The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Shaving of Shagpat by Meredith, v3
#9 in our series by George Meredith
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Title: The Shaving of Shagpat, v3
Author: George Meredith
Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4403]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 21, 2001]
Edition: 10
Language: English
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Shaving of Shagpat by Meredith, v3
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This etext was produced by Pat Castevans
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THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT
By George Meredith
AN ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENT
1898/1909
BOOK 3.
Contents:
THE LILY OF THE ENCHANTED SEA
STORY OF NOORNA BIN NOORKA, THE GENIE KARAZ, AND THE PRINCESS OF OOLB
THE WILES OF RABESQURAT
THE PALACE OF AKLIS
THE SONS OF AKLIS
THE SWORD OF AKLIS
THE LILY OF THE ENCHANTED SEA
Now, after the cockle-shell had skimmed calmly awhile, it began to pitch
and grew unquiet, and came upon a surging foam, pale, and with
scintillating bubbles. The surges increased in volume, and boiled,
hissing as with anger, like savage animals. Presently, the cockle-shell
rose upon one very lofty swell, and Shibli Bagarag lost hold of it, and
lo! it was overturned and engulfed in the descent of the great mountain
of water, and the Princess Goorelka was immersed in the depths. She
would have sunk, but Shibli Bagarag caught hold of her, and supported her
to the shore by the strength of his right arm. The shore was one of sand
and shells, their wet cheeks sparkling in the moonlight; over it hung a
promontory, a huge jut of black rock. Now, the Princess when she landed,
seeing not him that supported her, delayed not to run beneath the rock,
and ascended by steps cut from the base of the rock. And Shibli Bagarag
followed her by winding paths round the rock, till she came to the
highest peak commanding the circle of the Enchanted Sea, and glimpses of
enthralled vessels, and mariners bewitched on board; long paths of
starlight rippled into the distant gloom, and the reflection of the moon
opposite was as a wide nuptial sheet of silver on the waters: islands,
green and white, and with soft music floating from their foliage, sailed
slowly to and fro. Surely, to dwell reclining among the slopes of those
islands a man would forfeit Paradise! Now, the Princess, as she stood
upon the peak, knew that she was not alone, and pretended to slip from
her footing, and Shibli Bagarag called out and ran to her; but she turned
in the direction of his voice and laughed, and he knew he was outwitted.
Then, to deceive her, he dropped from the phial twenty drops round her on
the rock, and those twenty drops became twenty voices, so that she was
bewildered with their calls, and stopped her ears, and ran from them, and
descended from the eminence nimbly, slipping over ledges and leaping the
abysses. And Shibli Bagarag followed her, clutching at the trailers and
tearing them with him, letting loose a torrent of stones and earth, till
on a sudden they stood together above a greenswarded basin of the rock
opening to the sea; and in the middle of the basin, lo! in stature like a
maiden of the mountains, and one that droopeth her head pensively
thinking of her absent lover, the Enchanted Lily. Wonder knocked at the
breast of Shibli Bagarag when he saw that queenly flower waving its
illumined head to the breeze: he could not retain a cry of rapture. As
he did this the Princess stretched her hand to where he was and groped a
moment, and caught him by the silken dress and tore in it a great rent,
and by the rent he stood revealed to her. Then said she, 'O youth, thou
halt done ill to follow me here, and the danger of it is past computing;
surely, the motive was a deep one, nought other than the love of me.'
She spoke winningly, sweet words to a luted voice, and the youth fell
upon his knees before her, smitten by her beauty; and he said, 'I
followed thee here as I would follow such loveliness to the gates of
doom, O Princess of Oolb.'
She smiled and said playfully, 'I will read by thy hand whether thou be
one faithful in love.'
She took his hand and sprinkled on it earth and gravel, and commenced
scanning it curiously. As she scanned it her forehead wrinkled up, and a
shot like black lightning travelled across her countenance, withering its
beauty: she cried in a forced voice, 'Aha! it is well, O youth, for thee
and for me that thou lovest me, and art faithful in love.'
The look of the Princess of Oolb and her voice affrighted the soul of
Shibli Bagarag, and he would have turned from her; but she held him, and
went to the Lily, and emptied into the palm of her hand the dew that was
in the Lily, and raised it to the lips of Shibli Bagarag, bidding him
drink as a pledge for her sake and her love, and to appease his thirst.
As he was about to drink, there fell into the palm of the Princess from
above what seemed a bolt of storm scattering the dew; and after he had
blinked with the suddenness of the action he looked and beheld the hawk,
its red eyes inflamed with wrath. And the hawk screamed into the ear of
Shibli Bagarag, 'Pluck up the Lily ere it is too late, O fool!--the dew
was poison! Pluck it by the root with thy right hand!'
So thereat he strode to the Lily, and grasped it, and pulled with his
strength; and the Lily was loosened, and yielded, and came forth
streaming with blood from the bulb of the root; surely the bulb of the
root was a palpitating heart, yet warm, even as that we have within our
bosoms.
Now, from the terror of that sight the Princess hid her eyes, and shrank
away. And the lines of malice, avarice, and envy seemed ageing her at
every breath. Then the hawk pecked at her three pecks, and perched on a
corner of rock, and called shrilly the name 'Karaz!' And the Genie Karaz
came slanting down the night air, like a preying bird, and stood among
them. So the hawk cried, 'See, O Karaz, the freshness of thy Princess of
Oolb'; and the Genie regarded her till loathing curled his lip, for she
grew in ghastliness to the colour of a frog, and a frog's face was hers,
a camel's back, a pelican's throat, the legs of a peacock.
Then the hawk cried, 'Is this how ye meet, ye lovers,--ye that will be
wedded?' And the hawk made his tongue as a thorn to them. At the last
it exclaimed, 'Now let us fight our battle, Karaz!'
But the Genie said, 'Nay, there will come a time for that, traitress!'
The hawk cried, 'Thou delayest, till the phial of Paravid, the hairs of
Garraveen, and this Lily, my three helps, are expended, thinking Aklis,
for which we barter them, striketh but a single blow? That is well! Go,
then, and take thy Princess, and obtain permission of the King of Oolb,
her father, to wed her, O Karaz!'
The hawk whistled with laughter, and the Genie was stung with its
mockeries, and clutched the Princess of Oolb in a bunch, and arose from
the ground with her, slanting up the night-air like fire, till he was
seen high up even as an angry star reddening the seas beneath.
When he was lost to the eye, Shibli Bagarag drew a long breath and cried
aloud, 'The likeness of that Princess of Oolb in her ugliness to Noorna,
my betrothed, is a thing marvellous, if it be not she herself.' And he
reflected, 'Yet she seemed not to recognize and claim me'; and thought,
'I am bound to her by gratitude, and I should have rescued her from
Karaz, but I know not if it be she. Wullahy! I am bewildered; I will ask
counsel of the hawk.' He looked to the corner of the rock where the hawk
had perched, but the hawk was gone; as he searched for it, his eyes fell
upon the bed of earth where the Lily stood ere he plucked it, and lo! in
the place of the Lily, there was a damsel dressed in white shining silks,
fairer than the enchanted flower, straighter than the stalk of it; her
head slightly drooping, like the moon on a border of the night; her bosom
like the swell of the sea in moonlight; her eyes dark, under a low arch
of darker lashes, like stars on the skirts of storm; and she was the very
dream of loveliness, formed to freeze with awe, and to inflame with
passion. So Shibli Bagarag gazed at her with adoration, his hands
stretched half-way to her as if to clasp her, fearing she was a vision
and would fade; and the damsel smiled a sweet smile, and lifted her
antelope eyes, and said, 'Who am I, and to whom might I be likened, O
youth?'
And he answered, 'Who thou art, O young perfection, I know not, if not a
Houri of Paradise; but thou art like the Princess of Oolb, yet lovelier,
oh lovelier! And thy voice is the voice of Noorna, my betrothed; yet
purer, sweeter, younger.'
So the damsel laughed a laugh like a sudden sweeping of wild chords of
music, and said, 'O youth, saw'st thou not the ascent of Noorna, thy
betrothed, gathered in a bunch by Karaz?'
And he answered, 'I saw her; but I knew not, O damsel of beauty; surely I
was bewildered, amazed, without power to contend with the Genie.'
Then she said, 'Wouldst thou release her? So kiss me on the lips, on the
eyes, and on the forehead, three kisses each time; and with the first
say, "By the well of Paravid"; and with the second, "By the strength of
Garraveen!" and with the third, "By the Lily of the Sea!"'
Now, the heart of the youth bounded at her words, and he went to her, and
trembling kissed her all bashfully on the lips, on the eyes, and on the
forehead, saying each time as she directed. Then she took him by the
hand, and stepped from the bed of earth, crying joyfully, 'Thanks be to
Allah and the Prophet! Noorna, is released from the sorceries that held
her, and powerful.'
So, while he was wondering, she said, 'Knowest thou not the woman, thy
betrothed?'
He answered, 'O damsel of beauty, I am charged with many feelings; doubts
and hopes are mixed in me. Say first who thou art, and fill my two ears
with bliss.'
And she said, 'I will leave my name to other lips; surely I am the
daughter of the Vizier Feshnavat, betrothed to a wandering youth,--a
barber, who sickened at the betrothal, and consoled himself with a
proverb when he gave me the kiss of contract, and knew not how with truth
to pay me a compliment.'
Now, Shibli Bagarag saw this was indeed Noorna bin Noorka, his betrothed,
and he fell before her in love and astonishment; but she lifted him to
her neck, and embraced him, saying, 'Said I not truly when I said "I am
that I shall be"? My youth is not as that of Bhanavar the Beautiful,
gained at another's cost, but my own, and stolen from me by wicked
sorceries.' And he cried, 'Tell me, O Noorna, my betrothed, how this
matter came to pass?'
She said, 'On our way to Aklis.'
She bade him grasp the Lily, and follow her; and he followed her down the
rock and over the bright shells upon the sand, admiring her stateliness,
her willowy lightness, her slimness as of the palm-tree. Then she waded
in the water, and began to strike out with her arms, and swim boldly,--he
likewise; and presently they came to a current that hurried them off in
its course, and carried them as weeds, streaming rapidly. He was bearing
witness to his faith as a man that has lost hope of life, when a strong
eddy stayed him, and whirled him from the current into the calm water.
So he looked for Noorna, and saw her safe beside him flinging back the
wet tresses from her face, that was like the full moon growing radiant
behind a dispersing cloud. And she said, 'Ask not for the interpretation
of wonders in this sea, for they cluster like dates on a date branch.
Surely, to be with me is enough?'
And she bewitched him in the midst of the waters, making him oblivious of
all save her, so that he hugged the golden net of her smiles and fair
flatteries, and swam with an exulting stroke, giving his breast broadly
to the low billows, and shouting verses of love and delight to her. And
while they swam sweetly, behold, there was seen a pearly shell of
flashing crimson, amethyst, and emerald, that came scudding over the
waves toward them, raised to the wind, fan-shaped, and in its front two
silver seats. When she saw it, Noorna cried, 'She has sent me this,
Rabesqurat! Perchance is she favourable to my wishes, and this were
well!'
Then she swayed in the water sideways, and drew the shell to her, and the
twain climbed into it, and sat each on one of the silver seats, folded
together. In its lightness it was as a foam-bubble before the wind on
the blue water, and bore them onward airily. At his feet Shibli Bagarag
beheld a stool of carved topaz, and above his head the arch of the shell
was inlaid with wreaths of gems: never was vessel fairer than that.
Now, while they were speeding over the water, Noorna said, 'The end of
this fair sea is Aklis, and beyond it is the Koosh. So while the wind is
our helmsman, and we go circled by the quiet of this sea, I'll tell thee
of myself, if thou carest to hear.'
And he cried with the ardour of love, 'Surely, I would hear of nought
save thyself, Noorna, and the music of the happy garden compareth not in
sweetness with it. I long for the freshness of thy voice, as the desert
camel for the green spring, O my betrothed!'
So she said, 'And now give ear to the following':--
AND THIS IS THE STORY OF NOORNA BIN NOORKA, THE GENIE KARAZ, AND THE
PRINCESS OF OOLB
Know, that when I was a babe, I lay on my mother's bosom in the
wilderness, and it was the bosom of death. Surely, I slept and smiled,
and dreamed the infant's dream, and knew not the coldness of the thing I
touched. So were we even as two dead creatures lying there; but life was
in me, and I awoke with hunger at the time of feeding, and turned to my
mother, and put up my little mouth to her for nourishment, and sucked
her, but nothing came. I cried, and commenced chiding her, and after a
while it was as decreed, that certain horsemen of a troop passing through
the wilderness beheld me, and seeing my distress and the helpless being I
was, their hearts were stirred, and they were mindful of what the poet
says concerning succour given to the poor, helpless, and innocent of this
world, and took me up, and mixed for me camel's milk and water from the
bags, and comforted me, and bore me with them, after they had paid
funeral rites to the body of my mother.
Now, the rose-bud showeth if the rose-tree be of the wilds or of the
garden, and the chief of that troop seeing me born to the uses of
gentleness, carried me in his arms with him to his wife, and persuaded
her that was childless to make me the child of their adoption. So I
abode with them during the period of infancy and childhood, caressed and
cared for, as is said:
The flower a stranger's hand may gather,
Strikes root into the stranger's breast;
Affection is our mother, father,
Friend, and of cherishers the best.
