructed. The chamberlain dismounted and ordered him to be brought to him. ‘Kaukab!’ he exclaimed on seeing him, and when Kaukab answered, he asked what he was doing there. ‘This is something decreed by God,’ Kaukab replied, and when the chamberlain asked where his mother was he said that she was in the city with his father. ‘Whoever suffers does not forget,’ said the chamberlain, ‘and the man who was responsible for this exile of mine will have to put up with this misfortune as the Lord of mankind has put you into my hands.’

On the chamberlain’s orders Kaukab was tied up, thrown down on the ground and beaten until he fainted, after which a heavy brick was tied to his feet and he was left at the side of the house. He stayed like that for ten days in accordance with the will of God and to fulfil the destiny He had decreed, but when the king returned to the city the chamberlain became afraid that someone who had a connection with Kaukab or could recognize him might catch sight of him, and so he removed him by night and put him in a dungeon amongst the thieves. He then went early in the morning to present his services to the king, who greeted him and called him forward to take the seat that he enjoyed thanks to his privileged position. He then told him to order a general release of prisoners in the hope that God might restore him to health after a long illness that had been getting worse since the disappearance of Kaukab – ‘and I wish that I may be his ransom,’ he added.

On hearing this, the chamberlain said: ‘News has come that he has reappeared and entered the city, filling it with his moon-like radiance.’ ‘Chamberlain,’ exclaimed the king when he heard this, ‘for this news you deserve a jewelled robe of honour.’ He produced one as valuable as Caesar’s kingdom and publicly invested him with it. When it had been put on, all who were present offered their services, saying: ‘This man has enjoyed such good fortune with the king as has never been known at any time at all.’

The chamberlain rode off, followed by the people, who only dispersed when he had reached the door of his house and gone in. He then sat down to think out a subtle scheme, asking himself how he could kill Kaukab if people had seen him. He did not sleep until night had passed and light had returned. When the crowds at the gate saw him coming out they called down blessings on him, surging around him until he
reached the royal palace and approached to present his services to the king before taking his seat.