And I loved them as their own child, witting not but that I was their
child, till on a day while I played among some children of my years, the
daughter of the King of Oolb passed by us on a mule, with her slaves and
drawn swords, and called to me, 'Thou little castaway!' and had me
brought to her, and peered upon my face in a manner that frightened me,
for I was young. Then she put me down from the neck of her mule where
she had seated me, saying, 'Child of a dead mother and a runaway father,
what need I fear from thy like, and the dreams of a love-sick Genie?' So
she departed, but I forgot not her words, and dwelt upon them, and grew
fevered with them, and drooped. Now, when he saw my bloom of health
gone, heaviness on my feet, the light hollowed from my eyes, my
benefactor, Ravaloke--he that I had thought my father--took me between
his knees, and asked me what it was and the cause of my ailing; and I
told him.
Then said he, 'This is so: thou art not my child; but I love thee as
mine, O my little Desert-flower; and why the Princess should fancy fear
of thee I like not to think; but fear thou her, for she is a mask of
wiles and a vine trailing over pitfalls; such a sorceress the world
knoweth not as Goorelka of Oolb.'
Now, I was penetrated by what he said, and ceased to be a companion to
them that loved childish games and romps, and meditated by myself in
gardens and closets, feigning sleep when the elder ones discoursed, that
I might learn something of this mystery, and all that was spoken
perplexed me more, as the sage declareth:
Who in a labyrinth wandereth without clue,
More that he wandereth doth himself undo.
Though I was quick as the quick-eyed falcon, I discovered nought, flying
ever at false game,--
A follower of misleading beams,
A cheated soul, the mock of dreams.
At times I thought that it was the King of Oolb was my father, and
plotted to come in his path; and there were kings and princes of far
countries whom I sought to encounter, that they might claim me; but none
claimed me. O my betrothed, few gave me love beside Ravaloke, and when
the wife that he cherished died, he solely, for I was lost in waywardness
and the slave of moody imaginings. 'Tis said:
If thou the love of the world for thyself wouldst gain,
mould thy breast
Liker the world to become, for its like the world loveth best;
and this was not I then.
Now, the sons and daughters of men are used to celebrate the days of
their birth with gifts and rejoicings, but I could only celebrate that
day which delivered me from death into the hands of Ravaloke, as none
knew my birth-hour. When it was the twelfth return of this event,
Ravaloke, my heart's father, called me to him and pressed in my hand a
glittering coin, telling me to buy with it in the bazaars what I would.
So I went forth, attended by a black slave, after the mid-noon, for I was
eager to expend my store, and cared not for the great heat. Scarcely had
we passed the cheese-market and were hurrying on to shops of the
goldsmiths and jewellers, when I saw an old man, a beggar, in a dirty
yellow turban and pieced particoloured cloth-stuff, and linen in rags his
other gear. So lean was he, and looked so weak that I wondered he did
other than lay his length on the ground; and as he asked me for alms his
voice had a piteousness that made me to weep, and I punished my slave for
seeking to drive him away, and gave my one piece of gold into his hand.
Then he asked me what I required of him in exchange, and I said, 'What
can a poor old man that is a beggar give?' He laughed, and asked me then
what I had intended to buy with that piece of money. So, beginning to
regret the power that was gone from me of commanding with my gold piece
this and that fine thing, I mused, and said, 'Truly, a blue dress
embroidered with gold, and a gold crown, and gold bracelets set with
turquoise stones,--these, and toys; but could I buy in this city a book
of magic, that were my purchase.'
The old fellow smiled, and said to my black slave, 'And thou, hadst thou
this coin, what were thy purchase therewith?'
He, scoffing the old beggar, answered, 'A plaister for sores as broad as
my back, and a camel's hump, O thou old villain!'
The old man grunted in his chest, and said, 'Thou art but a camel
thyself, to hinder a true Mussulman from passing in peace down a street
of Oolb; so 'twere a good purchase and a fitting: know'st thou what is
said of the blessing given by them that receive a charity?
"'Tis the fertilizing dew that streameth after the sun,
Strong as the breath of Allah to bless life well begun."
So is my blessing on the little damsel, and she shall have her wish,
wullahy, thou black face! and thou thine.'
This spake the old man, and hobbled off while my slave was jeering him.
So I strolled through the bazaars and thought no more of the old man's
words, and longed to purchase a hundred fineries, and came to the
confectioner's, and smelt the smell of his musk-scented sweetmeats and
lemon sweets and sugared pistachios that are delicious to crunch between
the teeth. My mouth watered, and I said to my slave, 'O Kadrab, a coin,
though 'twere small, would give us privilege in yonder shop to select,
and feast, and approve the skill of the confectioner.'
He grinned, and displayed in his black fist a petty coin of exchange, but
would not let me have it till I had sworn to give no more away to
beggars. So even as we were hurrying into the shop, another old beggar
wretcheder than the first fronted me, and I was moved, and forgot my
promise to Kadrab, and gave him the money. Then was Kadrab wroth, and
kicked the old beggar with his fore-foot, lifting him high in air, and
lo! he did not alight, but rose over the roofs of the houses and beyond
the city, till he was but a speck in the blue of the sky above. So
Kadrab bit his forefinger amazed, and glanced at his foot, and at what
was visible of the old beggarman, and again at his foot, thinking but of
what he had done with it, and the might manifested in that kick, fool
that he was! All the way homeward he kept scanning the sky and lifting
his foot aloft, and I saw him bewildered with a strange conceit, as the
poet has exclaimed in his scorn:
Oh, world diseased! oh, race empirical!
Where fools are the fathers of every miracle!
Now, when I was in my chamber, what saw I there but a dress of very
costly blue raiment with gold-work broidery and a lovely circlet of gold,
and gold bracelets set with stones of turquoise, and a basket of gold
woven wire, wherein were toys, wondrous ones--soldiers that cut off each
other's heads and put them on again, springing antelopes, palm-trees that
turned to fountains, and others; and lo! a book in red binding, with
figures on it and clasps of gold, a great book! So I clapped my hands
joyfully, crying, 'The old beggar has done it!' and robed myself in the
dress, and ran forth to tell Ravaloke. As I ran by a window looking on
the inner court, I saw below a crowd of all the slaves of Ravaloke round
one that was seeking to escape from them, and 'twas Kadrab with a camel's
hump on his back, and a broad brown plaister over it, the wretch howling,
peering across his shoulder, and trying to bolt from his burden, as a
horse that would run from his rider. Then I saw that Kadrab also had his
wish, his camel's hump, and thought, 'The old beggar, what was he but a
Genie?' Surely Ravaloke caressed me when he heard of the adventure, and
what had befallen Kadrab was the jest of the city; but for me I spared
little time away from that book, and studied in it incessantly the ways
and windings of magic, till I could hold communication with Genii, and
wield charms to summon them, and utter spells that subdue them,
discovering the haunts of talismans that enthral Afrites and are powerful
among men. There was that Kadrab coming to me daily to call out in the
air for the old beggarman to rid him of his hump; and he would waste
hours looking up into the sky moodily for him, and cursing the five toes
of his foot, for he doubted not the two beggars were one, and that he was
punished for the kick, and lamented it direly, saying in the thick of his
whimperings, 'I'd give the foot that did it to be released from my hump,
O my fair mistress.' So I pitied him, and made a powder and a spell, and
my first experiment in magic was to relieve Kadrab of his hump, and I
succeeded in loosening it, and it came away from him, and sank into the
ground of the garden where we stood. So I told Kadrab to say nothing of
this, but the idle-pated fellow blabbed it over the city, and it came to
the ears of Goorelka. Then she sent for me to visit her, and by the
advice of Ravaloke I went, and she fondled me, and sought to get at the
depth of my knowledge by a spell that tieth every faculty save the
tongue, and it is the spell of vain longing. Now, because I baffled her
arts she knew me more cunning than I seemed, and as night advanced she
affected to be possessed with pleasure in me, and took me in her arms and
sought to fascinate me, and I heard her mutter once, 'Shall I doubt the
warning of Karaz?' So presently she said, 'Come with me'; and I went
with her under the curtain of that apartment into another, a long saloon,
wherein were couches round a fountain, and beyond it an aviary lit with
lamps: when we were there she whistled, and immediately there was a
concert of birds, a wondrous accord of exquisite piping, and she leaned
on a couch and took me by her to listen; sweet and passionate was the
harmony of the birds; but I let not my faculties lull, and observed that
round the throat of every bird was a ringed mark of gold and stamps of
divers gems similar in colour to a ring on the forefinger of her right
hand, which she dazzled my sight with as she flashed it. When we had
listened a long hour to this music, the Princess gazed on me as if to
mark the effect of a charm, and I saw disappointment on her lovely face,
and she bit her lip and looked spiteful, saying, 'Thou art far gone in
the use of magic, and wary, O girl!' Then she laughed unnaturally, and
called slaves to bring in sweet drinks to us, and I drank with her, and
became less wary, and she fondled me more, calling me tender names,
heaping endearments on me; and as the hour of the middle-night approached
I was losing all suspicion in deep languor, and sighed at the song of the
birds, the long love-song, and dozed awake with eyes half shut. I felt
her steal from me, and continued still motionless without alarm: so was I
mastered. What hour it was or what time had passed I cannot say, when a
bird that was chained on a perch before me--a very quaint bird, with a
topknot awry, and black, heavy bill, and ragged gorgeousness of plumage--
the only object between my lids and darkness, suddenly, in the midst of
the singing, let loose a hoarse laugh that was followed by peals of
laughter from the other birds. Thereat I started up, and beheld the
Princess standing over a brazier, and she seized a slipper from her foot
and flung it at the bird that had first laughed, and struck him off his
perch, and went to him and seized him and shook him, crying, 'Dare to
laugh again!' and he kept clearing his throat and trying to catch the
tune he had lost, pitching a high note and a low note; but the marvel of
this laughter of the bird wakened me thoroughly, and I thanked the bird
in my soul, and said to Goorelka, 'More wondrous than their singing, this
laughter, O Princess!'
She would not speak till she had beaten every bird in the aviary, and
then said in the words of the poet:
Shall they that deal in magic match degrees of wonder?
From the bosom of one cloud comes the lightning and the thunder.
Then said she, 'O Noorna! I'll tell thee truly my intent, which was to
enchant thee; but I find thee wise, so let us join our powers, and thou
shah become mighty as a sorceress.'
Now, Ravaloke had said to me, 'Her friendship is fire, her enmity frost;
so be cold to the former, to the latter hot,' and I dissembled and
replied, 'Teach me, O Princess!'
So she asked me what I could do. Could I plant a mountain in the sea and
people it? could I anchor a purple cloud under the sun and live there a
year with them I delighted in? could I fix the eyes of the world upon one
head and make the nations bow to it; change men to birds, fishes to men;
and so on--a hundred sorceries that I had never attempted and dreamed not
of my betrothed! I had never offended Allah by a misuse of my powers.
When I told her, she cried, 'Thou art then of a surety she that's fitted
for the custody of the Lily of the Light, so come with me.'
Now, I had heard of the Lily, even this thou holdest may its influence be
unwithering!--and desired to see it. So she led me from the palace to
the shore of the sea, and flung a cockleshell on the waters, and seated
herself in it with me in her lap; and we scudded over the waters, and
entered this Enchanted Sea, and stood by the Lily. Then, I that loved
flowers undertook the custody of this one, knowing not the consequences
and the depth of her wiles. 'Tis truly said:
The overwise themselves hoodwink,
For simple eyesight is a modest thing:
They on the black abysm's brink
Smile, and but when they fall bitterly think,
What difference 'twixt the fool and me, Creation's King?
Nevertheless for awhile nothing evil resulted, and I had great joy in the
flower, and tended it with exceeding watchfulness, and loved it, so that
I was brought in my heart to thank the Princess and think well of her.
Now, one summer eve as Ravaloke rested under the shade of his garden
palm, and I studied beside him great volumes of magic, it happened that
after I had read certain pages I closed one of the books marked on the
cover 'Alif,' and shut the clasp louder than I intended, so that he who
was dozing started up, and his head was in the sloped sun in an instant,
and I observed the shadow of his head lengthen out along the grass-plot
towards the mossed wall, and it shot up the wall, darkening it--then
drawing back and lessening, then darting forth like a beast of darkness
irritable for prey. I was troubled, for whatso is seen while the volume
Alif is in use hath a portent; but the discovery of what this might be
baffled me. So I determined to watch events, and it was not many days
ere Ravaloke, who was the leader of the armies of the King of Oolb, was
called forth to subdue certain revolted tributaries of the King, and at
my entreaty took me with him, and I saw battles and encounters lasting a
day's length. Once we were encamped in a fruitful country by a brook
running with a bright eye between green banks, and I that had freedom and
the password of the camp wandered down to it, and refreshed my forehead
with its coolness. So, as I looked under the falling drops, lo! on the
opposite bank the old beggar that had given me such fair return for my
alms and Kadrab his hump! I heard him call, 'This night is the key to
the mystery,' and he was gone. Every incantation I uttered was
insufficient to bring him back. Surely, I hurried to the tents and took
no sleep, watching zealously by the tent of Ravaloke, crouched in its
shadow. About the time of the setting of the moon I heard footsteps
approach the tent within the circle of the guard, and it was a youth that
held in his hand naked steel. When he was by the threshold of the tent,
I rose before him and beheld the favourite of Ravaloke, even the youth he
had destined to espouse me; so I reproached him, and he wept, denying not
the intention he had to assassinate Ravaloke, and when his soul was
softened he confessed to me, ''Twas that I might win the Princess
Goorelka, and she urged me to it, promising the King would promote me to
the vacant post of Ravaloke.'
Then I said to him, 'Lov'st thou Goorelka?'
And he answered, 'Yea, though I know my doom in loving her; and that it
will be the doom of them now piping to her pleasure and denied the
privilege of laughter.'
So I thought, 'Oh, cruel sorceress! the birds are men!' And as I mused,
my breast melted with pity at their desire to laugh, and the little
restraint they had upon themselves notwithstanding her harshness; for
could they think of their changed condition and folly without laughter?
and the folly that sent them fresh mates in misery was indeed matter for
laughter, fed to fulness by constant meditation on the perch. Meantime,
I uncharmed the youth and bade him retire quickly; but as he was going,
he said, 'Beware of the Genie Karaz!' Then I held him back, and after
a parley he told me what he had heard the Princess say, and it was that
Karaz had seen me and sworn to possess me for my beauty. 'Strangely
smiled Goorelka when she spake that,' said he.
Now, the City of Oolb fronts the sea, and behind it is a mountain and
a wood, where the King met Ravaloke on his return victorious over the
rebels. So, to escape the eye of the King I parted with Ravaloke, and
sought to enter the city by a circuitous way; but the paths wound about
and zigzagged, and my slaves suffered nightfall to surprise us in the
entanglements of the wood. I sent them in different directions to strike
into the main path, retaining Kadrab at the bridle of my mule; but that
creature now began to address me in a familiar tone, and he said
something of love for me that enraged me, so that I hit him a blow. Then
came from him sounds like the neighing of mares, and lo! he seized me and
rose with me in the air, and I thought the very heavens were opening to
that black beast, when on a sudden he paused, and shot down with me from
heights of the stars to the mouth of a cavern by the Putrid Sea, and
dragged me into a cavern greatly illuminated, hung like a palace chamber,
and supported on pillars of shining jasper. Then I fell upon the floor
in a swoon, and awaking saw Kadrab no longer, but in his place a Genie.
O my soul, thou halt seen him!--I thought at once, ''tis Karaz!' and when
he said to me, 'This is thy abode, O lady! and I he that have sworn to
possess thee from the hour I saw thee in the chamber of Goorelka,' then
was I certain 'twas Karaz. So, collecting the strength of my soul,
I said, in the words of the poet:
'Woo not a heart preoccupied!
What thorn is like a loathing bride?
Mark ye the shrubs how they turn from the sea,
The sea's rough whispers shun?
But like the sun of heaven be,
And every flower will open wide.
Woo with the shining patience we
Beheld in heaven's sun.'
Then he sang:
Exquisite lady! name the smart
That fills thy heart.
Thou art the foot and I the worm:
Prescribe the Term.
Finding him compliant, I said, 'O great Genie, truly the search of my
life has been to discover him that is, my father, and how I was left in
the wilderness. There 's no peace for me, nor understanding the word of
love, till I hear by whom I was left a babe on the bosom of a dead
mother.'
He exclaimed, and his eyes twinkled, ''Tis that? that shalt thou know in a
span of time. O my mistress, hast thou seen the birds of Goorelka? Thy
father Feshnavat is among them, perched like a bird.'
So I cried, 'And tell me how he may be disenchanted.'
He said, 'Swear first to be mine unreluctantly.'
Then I said, 'What is thy oath?'
He answered, 'I swear, when I swear, by the Identical.'
Thereupon I questioned him concerning the Identical, what it was; and he,
not suspecting, revealed to me the mighty hair in his head now in the
head of Shagpat, even that. So I swore by that to give myself to the
possessor of the Identical, and flattered him. Then said he, 'O lovely
damsel, I am truly one of the most powerful of the Genii; yet am I in
bondage to that sorceress Goorelka by reason of a ring she holdeth; and
could I get that ring from her and be slave to nothing mortal an hour, I
could light creation as a torch, and broil the inhabitants of earth at
one fire.'
I thought, 'That ring is known to me!' And he continued, 'Surely I
cannot assist thee in this work other than by revealing the means of
disenchantment, and it is to keep the birds laughing uninterruptedly an
hour; then are they men again, and take the forms of men that are
laughers--I know not why.'
So I cried, ''Tis well! carry me back to Oolb.'
Then the Genie lifted me into the air, and ceased not speeding rapidly
through it, till I was on the roof of the house of Ravaloke. O sweet
youth! moon of my soul! from that time to the disenchantment of
Feshnavat, I pored over my books, trying experiments in magic, dreadful
ones, hunting for talismans to countervail Goorelka; but her power was
great, and 'twas not in me to get her away from the birds one hour to
free them. On a certain occasion I had stolen to them, and kept them
laughing with stories of man to within an instant of the hour; and they
were laughing exultingly with the easy happy laugh of them that perceive
deliverance sure, when she burst in and beat them even to the door of
death. I saw too in her eyes, that glowed like the eyes of wild cats in
the dark, she suspected me, and I called Allah to aid the just cause
against the sinful, and prepared to war with her.
Now, my desire, which was to liberate my father and his fellows in
tribulation, I knew pure, and had no fear of the sequel, as is declared:
Fear nought so much as Fear itself; for arm'd with Fear the Foe
Finds passage to the vital part, and strikes a double blow.
So one day as I leaned from my casement looking on the garden seaward, I
saw a strange red and yellow-feathered bird that flew to the branch of a
citron-tree opposite, with a ring in its beak; and the bird was singing,
and with every note the ring dropped from its bill, and it descended
swiftly in an arrowy slant downward, and seized it ere it reached the
ground, and commenced singing afresh. When I had marked this to happen
many times, I thought, 'How like is this bird to an innocent soul
possessed of magic and using its powers! Lo, it seeketh still to sing as
one of the careless, and cannot relinquish the ring and be as the
careless, and between the two there is neither peace for it nor
pleasure.' Now, while my eyes were on the pretty bird, dwelling on it, I
saw it struck suddenly by an arrow beneath the left wing, and the bird
fluttered to my bosom and dropped in it the ring from its beak. Then it
sprang weakly, and sought to fly and soar, and fluttered; but a blue film
lodged over its eyes, and its panting was quickly ended. So I looked at
the ring and knew it for that one I had noted on the finger of Goorelka.
Red blushed my bliss, and 'twas revealed to me that the bird was of the
birds of the Princess that had escaped from her with the ring. I buried
the bird, weeping for it, and flew to my books, and as I read a glow
stole over me. O my betrothed, eyes of my soul! I read that the
possessor of that ring was mistress of the marvellous hair which is a
magnet to the homage of men, so that they crowd and crush and hunger to
adore it, even the Identical! This was the power that peopled the aviary
of Goorelka, and had well-nigh conquered all the resistance of my craft.
Now, while I read there arose a hubbub and noise in the outer court, and
shrieks of slaves. The noise approached with rapid strides, and before I
could close my books Goorelka burst in upon me, crying, 'Noorna! Noorna!'
Wild and haggard was her head, and she rushed to my books and saw them
open at the sign of the ring: then began our combat. She menaced me as
never mortal was menaced. Rapid lightning-flashes were her
transformations, and she was a serpent, a scorpion, a lizard, a lioness
in succession, but I leapt perpetually into fresh rings of fire and of
witched water; and at the fiftieth transformation, she fell on the floor
exhausted, a shuddering heap. Seeing that, I ran from her to the aviary
in her palace, and hurried over a story of men to the birds, that rocked
them on their perches with chestquakes of irresistible laughter. Then
flew I back to the Princess, and she still puffing on the floor,
commenced wheedling and begging the ring of me, stinting no promises. At
last she cried, 'Girl! what is this ring to thee without beauty? Thy
beauty is in my keeping.'
And I exclaimed, 'How? how?' smitten to the soul.
She answered, 'Yea; and I can wear it as my own, adding it to my own,
when thou'rt a hag!'
My betrothed! I was on the verge of giving her the ring for this secret,
when a violent remote laughter filled the inner hollow of my ears, and it
increased, till the Princess heard it; and now the light of my casement
was darkened with birds, the birds of Goorelka, laughing as on a wind of
laughter. So I opened to them, and they darted in, laughing all of them,
till I could hold out no longer, and the infection of laughter seized me,
and I rolled with it; and the Princess, she too laughed a hyaena-laugh
under a cat's grin, and we all of us remained in this wise some minutes,
laughing the breath out of our bodies, as if death would take us. Whoso
in the City of Oolb heard us, the slaves, the people, and the King,
laughed, knowing not the cause. This day is still remembered in Oolb as
the day of laughter. Now, at a stroke of the hour the laughter ceased,
and I saw in the chamber a crowd of youths and elders of various ranks;
but their visages were become long and solemn as that of them that have
seen a dark experience. 'Tis certain they laughed little in their lives
from that time, and the muscles of their cheeks had rest. So I caught
down my veil, and cried to the Princess, 'My father is among these; point
him out to me.'
Ere she replied one stepped forth, even Feshnavat, my father, and called
me by name, and knew me by a spot on the left arm, and made himself known
to me, and told me the story of my dead mother, how she had missed her
way from the caravan in the desert, and he searching her was set upon by
robbers, and borne on their expeditions. Nothing said he of the
sorceries of Goorelka, and I, not wishing to provoke the Princess,
suffered his dread to exist. So I kissed him, and bowed my head to him,
and she fled from the sight of innocent happiness. Then took I the ring,
and summoned Karaz, and ordered him to reinstate all those princes and
chiefs and officers in their possessions and powers, on what part of
earth soever that might be. Never till I stood as the Lily and thy voice
sweetened the name of love in my ears, heard I aught of delicate
delightfulness, like the sound of their gratitude. Many wooed me to let
them stay by me and guard me, and do service all their lives to me; but
this I would not allow, and though they were fair as moons, some of them,
I responded not to their soft glances, speaking calmly the word of
farewell, for I was burdened with other thoughts.
Now, when the Genie had done my bidding, he returned to me joyfully. My
soul sickened to think myself his by a promise; but I revolved the words
of my promise, and saw in them a loophole of escape. So, when he claimed
me, I said, 'Ay! ay! lay thy head in my lap,' as if my mind treasured it.
Then he lay there, and revealed to me his plans for the destruction of
men. 'Or,' said he, 'they shall be our slaves and burden-beasts, for
there 's now no restraint on me, now thou art mistress of the ring, and
mine.' Thereupon his imagination swelled, and he saw his evil will
enthroned, and the hopes of men beneath his heel, crying, 'And the more I
crush them the thicker they crowd, for the Identical compelleth their
very souls to adore in spite of distaste.'
Then said I, 'Tell me, O Genie! is the Identical subservient to me in
another head save thine?'
He answered, 'Nay I in another head 'tis a counteraction to the power of
the Ring, the Ring powerless over it.'
And I said, 'Must it live in a head, the Identical?'
Cried he, 'Woe to what else holdeth it!'
I whispered in his hairy pointed red ear, 'Sleep! sleep!' and lulled him
with a song, and he slept, being weary with my commissioning. Then I
bade Feshnavat, my father, fetch me one of my books of magic, and read in
it of the discovery of the Identical by means of the Ring; and I took the
Ring and hung it on a hair of my own head over the head of the Genie, and
saw one of the thin lengths begin to twist and dart and writhe, and shift
lustres as a creature in anguish. So I put the Ring on my forefinger,
and turned the hair round and round it, and tugged. Lo, with a noise
that stunned me, the hair came out! O my betrothed, what shrieks and
roars were those: with which the Genie awoke, finding himself bare of the
Identical! Oolb heard them, and the sea foamed like the mouth of
madness, as the Genie sped thunder-like over it, following me in mid-air.
Such a flight was that! Now, I found it not possible to hold the
Identical, for it twisted and stung, and was nigh slipping from me while
I flew. I saw white on a corner of the Desert, a city, and I descended
on it by the shop of a clothier that sat quietly by his goods and stuffs,
thinking of fate less than of kabobs and stews and rare seasonings. That
city hath now his name. Wullahy, had I not then sown in his head that
hair which he weareth yet, how had I escaped Karaz, and met thee?
Wondrous are the decrees of Providence! Praise be to Allah for them! So
the Genie, when he found himself baffled by me, and Shagpat with the
mighty hair in his head, the Identical, he yelled, and fetched Shagpat a
slap that sent him into the middle of the street; but Kadza screamed
after him, and there was immediately such lamentation in the city about
Shagpat, and such tearing of hair about him, that I perceived at once the
virtue that was in the Identical. As for Karaz, finding his claim as
possessor of the Identical no more valid, he vanished, and has been my
rebellious slave since, till thou, O my betrothed, mad'st me spend him in
curing thy folly on the horse Garraveen, and he escaped from my circles
beyond the dominion of the Ring; yet had he his revenge, for I that was
keeper of the Lily, had, I now learned ruefully, a bond of beauty with
it, and whatever was a stain to one withered the other. Then that
sorceress Goorelka stole my beauty from me by sprinkling a blight on the
petals of the fair flower, and I became as thou first saw'st me. But
what am I as I now am? Blissful! blissful! Surely I grew humble with
the loss of beauty, and by humility wise, so that I assisted Feshnavat to
become Vizier by the Ring, and watched for thy coming to shave Shagpat,
as a star watcheth; for 'tis written, 'A barber alone shall be shearer of
the Identical'; and he only, my betrothed, hath power to plant it in
Aklis, where it groweth as a pillar, bringing due reverence to Aklis.
THE WILES OF RABESQURAT
Now, when Noorna bin Noorka had made an end of her narration, she folded
her hands and was mute awhile; and to the ear of Shibli Bagarag it seemed
as if a sweet instrument had on a sudden ceased luting. So, as he
leaned, listening for her voice to recommence, she said quickly, 'See
yonder fire on the mountain's height!'
He looked and saw a great light on the summit of a lofty mountain before
them.
Then said she, 'That is Aklis! and it is ablaze, knowing a visitant near.
Tighten now the hairs of Garraveen about thy wrist; touch thy lips with
the waters of Paravid; hold before thee the Lily, and make ready to enter
the mountain. Lo, my betrothed, thou art in possession of the three
means that melt opposition, and the fault is thine if thou fail.'
He did as she directed; and they were taken on a tide and advanced
rapidly to the mountain, so that the waters smacked and crackled beneath
the shell, covering it with silver showering arches of glittering spray.
Then the fair beams of the moon became obscured, and the twain reddened
with the reflection of the fire, and the billows waxed like riotous
flames; and presently the shell rose upon the peak of many waves swollen
to one, and looking below, they saw in the scarlet abyss of waters at
their feet a monstrous fish, with open jaws and one baleful eye; and the
fish was lengthy as a caravan winding through the desert, and covered
with fiery scales. Shibli Bagarag heard the voice of Noorna shriek
affrightedly, 'Karaz!' and as they were sliding on the down slope, she
stood upright in the shell, pronouncing rapidly some words in magic; and
the shell closed upon them both, pressing them together, and writing
darkness on their very eyeballs. So, while they were thus, they felt
themselves gulped in, and borne forward with terrible swiftness, they
knew not where, like one that hath a dream of sinking; and outside the
shell a rushing, gurgling noise, and a noise as of shouting multitudes,
and muffled multitudes muttering complaints and yells and querulous
cries, told them they were yet speeding through the body of the depths in
the belly of the fish. Then there came a shock, and the shell was struck
with light, and they were sensible of stillness without motion. Then a
blow on the shell shivered it to fragments, and they were blinded with
seas of brilliancy on all sides from lamps and tapers and crystals,
cornelians and gems of fiery lustre, liquid lights and flashing mirrors,
and eyes of crowding damsels, bright ones. So, when they had risen, and
could bear to gaze on the insufferable splendour, they saw sitting on a
throne of coral and surrounded by slaves with scimitars, a fair Queen,
with black eyes, kindlers of storms, torches in the tempest, and with
floating tresses, crowned with a circlet of green-spiked precious stones
and masses of crimson weed with flaps of pearl; and she was robed with a
robe of amber, and had saffron sandals, loose silvery-silken trousers
tied in at the ankle, the ankle white as silver; wonderful was the
quivering of rays from the jewels upon her when she but moved a finger!
Now, as they stood with their hands across their brows, she cried out, 'O
ye traversers of my sea! how is this, that I am made to thank Karaz for
a sight of ye?'
And Noorna bin Noorka answered, 'Surely, O Queen Rabesqurat, the haven of
our voyage was Aklis, and we feared delay, seeing the fire of the
mountain ablaze with expectations of us.'
Then the Queen cried angrily, ''Tis well thou hadst wit to close the
shell, O Noorna, or there would have been delay indeed. Say, is not the
road to Aklis through my palace? And it is the road thousands travel.'
So Noorna bin Noorka said, 'O Queen, this do they; but are they of them
that reach Aklis?'
And the Queen cried violently, purpling with passion, 'This to me! when I
helped ye to the plucking of the Lily?'
Now, the Queen muttered an imprecation, and called the name 'Abarak!' and
lo, a door opened in one of the pillars of jasper leading from the
throne, and there came forth a little man, humped, with legs like bows,
and arms reaching to his feet; in his hand a net weighted with leaden
weights. So the Queen levelled her finger at Noorna, and he spun the net
above her head, and dropped it on her shoulder, and dragged her with him
to the pillar. When Shibli Bagarag saw that, the world darkened to him,
and he rushed upon Abarak; but Noorna called swiftly in his ear, 'Wait!
wait! Thou by thy spells art stronger than all here save Abarak. Be
true! Remember the seventh pillar!' Then, with a spurn from the hand of
Abarak, the youth fell back senseless at the feet of the Queen.
Now, with the return of consciousness his hearing was bewitched with
strange delicious melodies, the touch of stringed instruments, and others
breathed into softly as by the breath of love, delicate, tender, alive
with enamoured bashfulness. Surely, the soul that heard them dissolved
like a sweet in the goblet, mingling with so much ecstasy of sound; and
those melodies filling the white cave of the ear were even at once to
drown the soul in delightfulness and buoy it with bliss, as a heavy-
leaved flower is withered and refreshed by sun and dews. Surely, the
youth ceased not to listen, and oblivion of cares and aught other in this
life, save that hidden luting and piping, pillowed his drowsy head. At
last there was a pause, and it seemed every maze of music had been
wandered through. Opening his eyes hurriedly, as with the loss of the
music his own breath had gone likewise, he beheld a garden golden with
the light of lamps hung profusely from branches and twigs of trees by the
glowing cheeks of fruits, apple and grape, pomegranate and quince; and he
was reclining on a bank piled with purple cushions, his limbs clad in the
richest figured silks, fringed like the ends of clouds round the sun,
with amber fringes. He started up, striving to recall the confused
memory of his adventures and what evil had befallen him, and he would
have struggled with the vision of these glories, but it mastered him with
the strength of a potent drug, so that the very name of his betrothed was
forgotten by him, and he knew not whither he would, or the thing he
wished for. Now, when he had risen from the soft green bank that was his
couch, lo, at his feet a damsel weeping! So he lifted her by the hand,
and she arose and looked at him, and began plaining of love and its
tyrannies, softening him, already softened. Then said she, 'What I
suffer there is another, lovelier than I, suffering; thou the cause
of it, O cruel youth!'
He said, 'How, O damsel? what of my cruelty? Surely, I know nothing
of it.'
But she exclaimed, 'Ah, worse to feign forgetfulness!'
Now, he was bewildered at the words of the damsel, and followed her
leading till they entered a dell in the garden canopied with foliage,
and beyond it a green rise, and on the rise a throne. So he looked
earnestly, and beheld thereon Queen Rabesqurat, she sobbing, her dark
hair pouring in streams from the crown of her head. Seeing him, she
cleared her eyes, and advanced to meet him timidly and with hesitating
steps; but he shrank from her, and the Queen shrieked with grief, crying,
'Is there in this cold heart no relenting?'
Then she said to him winningly, and in a low voice, 'O youth, my husband,
to whom I am a bride!'
He marvelled, saying, 'This is a game, for indeed I am no husband,
neither have I a bride . . . yet have I confused memory of some betrothal
. . .'
Thereupon she cried, 'Said I not so? and I the betrothed.'
Still he exclaimed, 'I cannot think it! Wullahy, it were a wonder!'
So she said, 'Consider how a poor youth of excellent proportions came to
a flourishing Court before one, a widowed Queen, and she cast eyes of
love on him, and gave him rule over her and all that was hers when he had
achieved a task, and they were wedded. Oh, the bliss of it! Knit
together with bond and a writing; and these were the dominions, I the
Queen, woe's me!--thou the youth!'
Now, he was roiled by the enchantments of the Queen, caught in the snare
of her beguilings; and he let her lead him to a seat beside her on the
throne, and sat there awhile in the midst of feastings, mazed, thinking,
'What life have I lived before this, if the matter be as I behold?'
thinking, ''Tis true I have had visions of a widowed queen, and I a poor
youth that came to her court, and espoused her, sitting in the vacant
seat beside her, ruling a realm; but it was a dream, a dream,--yet, wah!
here is she, here am I, yonder my dominions!' Then he thought, 'I will
solve it!' So, on a sudden he said to her beside him, 'O Queen,
sovereign of hearts! enlighten me as to a perplexity.'
She answered, 'The voice of my lord is music in the ear of the bride.'
Then said he, in the tone of one doubting realities, 'O fair Queen, is
there truly now such a one as Shagpat in the world?'
She laughed at his speech and the puzzled appearance of his visage,
replying, 'Surely there liveth one, Shagpat by name in the world; strange
is the history of him, his friends, and enemies; and it would bear
recital.'
Then he said, 'And one, the daughter of a Vizier, Vizier to the King in
the City of Shagpat?'
Thereat, she shook her head, saying, 'I know nought of that one.'
Now, Shibli Bagarag was mindful of his thwackings; and in this the wisdom
of Noorna, is manifest, that the sting of them yet chased away doubts of
illusion regarding their having been, as the poet says,
If thou wouldst fix remembrance--thwack!
'Tis that oblivion controls;
I care not if't be on the back,
Or on the soles.
He thought, 'Wah! yet feel I the thong, and the hiss of it as of the
serpent in the descent, and the smack of it as the mouth of satisfaction
in its contact with tender regions. This, wullahy! was no dream.'
Nevertheless, he was ashamed to allude thereto before the Queen, and he
said, 'O my mistress, another question, one only! This Shagpat--is he
shaved?'
She said, 'Clean shorn!'
Quoth he, astonished, grief-stricken, with drawn lips, 'By which hand,
chosen above men?'
And she exclaimed, 'O thou witty one that feignest not to know! Wullahy!
by this hand of thine, O my lord and king, daring that it is; dexterous!
surely so! And the shaving of Shagpat was the task achieved,--I the
dower of it, and the rich reward.'
Now, he was meshed yet deeper in the net of her subtleties, and by her
calling him 'lord and king'; and she gave a signal for fresh
entertainments, exhausting the resources of her art, the mines of her
wealth, to fascinate him. Ravishments of design and taste were on every
side, and he was in the lap of abundance, beguiled by magic, caressed by
beauty and a Queen. Marvel not that he was dazzled, and imagined himself
already come to the great things foretold of him by the readers of
planets and the casters of nativities in Shiraz. He assisted in
beguiling himself, trusting wilfully to the two witnesses of things
visible; as is declared by him of wise sayings:
There is in every wizard-net a hole,
So the entangler first must blind the soul.
And it is again said by that same teacher:
Ye that the inner spirit's sight would seal,
Nought credit but what outward orbs reveal.
And the soul of Shibli Bagarag was blinded by Rabesqurat in the depths of
the Enchanted Sea. She sang to him, luting deliriously; and he was
intoxicated with the blissfulness of his fortune, and took a lute and
sang to her love-verses in praise of her, rhyming his rapture. Then they
handed the goblet to each other, and drank till they were on fire with
the joy of things, and life blushed beauteousness. Surely, Rabesqurat
was becoming forgetful of her arts through the strength of those
draughts, till her eye marked the Lily by his side, which he grasped
constantly, the bright flower, and she started and said, 'One grant, O my
King, my husband!'
So he said courteously, 'All grants are granted to the lovely, the
fascinating; and their grief will be lack of aught to ask for?'
Then said she, 'O my husband, my King, I am jealous of that silly flower:
laugh at my weakness, but fling it from thee.'
Now, he was about to cast it from him, when a vanity possessed his mind,
and he exclaimed, 'See first the thing I will do, a wonder.'
She cried, 'No wonders, my life! I am sated with them.'
And he said, 'I am oblivious, O Queen, of how I came by this flower and
this phial; but thou shalt hear a thing beyond the power of common magic,
and see that I am something.'
Now, she plucked at him to abstain from his action, but he held the phial
to the flower. She signed imperiously to some slaves to stay his right
wrist, and they seized on it; but not all of them together could withhold
him from dropping a drop into the petals of the flower, and lo, the Lily
spake, a voice from it like the voice of Noorna, saying, 'Remember the
Seventh Pillar.' Thereat, he lifted his eyes to his brows and frowned
back memory to his aid, and the scene of Karaz, Rabesqurat, Abarak, and
his betrothed was present to him. So perceiving that, the Queen delayed
not while he grasped the phial to take in her hands some water from a
basin near, and flung it over him, crying, 'Oblivion!' And while his
mind was straining to bring back images of what had happened, he fell
forward once more at the feet of Rabesqurat, senseless as a stone falls;
such was the force of her enchantments.
Now, when he awoke the second time he was in the bosom of darkness, and
the Lily gone from his hand; so he lifted the phial to make certain of
that, and groped about till he came to what seemed an urn to the touch,
and into this he dropped a drop, and asked for the Lily; and a voice
said, 'I caught a light from it in passing.' And he came in the darkness
to a tree, and a bejewelled bank, and other urns, and swinging lamps
without light, and a running water, and a grassy bank, and flowers, and a
silver seat, sprinkling each; and they said all in answer to his question
of the Lily, 'I caught a light from it in passing.' At the last he
stumbled upon the steps of a palace, and ascended them, endowing the
steps with speech as he went, and they said, 'The light of it went over
us.' He groped at the porch of the palace, and gave the door a voice,
and it opened on jasper hinges, shrieking, 'The light of it went through
me.' Then he entered a spacious hall, scattering drops, and voices
exclaimed, 'We glow with the light of it.' He passed, groping his way
through other halls and dusk chambers, scattering drops, and as he
advanced the voices increased in the fervour of their replies, saying
sequently: 'We blush with the light of it; We beam with the light of it;
We burn with the light of it.' So, presently he found himself in a long
low room, sombrely lit, roofed with crystals; and in a corner of the
room, lo! a damsel on a couch of purple, she white as silver, spreading
radiance. Of such lustrous beauty was she that beside her, the Princess
Goorelka as Shibli Bagarag first beheld her, would have paled like a
morning moon; even Noorna had waned as Both a flower in fierce heat; and
the Queen of Enchantments was but the sun behind a sand-storm, in
comparison with that effulgent damsel on the length of the purple couch.
Well for him he wilt of the magic which floated through that palace; as
is said,
Tempted by extremes,
The soul is most secure;
Too vivid loveliness blinds with its beams,
And eyes turned inward perceive the lure.
Pulling down his turban hastily, he stepped on tiptoe to within arm's
reach of her, and, looking another way, inclined over her soft vermeil
mouth the phial slowly till it brimmed the neck, and dropped a drop of
Paravid between the bow of those sweet lips. Still not daring to gaze on
her, he said then, 'My question is of the Lily, the Lily of the Sea, and
where is it, O marvel?'
And he heard a voice answer in the tones of a silver bell, clear as a
wind in strung wires, 'Where I lie, lies the Lily, the Lily of the Sea; I
with it, it with me.'
Said he, 'O breather of music, tell me how I may lay hand on the flower
of beauty to bear it forth.'
And he heard the voice, 'An equal space betwixt my right side and my
left, and from the shoulder one span and half a span downward.'
Still without power to eye her, he measured the space and the spans, his
hand beneath the coverlids of the couch, and at a spot of the bosom his
hand sank in, and he felt a fluttering thing, fluttering like a frighted
bird in the midst of the fire. And the voice said, 'Quick, seize it, and
draw it out, and tie it to my feet by the twines of red silk about it.'
He seized it and drew it out, and it was a heart--a heart of blood-
streaming with crimson, palpitating. Tears flashed on his sight
beholding it, and pity took the seat of fear, and he turned his eyes full
on her, crying, 'O sad fair thing! O creature of anguish! O painful
beauty! Oh, what have I done to thee?'
But she panted, and gasped short and shorter gasps, pointing with one
finger to her feet. Then he took the warm living heart while it yet
leapt and quivered and sobbed; and he held it with a trembling hand, and
tied it by the red twines of silk about it to her feet, staining their
whiteness. When that was done, his whole soul melted with pity and
swelled with sorrow, and ere he could meet her eyes a swoon overcame him.
Surely, when the world dawned to him a third time in those regions the
damsel was no longer there, but in her place the Lily of Light. He
thought, 'It was a vision, that damsel! a terrible one; one to terrify
and bewilder! a bitter sweetness! Oh, the heart, the heart!' Reflecting
on the heart brought to his lids an overcharging of tears, and he wept
violently awhile. Then was he warned by the thought of his betrothed to
take the Lily and speed with it from the realms of Rabesqurat; and he
stole along the halls of the palace, and by the plashing fountains, and
across the magic courts, passing chambers of sleepers, fair dreamers, and
through ante-rooms crowded with thick-lipped slaves. Lo, as he held the
Lily to light him on, and the light of the Lily fell on them that were
asleep, they paled and shrank, and were such as the death-chill maketh of
us. So he called upon his head the protection of Allah, and went
swifter, to chase from his limbs the shudder of awe; and there were some
that slept not, but stared at him with fixed eyes, eyes frozen by the
light of the Lily, and he shunned those, for they were like spectres,
haunting spirits. After he had coursed the length of the palace, he came
to a steep place outside it, a rock with steps cut in stairs, and up
these he went till he came to a small door in the rock, and lying by it a
bar; so he seized the bar and smote the door, and the door shivered, for
on his right wrist were the hairs of Garraveen. Bending his body, he
slipped through the opening, and behold, an orchard dropping blossoms and
ripe golden fruits, streams flowing through it over sands, and brooks
bounding above glittering gems, and long dewy grasses, profusion of
scented flowers, shade and sweetness. So he let himself down to the
ground, which was an easy leap from the aperture, and walked through the
garden, holding the Lily behind him, for here it darkened all, and the
glowing orchard was a desert by its light. Presently, his eye fell on a
couch swinging between two almond trees, and advancing to it he beheld
the black-eyed Queen gathered up, folded temptingly, like a swaying
fruit; she with the gold circlet on her head, and she was fair as blossom
of the almond in a breeze of the wafted rose-leaf. Sweetly was she
gathered up, folded temptingly, and Shibli Bagarag refrained from using
the Lily, thinking, "Tis like the great things foretold of me, this
having of Queens within the very grasp, swinging to and fro as if to
taunt backwardness!' Then he thought, "Tis an enchantress! I will yet
try her.' So he made a motion of flourishing the Lily once or twice, but
forbore, fascinated, for she had on her fair face the softness of sleep,
her lips closed in dimples, and the wicked fire shut from beneath her
lids. Mastering his mind, the youth at last held the Lily to her, and
saw a sight to blacken the world and all bright things with its
hideousness. Scarce had he time to thrust the Lily in his robes, when
the Queen started up and clapped her hands, crying hurriedly, 'Abarak!
Abarak!' and the little man appeared in a moment at the door by which
Shibli Bagarag had entered the orchard. So, she cried still, 'Abarak!'
and he moved toward her. Then she said, 'How came this youth here,
prying in my private walks, my bowers? Speak!'
He answered, 'By the aid of Garraveen only, O Queen! and there is no
force resisteth the bar so wielded.'
Rabesqurat looked under her brows at Shibli Bagarag and saw the horror on
his face, and she cried out to Abarak in an agony, 'Fetch me the mirror!'
Then Abarak ran, and returned ere the Queen had drawn seven impatient
breaths, and in one hand he bore a sack, in the other a tray: so he
emptied the contents of the sack on the surface of the tray; surely they
were human eyes! and the Queen flung aside her tresses, and stood over
them. The youth saw her smile at them, and assume tender and taunting
manners before them, and imperious manners, killing glances, till in each
of the eyes there was a sparkle. Then she flung back her head as one
that feedeth on a mighty triumph, exclaiming, 'Yet am I Rabesqurat! wide
is my sovereignty.' Sideways then she regarded Shibli Bagarag, and it
seemed she was urging Abarak to do a deed beyond his powers, he frowning
and pointing to the right wrist of the youth. So she clenched her hands
an instant with that feeling which knocketh a nail in the coffin of a
desire not dead, and controlled herself, and went to the youth, breaking
into beams of beauty; and an enchanting sumptuousness breathed round her,
so that in spite of himself he suffered her to take him by the hand and
lead him from that orchard through the shivered door and into the palace
and the hall of the jasper pillars. Strange thrills went up his arm from
the touch of that Queen, and they were as little snakes twisting and
darting up, biting poison-bites of irritating blissfulness.
Now, the hall was spread for a feast, and it was hung with lamps of
silver, strewn with great golden goblets, and viands, coloured meats, and
ordered fruits on shining platters. Then said she to Shibli Bagarag, 'O
youth! there shall be no deceit, no guile between us. Thou art but my
guest, I no bride to thee, so take the place of the guest beside me.'
He took his seat beside her, Abarak standing by, and she helped the youth
to this dish and that dish, from the serving of slaves, caressing him
with flattering looks to starve aversion and nourish tender fellowship.
And he was like one that slideth down a hill and can arrest his descent
with a foot, yet faileth that freewill. When he had eaten and drunk with
her, the Queen said, 'O youth, no other than my guest! art thou not a
prince in the country thou comest from?'
In a moment the pride of the barber forsook him, and he equivocated,
saying, 'O Queen! there is among the stars somewhere, as was divined by
the readers of planets, a crown hanging for me, and I search a point of
earth to intercept its fall.'
She marked him beguiled by vanity, and put sweetmeats to his mouth,
exclaiming, 'Thy manners be those of a prince!' Then she sang to him of
the loneliness of her life, and of one with whom she wished to share her
state,--such as he. And at her signal came troops of damsels that stood
in rings and luted sweetly on the same theme--the Queen's loneliness, her
love. And he said to the Queen, 'Is this so?'
She answered, 'Too truly so!'
Now, he thought, 'She shall at least speak the thing that is, if she look
it not.' So he took the goblet, and contrived to drop a drop from the
phial of Paravid therein without her observing him; and he handed her the
goblet, she him; and they drank. Surely, the change that came over the
Queen was an enchantment, and her eyes shot lustre, her tongue was
loosed, and she laughed like one intoxicated, lolling in her seat, lost
to majesty and the sway of her magic, crying, 'O Abarak! Abarak! little
man, long my slave and my tool; ugly little man! And O Shibli Bagarag!
nephew of the barber! weak youth! small prince of the tackle! have I not
nigh fascinated thee? And thou wilt forfeit those two silly eyes of
thine to the sack. And, O Abarak, Abarak! little man, have I flattered
thee? So fetter I the strong with my allurements! and I stay the arrow
in its flight! and I blunt the barb of high intents! Wah! I have drunk a
potent stuff; I talk! Wullahy! I know there is a danger menacing
Shagpat, and the eyes of all Genii are fixed on him. And if he be
shaved, what changes will follow! But 'tis in me to delude the barber,
wullahy! and I will avert the calamity. I will save Shagpat!'
While the Queen Rabesqurat prated in this wise with flushed face, Shibli
Bagarag was smitten with the greatness of his task, and reproached his
soul with neglect of it. And he thought, 'I am powerful by spells as
none before me have been, and 'twas by my weakness the Queen sought to
tangle me. I will clasp the Seventh Pillar and make an end of it, by
Allah and his Prophet (praised be the name!), and I will reach Aklis by a
short path and shave Shagpat with the sword.'
So he looked up, and Abarak was before him, the lifted nostrils of the
little man wide with the flame of anger. And Abarak said, 'O youth,
regard me with the eyes of judgement! Now, is it not frightful to rate
me little?--an instigation of the evil one to repute me ugly?'
The promptings of wisdom counselled Shibli Bagarag to say, 'Frightful
beyond contemplation, O Abarak! one to shame our species! Surely, there
is a moon between thy legs, a pear upon thy shoulders, and the cock that
croweth is no match for thee in measure.'
Abarak cried, 'We be aggrieved, we two! O youth, son of my uncle, I will
give thee means of vengeance; give thou me means.'
Shibli Bagarag felt scorn at the Queen, and her hollowness, and he said,
''Tis well; take this Lily and hold it to her.'
Now, the Queen jeered Abarak, and as he approached her she shouted,
'What! thou small of build! mite of creation! sour mixture! thou puppet
of mine! thou! comest thou to seek a second kiss against the compact,
knowing that I give not the well-favoured of mortals beyond one, a
second.
Little delayed Abarak at this to put her to the test of the Lily, and he
held the flower to her, and saw the sight, and staggered back like one
stricken with a shaft. When he could get a breath he uttered such a howl
that Rabesqurat in her drunkenness was fain to save her ears, and the
hall echoed as with the bellows of a thousand beasts of the forest.
Then, to glut his revenge he ran for the sack, and emptied the contents
of it, the Queen's mirror, before her; and the sackful of eyes, they saw
the sight, and sickened, rolling their whites. That done, Abarak gave
Shibli Bagarag the bar of iron, and bade him smite the pillars, all save
the seventh; and he smote them strengthily, crumbling them at a blow, and
bringing down the great hall and its groves, and glasses and gems, lamps,
traceries, devices, a heap of ruin, the seventh pillar alone standing.
Then, while he pumped back breath into his body, Abarak said, 'There's no
delaying in this place now, O youth! Say, halt thou spells for the
entering of Aklis?'
He answered, 'Three!'
Then said Abarak, ''Tis well! Surely now, if thou takest me in thy
service, I'll help thee to master the Event, and serve thee faithfully,
requiring nought from thee save a sight of the Event, and 'tis I that
myself missed one, wiled by Rabesqurat.'
Quoth Shibli Bagarag, 'Thou?'
He answered, 'No word of it now. Is't agreed?'
So Shibli Bagarag cried, 'Even so.'
Thereupon, the twain entered the pillar, leaving Rabesqurat prone, and
the waves of the sea bounding toward her where she lay. Now, they
descended and ascended flights of slippery steps, and sped together along
murky passages, in which light never was, and under arches of caves with
hanging crystals, groping and tumbling on hurriedly, till they came to an
obstruction, and felt an iron door, frosty to the touch. Then Abarak
said to Shibli Bagarag, 'Smite!' And the youth lifted the bar to his
right shoulder, and smote; and the door obeyed the blow, and discovered
an opening into a strange dusky land, as it seemed a valley, on one side
of which was a ragged copper sun setting low, large as a warrior's
battered shield, giving deep red lights to a brook that fell, and over a
flat stream a red reflection, and to the sides of the hills a dark red
glow. The sky was a brown colour; the earth a deeper brown, like the
skins of tawny lions. Trees with reddened stems stood about the valley,
scattered and in groups, showing between their leaves the cheeks of
melancholy fruits swarthily tinged, and toward the centre of the valley a
shining palace was visible, supported by massive columns of marble
reddened by that copper sun. Shibli Bagarag was awed at the stillness
that hung everywhere, and said to Abarak, 'Where am I, O Abarak? the look
of this place is fearful!'
And the little man answered, 'Where, but beneath the mountains in Aklis?
Wullahy! I should know it, I that keep the passage of the seventh
pillar!'
Then the thought of his betrothed Noorna, and her beauty, and the words,
'Remember the seventh pillar,' struck the heart of Shibli Bagarag, and he
exclaimed passionately, 'Is she in safety? Noorna, my companion, my
betrothed, netted by thee, O Abarak!'
Abarak answered sharply, 'Speak not of betrothals in this place, or the
sword of Aklis will move without a hand!'
But Shibli Bagarag waxed the colour of the sun that was over them, and
cried, 'By Allah! I will smite thee with the bar, if thou swear not to
her safety, and point not out to me where she now is.'
Then said Abarak, 'Thou wilt make a better use of the bar by lifting it
to my shoulder, and poising it, and peering through it.'
Shibli Bagarag lifted the bar to the shoulder of Abarak, and poised it,
and peered through the length of it, and lo! there was a sea tossing in
tumult, and one pillar standing erect in the midst of the sea; and on the
pillar, above the washing waves, with hair blown back, and flapping
raiment, pale but smiling still, Noorna, his betrothed!
Now, when he saw her, he made a rush to the door of the passage; but
Abarak blocked the way, crying, 'Fool! a step backward in Aklis is
death!'
And when he had wrestled with him and reined him, Abarak said, 'Haste to
reach the Sword from the sons of Aklis, if thou wouldst save her.'
He drew him to the brink of the stream, and whistled a parrot's whistle;
and Shibli Bagarag beheld a boat draped with drooping white lotuses that
floated slowly toward them; and when it was near, he and Abarak entered
it, and saw one, a veiled figure, sitting in the stern, who neither moved
to them nor spake, but steered the boat to a certain point of land across
the stream, where stood an elephant ready girt for travellers to mount
him; and the elephant kneeled among the reeds as they approached, that
they might mount him, and when they had each taken a seat, moved off,
waving his trunk. Presently the elephant came to a halt, and went upon
his knees again, and the two slid off his back, and were among black
slaves that bowed to the ground before them, and led them to the shining
gates of the palace in silence. Now, on the first marble step of the
palace there sat an old white-headed man dressed like a dervish, who held
out at arm's length a branch of gold with golden singing-birds between
its leaves, saying, 'This for the strongest of ye!'
Abarak exclaimed, 'I am that one'; and he held forth his hand for the
branch.
But Shibli Bagarag cried, 'Nay, 'tis mine. Wullahy, what has not the
strength of this hand overthrown?'
Then the brows of Abarak twisted; his limbs twitched, and he bawled, 'To
the proof!' waking all the echoes of Aklis. Shibli Bagarag was tempted
in his desire for the golden branch to lift the iron bar upon Abarak,
when lo! the phial of Paravid fell from his vest, and he took it, and
sprinkled a portion of the waters over the singing birds, and in a moment
they burst into a sweet union of voices, singing, in the words of the
poet:
When for one serpent were two asses match?
How shall one foe but with wiles master double?
So let the strong keep for ever good watch,
Lest their strength prove a snare, and themselves a mere bubble;
For vanity maketh the strongest most weak,
As lions and men totter after the struggle.
Ye heroes, be modest! while combats ye seek,
The cunning one trippeth ye both with a juggle.
Now, at this verse of the birds Shibli Bagarag fixed his eye on the old
man, and the beard of the old man shrivelled; he waxed in size, and flew
up in a blaze and with a baffled shout bearing the branch; surely, his
features were those of Karaz, and Shibli Bagarag knew him by the length
of his limbs, his stiff ears, and copper skin. Then he laughed a loud
laugh, but Abarak sobbed, saying, 'By this know I that I never should
have seized the Sword, even though I had vanquished the illusions of
Rabesqurat, which held me fast half-way.'
So Shibli Bagarag stared at him, and said, 'Wert thou also a searcher, O
Abarak?'
But Abarak cried, 'Rouse not the talkative tongue of the past, O youth!
Wullahy! relinquish the bar that is my bar, won by me, for the Sword is
within thy grip, and they await thee up yonder steps. Go! go! and look
for me here on thy return.'
THE PALACE OF AKLIS
Now, Shibli Bagarag assured himself of his three spells, and made his
heart resolute, and hastened up the reddened marble steps of the Palace;
and when he was on the topmost step, lo! one with a man's body and the
head of a buffalo, that prostrated himself, and prayed the youth
obsequiously to enter the palace with the title of King. So Shibli
Bagarag held his head erect, and followed him with the footing of a
Sultan, and passed into a great hall, with fountains in it that were
fountains of gems, pearls, chrysolites, thousand-hued jewels, and by the
margin of the fountains were shapes of men with the heads of beasts-
wolves, foxes, lions, bears, oxen, sheep, serpents, asses, that stretched
their hands to the falls, and loaded their vestments with brilliants,
loading them without cessation, so that from the vestments of each there
was another pouring of the liquid lights. Then he with the buffalo's
head bade Shibli Bagarag help himself from the falls; but Shibli Bagarag
refused, for his soul was with Noorna, his betrothed; and he saw her pale
on that solitary pillar in the tumult of the sea, and knew her safety
depended on his faithfulness.
He cried, 'The Sword of Aklis! nought save the Sword!'
Now, at these words the fox-heads and the sheep-heads and the ass-heads
and the other heads of beasts were lifted up, and lo! they put their
hands to their ears, and tapped their foreheads with the finger of
reflection, as creatures seeking to bring to mind a serious matter. Then
the fountains rose higher, and flung jets of radiant jewels, and a
drenching spray of gems upon them, and new thirst aroused them to renew
their gulping of the falls, and a look of eagerness was even in the eyes
of the ass-heads and the silly sheep-heads; surely, Shibli Bagarag
laughed to see them! Now, when he had pressed his lips to recover his
sight from the dazzling of those wondrous fountains, he heard himself
again addressed by the title of King, and there was before him a lofty
cock with a man's head. So he resumed the majesty of his march, and
followed the fine-stepping cock into another hall, spacious, and clouded
with heavy scents and perfumes burning in censers and urns, musk, myrrh,
ambergris, and livelier odours, gladdening the nostril like wine, making
the soul reel as with a draught of the forbidden drink. Here, before a
feast that would prick the dead with appetite, were shapes of beasts with
heads of men, asses, elephants, bulls, horses, swine, foxes, river-
horses, dromedaries; and they ate and drank as do the famished with munch
and gurgle, clacking their lips joyfully. Shibli Bagarag remembered the
condition of his frame when first he looked upon the City of Shagpat, and
was incited to eat and accede to the invitation of the cock with the
man's head, and sit among these merry feeders and pickers of mouth-
watering morsels, when, with the City of Shagpat, lo! he had a vision of
Shagpat, hairier than at their interview, arrogant in hairiness; his head
remote in contemptuous waves and curls and frizzes, and bushy
protuberances of hair, lost in it, like an idolatrous temple in
impenetrable thickets. Then the yearning of the Barber seized Shibli
Bagarag, and desire to shear Shagpat was as a mighty overwhelming wave in
his bosom, and he shouted, 'The Sword of Aklis! nought save the Sword!'
Now, at these words the beasts with men's heads wagged their tails, all
of them, from right to left, and kept their jaws from motion, staring
stupidly at the dishes; but the dishes began to send forth stealthy
steams, insidious whispers to the nose, silver intimations of
savouriness, so that they on a sudden set up a howl, and Shibli Bagarag
puckered his garments from them as from devouring dogs, and hastened from
that hall to a third, where at the entrance a damsel stood that smiled to
him, and led him into a vast marbled chamber, forty cubits high, hung
with draperies, and in it a hundred doors; and he was in the midst of a
very rose-garden of young beauties, such as the Blest behold in Paradise,
robed in the colours of the rising and setting sun; plump, with long,
black, languishing, almond-shaped eyes, and undulating figures. So they
cried to him, 'What greeting, O our King?'
Now, he counted twenty and seven of them, and, fitting his gallantry to
verse, answered:
Poor are the heavens that have not ye
To swell their glowing plenty;
Up there but one bright moon I see,
Here mark I seven-and-twenty.
The damsels laughed and flung back their locks at his flattery, sporting
with him; and he thought, 'These be sweet maidens! I will know if they
be illusions like Rabesqurat'; so, as they were romping, he slung his
right arm round one, and held the Lily to her, but there was no change in
her save that she winked somewhat and her eyes watered; and it was so
with the others, for when they saw him hold the Lily to one they made him
do so to them likewise. Then he took the phial, and touched their lips
with the waters, and lo! they commenced luting and laughing, and singing
verses, and prattling, laughing betweenwhiles at each other; and one, a
noisy one, with long, black, unquiet tresses, and a curved foot and
roguish ankle, sang as she twirled:
My heart is another's, I cannot be tender;
Yet if thou storm it, I fain must surrender.
And another, a fresh-cheeked, fair-haired, full-eyed damsel, strong upon
her instep and stately in the bearing of her shoulders, sang shrilly:
I'm of the mountains, and he that comes to me
Like eagle must win, and like hurricane woo me.
And another, reclining on a couch buried in dusky silks, like a butterfly
under the leaves, a soft ball of beauty, sang moaningly:
Here like a fruit on the branch am I swaying;
Snatch ere I fall, love! there's death in delaying.
And another, light as an antelope on the hills, with antelope eyes edged
with kohl, and timid, graceful movements, and small, white, rounded ears,
sang clearly:
Swiftness is mine, and I fly from the sordid;
Follow me, follow! and you'll be rewarded.
And another, with large limbs and massive mould, that stepped like a cow
leisurely cropping the pasture, and shook with jewels amid her black hair
and above her brown eyes, and round her white neck and her wrists, and on
her waist, even to her ankle, sang as with a kiss upon every word:
Sweet 'tis in stillness and bliss to be basking!
He who would have me, may have for the asking.
And another, with eyebrows like a bow, and arrows of fire in her eyes,
and two rosebuds her full moist parted pouting lips, sang, clasping her
hands, and voiced like the tremulous passionate bulbul in the shadows of
the moon:
Love is my life, and with love I live only;
Give me life, lover, and leave me not lonely.
And a seventh, a very beam of beauty, and the perfection of all that is
imagined in fairness and ample grace of expression and proportion, lo!
she came straight to Shibli Bagarag, and took him by the hand and pierced
him with lightning glances, singing:
Were we not destined to meet by one planet?
Can a fate sever us?--can it, ah! can it?
And she sang tender songs to him, mazing him with blandishments, so that
the aim of existence and the summit of ambition now seemed to him the
life of a king in that palace among the damsels; and he thought, 'Wah!
these be no illusions, and they speak the thing that is in them.
Wullahy, loveliness is their portion; they call me King.'
Then she that had sung to him said, 'Surely we have been waiting thee
long to crown thee our King! Thou hast been in some way delayed, O
glorious one!'
And he answered, 'O fair ones, transcending in affability, I have
stumbled upon obstructions in my journey hither, and I have met with
adventures, but of this crowning that was to follow them I knew nought.
Wullahy, thrice have I been saluted King; I whom fate selecteth for the
shaving of Shagpat, and till now it was a beguilement, all emptiness.'
They marked his bewildered state, and some knelt before him, some held
their arms out adoringly, some leaned to him with glistening looks, and
he was fast falling a slave to their flatteries, succumbing to them;
imagination fired him with the splendours due to one that was a king, and
the thought of wearing a crown again took possession of his soul, and he
cried, 'Crown me, O my handmaidens, and delay not to crown me; for, as
the poet says:
"The king without his crown
Hath a forehead like the clown";
and the circle of my head itcheth for the symbols of majesty.'
At these words of Shibli Bagarag they arose quickly and clapped their
hands, and danced with the nimble step of gladness, exclaiming, 'O our
King! pleasant will be the time with him!' And one smoothed his head and
poured oil upon it; one brought him garments of gold and silk inwoven;
one fetched him slippers like the sun's beam in brightness; others stood
together in clusters, and with lutes and wood-instruments, low-toned,
singing odes to him; and lo! one took a needle and threaded it, and gave
the thread into the hands of Shibli Bagarag, and with the point of the
needle she pricked certain letters on his right wrist, and afterwards
pricked the same letters on a door in the wall. Then she said to him,
'Is it in thy power to make those letters speak?'
He answered, 'We will prove how that may be.'
So he flung some drops from the phial over the letters, and they glowed
the colour of blood and flashed with a report, and it was as if a fiery
forked-tongue had darted before them and spake the words written, and
they were, 'This is the crown of him who bath achieved his aim and
resteth here.' Thereupon, she stuck the needle in the door, and he
pulled the thread, and the door drew apart, and lo! a small chamber, and
on a raised cushion of blue satin a glittering crown, thick with jewels
as a frost, such as Ambition pineth to wear, and the knees of men weaken
and bend beholding, and it lanced lights about it like a living sun.
Beside the cushion was a vacant throne, radiant as morning in the East,
ablaze with devices in gold and gems, a seat to fill the meanest soul
with sensations of majesty and tempt dervishes to the sitting posture.
Shibli Bagarag was intoxicated at the sight, and he thought, 'Wah! but if
I sit on this throne and am a king, with that crown I can command men and
things! and I have but to say, Fetch Noorna, my betrothed, from yonder
pillar in the midst of the uproarious sea!--Let the hairy Shagpat be
shaved! and behold, slaves, thousands of them, do my bidding! Wullahy,
this is greatness!' Now, he made a rush to the throne, but the damsels
held him back, crying, 'Not for thy life till we have crowned thee, our
master and lord!'
Then they took the crown and crowned him with it; and he sat upon the
throne calmly, serenely, like a Sultan of the great race accustomed to
sovereignty, tempering the awfulness of his brows with benignant glances.
So, while he sat the damsels hid their faces and started some paces from
him, as unable to bear the splendour of his presence, and in a moment,
lo! the door closed between him and them, and he was in darkness. Then
he heard a voice of the damsels cry in the hall, 'The ninety and ninth!
Peace now for us and blissfulness with our lords, for now all are filled
save the door of the Sword, which maketh the hundredth.' After that he
heard the same voice say, 'Leave them, O my sisters!'
So he listened to the noise of their departing, and knew he had been
duped. Surely his soul cursed him as he sat crowned and throned in that
darkness! He seized the crown to dash it to the earth, but the crown was
fixed on his forehead and would not come off; neither had he force to
rise from the throne. Now, the thought of Noorna, his betrothed, where
she rested waiting for him to deliver her, filled Shibli Bagarag with the
extremes of anguish; and he lifted his right arm and dashed it above his
head in the violence of his grief, striking in the motion a hidden gong
that gave forth a burst of thunder and a roll of bellowings, and lo! the
door opened before him, and the throne as he sat on it moved out of the
chamber into the hall where he had seen the damsels that duped him, and
on every side of the hall doors opened; and he marvelled to see men, old
and young, beardless and venerable, sitting upon thrones and crowned with
crowns, motionless, with eyes like stones in the recesses. He thought,
'These be other dupes! Wallaby! a drop of the waters of Paravid upon
their lips might reveal mysteries, and guide me to the Sword of my
seeking.' So, as he considered how to get at them from the seat of his
throne, his gaze fell on a mirror, and he beheld the crown on his
forehead what it was, bejewelled asses' ears stiffened upright, and
skulls of monkeys grinning with gems! The sight of that crowning his
head convulsed Shibli Bagarag with laughter, and, as he laughed, his seat
upon the throne was loosened, and he pitched from it, but the crown stuck
to him and was tenacious of its hold as the lion that pounceth upon a
victim. He bowed to the burden of necessity, and took the phial, and
touched the lips of one that sat crowned on a throne with the waters in
the phial; and it was a man of exceeding age, whitened with time, and in
the long sweep of his beard like a mountain clad with snow from the peak
that is in the sky to the base that slopeth to the valley. Then he
addressed the old man on his throne, saying, 'Tell me, O King! how camest
thou here? and in search of what?'
The old man's lips moved, and he muttered in deep tones, 'When cometh he
of the ninety-and-ninth door?'
So Shibli Bagarag cried, 'Surely he is before thee, in Aklis.'
And the old man said, 'Let him ask no secrets; but when he hath reached
the Sword forget not to flash it in this hall, for the sake of
brotherhood in adventure.'
After that he would answer no word to any questioning.
THE SONS OF AKLIS
Now, Shibli Bagarag thought, 'The poet is right in Aklis as elsewhere, in
his words:
"The cunning of our oft-neglected wit
Doth best the keyhole of occasion fit";
and whoso looketh for help from others looketh the wrong way in an
undertaking. Wah! I will be bold and batter at the hundredth door, which
is the door of the Sword.' So he advanced straightway to the door, which
was one of solid silver, charactered with silver letters, and knocked
against it three knocks; and a voice within said, 'What spells?'
He answered, 'Paravid; Garraveen; and the Lily of the Sea!'
Upon that the voice said, 'Enter by virtue of the spells!' and the silver
door swung open, discovering a deep pit, lightened by a torch, and across
it, bridging it, a string of enormous eggs, rocs' eggs, hollowed, and so
large that a man might walk through them without stooping. At the side
of each egg three lamps were suspended from a claw, and the shell passage
was illumined with them from end to end. Shibli Bagarag thought, 'These
eggs are of a surety the eggs of the Roc mastered by Aklis with his
sword!' Now, as the sight of Shibli Bagarag grew familiar to the place,
he beheld at the bottom of the pit a fluttering mass of blackness and two
sickly eyes that glittered below.
Then thought he, 'Wah! if that be the Roc, and it not dead, will the bird
suffer one to defile its eggs with other than the sole of the foot,
naked?' He undid his sandals and kicked off the slippers given him by
the damsels that had duped him, and went into the first egg over the
abyss, and into the second, and into the third, and into the fourth, and
into the fifth. Surely the eggs swung with him, and bent; and the fear
of their breaking and he falling into the maw of the terrible bird made
him walk unevenly. When he had come to the seventh egg, which was the
last, it shook and swung violently, and he heard underneath the flapping
of the wings of the Roc, as with eagerness expecting a victim to prey
upon. He sustained his soul with the firmness of resolve and darted
himself lengthwise to the landing, clutching a hold with his right hand;
as he did so, the bridge of eggs broke, and he heard the feathers of the
bird in agitation, and the bird screaming a scream of disappointment as
he scrambled up the sides of the pit.
Now, Shibli Bagarag failed not to perform two prostrations to Allah, and
raised the song of gratitude for his preservation when he found himself
in safety. Then he looked up, and lo! behind a curtain, steps leading to
an anteroom, and beyond that a chamber like the chamber of kings where
they sit in state dispensing judgements, like the sun at noon in
splendour; and in the chamber seven youths, tall and comely young men,
calm as princes in their port, each one dressed in flowing robes, and
with a large glowing pearl in the front of their turbans. They advanced
to meet him, saying, 'Welcome to Aklis, thou that art proved worthy!
'Tis holiday now with us'; and they took him by the hand and led him with
them in silence past fountain-jets and porphyry pillars to where a
service with refreshments was spread, meats, fowls with rice, sweetmeats,
preserves, palateable mixtures, and monuments of the cook's art, goblets
of wine like liquid rubies. Then one of the youths said to Shibli
Bagarag, 'Thou hast come to us crowned, O our guest! Now, it is not our
custom to pay homage, but thou shalt presently behold them that will, so
let not thy kingliness droop with us, but feast royally.'
And Shibli Bagarag said, 'O my princes, surely it is a silly matter to
crown a mouse! Humility hath depressed my stature! Wullahy, I have had
warning in the sticking of this crown to my brows, and it sticketh like
an abomination.'
They laughed at him, saying, 'It was the heaviness of that crown which
overweighted thee in the bridge of the abyss, and few be they that bear
it and go not to feed the Roc.'
Now, they feasted together, interchanging civilities, offering to each
other choice morsels, dainties. And the anecdotes of Shibli Bagarag, his
simplicity and his honesty, and his vanity and his airiness, and the
betraying tongue of the barber, diverted the youths; and they plied him
with old wine till his stores of merriment broke forth and were as a
river swollen by torrents of the mountain; and the seven youths laughed
at him, spluttering with laughter, lurching with it. Surely, he
described to them the loquacity of Baba Mustapha his uncle, and they
laughed so that their chins were uppermost; but at his mention of Shagpat
greater gravity was theirs, and they smoothed their faces solemnly, and
the sun of their merriment was darkened for awhile. Then they took to
flinging about pellets of a sugared preparation, and reciting verses in
praise of jovial living, challenging to drink this one and that one,
passing the cup with a stanza. Shibli Bagarag thought, 'What a life is
this led by these youths! a fair one! 'Tis they that be the sons of
Aklis who sharpen the Sword of Events; yet live they in jollity, skimming
from the profusion of abundance that which floateth!'
Now, marking him contemplative, one of the youths shouted, 'The King
lacketh homage!'
And another called, 'Admittance for his people!'
Then the seven arose and placed Shibli Bagarag on an elevation in the
midst of them, and lo! a troop of black slaves leading by the collar,
asses, and by a string, monkeys. Now, for the asses they brayed to the
Evil One, and the monkeys were prankish, pulling against the string, till
they caught sight of Shibli Bagarag. Then was it as if they had been
awestricken; and they came forward to him with docile steps, eyeing the
crown on his head, and prostrated themselves, the asses and the monkeys,
like creatures in whom glowed the lamp of reason and the gift of
intelligence. So Shibli Bagarag drooped his jaw and was ashamed, and he
cried, 'my princes! am I a King of these?'
They answered, 'A King in mightiness! Sultan of a race!'
So he said, 'It is certain I shall need physic to support such a
sovereignty! And I must be excused liberal allowances of old wine to sit
in state among them. Wullahy! they were best gone for awhile. Send them
from me, O my princes! I sicken.'
And he called to the animals, 'Away! begone!' frowning.
Then said the youths, 'Well commanded! and like a King! See, they troop
from thy presence obediently.'
Now the animals fled from before the brows of Shibli Bagarag, and when
the chamber was empty of them the seven young men said, 'Of a surety thou
wert flattered to observe the aspect of these animals at beholding thee.'
But he cried, 'Not so, O my princes; there is nought flattering in the
homage of asses and monkeys.'
Then they said, 'O Sultan of asses, ruler of monkeys, better that than
thyself an ass and an ape! As was said by Shah Kasirwan, "I prefer being
king of beasts worshipped by beasts, rather than a crowned beast
worshipped by men"; and it was well said. Wullahy! the kings of Roum
quote it.'
Now Shibli Bagarag was not rendered oblivious of the Sword of his quest
by the humour of these youths, or the wine-bibbings, and he exclaimed
while they were turning up the heels of their cups, 'O ye sons of Aklis,
know that I have come hither for the Sword sharpened by your hands, for
the releasing of my betrothed, Noorna bin Noorka, daughter of the Vizier
Feshnavat, and for the shaving of Shagpat.'
While he was proceeding to recount the story of his search for the Sword,
they said, 'Enough, O potentate of the braying class and of the
scratching tribe! we have seen thee through the eye of Aklis since the
time of thy first thwacking. What says the poet?
"A day for toil and a day for rest
Gives labour zeal, and pleasure zest."
So, of thy seeking let us hear to-morrow; but now drink with us, and make
merry, and touch the springs of memory; spout forth verses, quaint ones,
suitable to the hour and the entertainment. Wullahy! drink with us!
taste life! Let the humours flow.'
Then they made a motion to some slaves, and presently a clattering of
anklets struck the ear of Shibli Bagarag: and he beheld dancing-girls,
moons of beauty and elegance, and they danced wild dances, and dances
graceful and leopard-like and serpent-like in movement; and the youths
flung flowers at them, applauding them. Then came other sets of dancers
even lovelier, more languishing; and again others with tambourines and
musical instruments, that sang ravishingly. So the senses of Shibli
Bagarag were all taken with what he saw and heard, and ate and drank; and
by degrees a mist came before his eyes, and the sweet sounds and voices
of the girls grew distant, and it was with difficulty he kept his back
from the length of the cushions that were about him. Then he thought of
Noorna, and that she sang to him and danced, and when he rose to embrace
her she was Rabesqurat by the light of the Lily! And he thought of
Shagpat, and that in shaving him the blade was checked in its rapid
sweep, and blunted by a stumpy twine of hair that waxed in size and
became the head of Karaz that gulped at him a wide devouring gulp, and
took him in, and flew up with him, leaving Shagpat half sheared. Then he
thought himself struggling halfway down the throat of the monstrous Roc,
and that, when he was wholly inside the Roc, he was in a wide-arched
passage crowded with lamps, and at the end of the passage Noorna in the
clutch of Karaz, she shouting, 'The Sword, the Sword!'
Now, while he felt for the Sword wherewith to release her from the Genie,
his eyes opened, and he saw day through a casement, and that he had
reposed on an embroidered couch in the corner of a stately room
ornamented with carvings of blue and gold. So while he wondered and
yawned, gaping, slaves started up from the floor and led him to a bath of
coloured marble, and bathed him in perfumed waters, and dressed him in a
dress of yellow silk, rich and ample. Then they paraded before him
through lesser apartments and across terraces, till they came to a great
hall; loftier and more spacious than any he had yet beheld, with
fountains at the two ends, and in the centre a tree with golden spreading
branches and leaves of gold; among the leaves gold-feathered birds, and
fruits of all seasons and every description--the drooping grape and the
pleasant-smelling quince, and the blood-red pomegranate, and the apricot,
and the green and rosy apple, and the gummy date, and the oily pistachio-
nut, and peaches, and citrons, and oranges, and the plum, and the fig.
Surely, they were countless in number, melting with ripeness, soft, full
to bursting; and the birds darted among them like sun-flashes. Now,
Shibli Bagarag thought, 'This is a wondrous tree! Wullahy! there is
nought like it save the tree in the hall of the Prophet in Paradise,
feeding the faithful!' As he regarded it he heard his name spoken in the
hall, and turning he beheld seven youths in royal garments, that were
like the youths he had feasted with, and yet unlike them, pale, and stern
in their manners, their courtesy as the courtesy of kings. They said,
'Sit with us and eat the morning's meal, O our guest!'
So he sat with them under the low branches of the tree; and they whistled
the tune of one bird and of another bird, and of another, and lo! those
different birds flew down with golden baskets hanging from their bills,
and in the baskets fruits and viands and sweetmeats, and cool drinks.
And Shibli Bagarag ate from the baskets of the birds, watching the action
of the seven youths and the difference that was in them. He sought to
make them recognise him and acknowledge their carouse of the evening that
was past, but they stared at him strangely and seemed offended at the
allusion, neither would they hear mention of the Sword of his seeking.
Presently, one of the youths stood upon his feet and cried, "The time for
kings to sit in judgement!"
And the youths arose and led Shibli Bagarag to a hall of ebony, and
seated him on the upper seat, themselves standing about him; and lo!
asses and monkeys came before him, complaining of the injustice of men
and their fellows, in brays and bellows and hoots. Now, at the sight of
them again Shibli Bagarag was enraged, and he said to the youths, 'How!
do ye not mock me, O masters of Aklis!'
But they said only, 'The burden of his crown is for the King.'
He cooled, thinking, 'I will use a spell.' So he touched the lips of an
animal with the waters of Paravid, and the animal prated volubly in our
language of the kick this ass had given him, and the jibe of that monkey,
and of his desire of litigation with such and such a beast for pasture;
and the others when they spake had the same complaints to make. Shibli
Bagarag listened to them gravely, and it was revealed to him that he who
ruleth over men hath a labour and duties of hearing and judging and
dispensing judgement similar to those of him who ruleth over apes and
asses. Then said he, 'O youths, my princes! methinks the sitting in this
seat giveth a key to secret sources of wisdom; and I see what it is, the
glory and the exaltation coveted by men.' Now, he took from the asses
and the monkeys one, and said to it, 'Be my chief Vizier,' and to
another, 'Be my Chamberlain!' and to another, 'Be my Treasurer!' and so
on, till a dispute arose between the animals, and jealousy of each other
was visible in their glances, and they appealed to him clamorously. So
he said, 'What am I to ye?'
They answered, 'Our King!'
And he said, 'How so?'
They answered, 'By the crowning of the brides of Aklis.'
Then he said, 'What be ye, O my subjects?'
They answered, 'Men that were searchers of the Sword and plunged into the
tank of temptation.'
And he said, 'How that?'
They answered, 'By the lures of vanity, the blinding of ambition, and
tasting the gall of the Roc.'
So Shibli Bagarag leaned to the seven youths, saying, 'O my princes, but
for not tasting the gall of the Roc I might be as one of these. Wullahy!
I the King am warned by base creatures.' Then he said to the animals,
'Have ye still a longing for the crown?'
And they cried, all of them, 'O light of the astonished earth, we care
for nought other than it.'
So he said, 'And is it known to ye how to dispossess the wearer of his
burden?'
They answered, 'By a touch of the gall of the Roc on his forehead.'
Then he lifted his arms, crying, 'Hie out of my presence! and whoso of ye
fetcheth a drop of the gall, with that one will I exchange the crown.'
At these words some moved hastily, but the most faltered, as doubting and
incredulous that he would propose such an exchange; and one, an old
monkey, sat down and crossed his legs, and made a study of Shibli
Bagarag, as of a sovereign that held forth a deceiving bargain. But he
cried again, 'Hie and haste! as my head is now cased I think it not the
honoured part.'
Then the old monkey arose with a puzzled look, half scornful, and made
for the door slowly, turning his head toward Shibli Bagarag betweenwhiles
as he went, and scratching his lower limbs with the mute reflectiveness
of age and extreme caution.
Now, when they were gone, Shibli Bagarag looked in the eyes of the seven
youths, and saw they were content with him, and his countenance was
brightened with approval. So he descended from his seat, and went with
them from the hall of ebony to a court where horses were waiting saddled,
and slaves with hawks on their wrists stood in readiness; and they
mounted each a horse, but he loitered. The seven youths divined his
feeling, and cried impatiently, 'Come! no lingering in Aklis!' So he
mounted likewise, and they emerged from the palace, and entered the hills
that glowed under the copper sun, and started a milk-white antelope with
ruby spots, and chased it from its cover over the sand-hills, a hawk
being let loose to worry it and distress its timid beaming eyes. When
the creature was quite overcome, one of the youths struck his heel into
his horse's side and flung a noose over the head of the quarry, and drew
it with them, gently petting it the way home to the palace. At the gates
of the palace it was released, and lo! it went up the steps, and passed
through the halls as one familiar with them. Now, when they were all
assembled in the anteroom of the hall, where Shibli Bagarag had first
seen the seven youths, sons of Aklis, in their jollity, one of them said
to the Antelope, 'We have need of thee to speak a word with Aklis, O our
sister!'
So the same youth requested the use of the phial of Paravid, and Shibli
Bagarag applied it carefully, tenderly, to the mouth of the Antelope.
Then the Antelope spake in a silver-ringing voice, saying, 'What is it, O
my brothers?'
They answered, 'Thou knowest we dare not attempt interchange of speech
with Aklis, seeing that we disobeyed him in visiting the kingdoms of the
earth: so it is for thee to question him as to the object of this youth,
and it is the Shaving of Shagpat.'
So she said, ''Tis well; I wot of it.'
Then she advanced to the curtain concealing the abyss of the Roc and the
bridge of its eggs, and went behind it. There was a pause, and they
heard her say presently in a grave voice, toned with reverence, 'How is
it, O our father? is it a good thing that thy Sword be in use at this
season?'
And they heard the Voice answer from a depth, ''Twere well it rust not!'
They heard her say, 'O our father Aklis, and we wish to know if be held
in favour by thee, and thou sanction it with thy Sword.'
And they heard the Voice answer, 'The Shaving of Shagpat is my Sword
alone equal to, and he that shaveth him performeth a service to mankind
ranking next my vanquishing of the Roc.'
Then they heard her say, 'And it is thy will we teach him the mysteries
of the Sword, and that which may be done with it?'
And they heard the Voice answer, 'Even so!'
After that the Voice was still, and soon the Antelope returned from
behind the curtain, and the youths caressed her with brotherly caresses,
and took a circle of hands about her, and so moved to the great Hall of
the gorgeous Tree, and fed her from the branches. Now, while they were
there, Shibli Bagarag advanced to the Antelope, and knelt at her feet,
and said, 'O Princess of Aklis, surely I am betrothed to one constant as
a fixed star, and brighter; a mistress of magic, and innocent as the
bleating lamb; and she is now on a pillar, chained there, in the midst of
the white wrathful sea, wailing for me to deliver her with this Sword of
my seeking. So, now, I pray thee help me to the Sword swiftly, that I
may deliver her.'
The youths, her brothers, clamoured and interposed, saying, 'Take thy
shape ere that, O Gulrevaz, our sister!'
But she cried, 'He is betrothed! not till he graspeth the Sword. Tell
him, the youth, our conditions, and for what exchange the Sword is
yielded.'
And they said, 'The conditions are, thou part with thy spells, all of
them, O youth!'
And he said, 'There is no condition harsh that exchangeth the Sword; O ye
Seven, I agree!'
Then she said, ''Tis well! nobility is in the soul of this youth. Go
before us now to the Cave of Chrysolites, O my brothers.'
So these departed before, and she in her antelope form followed footing
gracefully, and made Shibli Bagarag repeat the story of his betrothal as
they went.
THE SWORD OF AKLIS
Now, when they had made the passage of many halls, built of different
woods, filled with divers wonders, they descended a sloping vault, and
came to a narrow way in the earth, hung with black, at the end of it a
stedfast blaze like a sun, that grew larger as they advanced, and they
heard the sea above them. The noise of it, and its plunging and
weltering and its pitilessness, struck on the heart of Shibli Bagarag as
with a blow, and he cried, 'Haste, haste, O Princess! perchance she is
even now calling to me with her tongue, and I not aiding her; delayed by
the temptation of this crown and the guile of the Brides.'
She checked him, and said, 'In Aklis no haste!' Then she said, 'Look!'
And lo, fronting them the single blaze became two fires; and drawing
nigh, Shibli Bagarag beheld them what they were, angry eyes in the head
of a great lion, a model of majesty, and passion was in his mane and
power was in his forepaws; so while he lashed his tail as a tempest
whippeth the tawny billows at night, and was lifting himself for a roar,
she said, 'A hair of Garraveen, and touch him with it!'
Shibli Bagarag pushed up his sleeve and broke one of the three sapphire
hairs and stepped forward to the lion, holding in his right hand the hair
of vivid light. The lion crouched, and was in the vigour of the spring
when that hair touched him, and he trembled, tumbling on his knees and
letting the twain pass. So they advanced beyond him, and lo! the Cave of
Chrysolites irradiate with beams, breaks of brilliance, confluences of
lively hues, restless rays, meeting, vanishing, flooding splendours, now
scattered in dazzling joints and spars, now uniting in momentary disks of
radiance. In the centre of the cave glowed a furnace, and round it he
distinguished the seven youths, swarthier and sterner than before, dark
sweat standing on the brows of each. Their words were brief, and they
wore each a terrible frown, saying to him, without further salutation,
'Thrust in the flame of this furnace thy right wrist.'
At the same moment, the Antelope said in his ear, 'Do thou their bidding,
and be not backward! In Aklis fear is ruin, and hesitation a destroyer.'
He fixed his mind on the devotedness of Noorna, and held his nether lip
tightly between his teeth, and thrust his right wrist in the flame of the
furnace. The wrist reddened, and became transparent with heat, but he
felt no pain, only that his whole arm was thrice its natural weight.
Then the flame of the furnace fell, and the seven youths made him kneel
by a brook of golden waters and dip his forehead up to his eyes in the
waters. Then they took him to the other side of the cave, and his sight
was strengthened to mark the glory of the Sword, where it hung in slings,
a little way from the wall, outshining the lights of the cave, and
throwing them back with its superior force and stedfastness of lustre.
Lo! the length of it was as the length of crimson across the sea when the
sun is sideways on the wave, and it seemed full a mile long, the whole
blade sheening like an arrested lightning from the end to the hilt; the
hilt two large live serpents twined together, with eyes like sombre
jewels, and sparkling spotted skins, points of fire in their folds, and
reflections of the emerald and topaz and ruby stones, studded in the
blood-stained haft. Then the seven young men, sons of Aklis, said to
Shibli Bagarag, 'Surrender the Lily!' And when he had given into their
hands the Lily, they said, 'Grasp the handle of the Sword!'
Now, he beheld the Sword and the ripples of violet heat that were
breathing down it, and those two venomous serpents twined together, and
the size of it, its ponderousness; and to essay lifting it appeared to
him a madness, but he concealed his thought, and, setting his soul on the
safety of Noorna, went forward to it boldly, and piercing his right arm
between the twists of the serpents, grasped the jewelled haft. Surely,
the Sword moved from the slings as if a giant had swayed it! But what
amazed him was the marvel of the blade, for its sharpness was such that
nothing stood in its way, and it slipped through everything as we pass
through still water, the stone columns, blocks of granite by the walls,
the walls of earth, and the thick solidity of the ground beneath his
feet. They bade him say to the Sword, 'Sleep!' and it was no longer than
a knife in the girdle. Likewise, they bade him hiss on the heads of the
serpents, and say, 'Wake!' and while he held it lengthwise it shot
lengthening out. Then they bade him hold in one hand the sapphire hair
that conquered the lion, and with the edge of the Sword touch one point
of it. So he did that, and it split in half, and the two halves he also
split; and he split those four, and those eight, till the hairs were thin
as light and not distinguishable from it. When Shibli Bagarag saw the
power of the Sword, he exulted and cried, 'Praise be to the science of
them that forecast events and the haps of life!' Now, in the meantime he
marked the youths take those hairs of Garraveen that he had split, and
tie them round the neck of the Antelope, and empty the contents of the
phial down her throat; and they put the bulb of the Lily, that was a
heart, in her mouth, and she swallowed it till the flower covered her
face. Then they took each a handful of the golden waters of the brook
flowing through the cave, and flung the waters over her, exclaiming, 'By
the three spells that have power in Aklis, and by which these waters are
a blessing!'
In the passing of a flash she took her shape, and was a damsel taller
than the tallest of them that descend from the mountains, a vision of
loveliness, with queenly brows, closed red lips, and large full black
eyes; her hair black, and on it a net of amber strung with pearls. To
look upon her was to feel the tyranny of love, love's pangs of alarm and
hope and anguish; and she was dressed in a dress of white silk, threaded
with gold and sapphire, showing in shadowy beams her rounded figure and
the stateliness that was hers. So she ran to her brothers and embraced
them, calling them by their names, catching their hands, caressing them
as one that had been long parted from them. Then, seeing Shibli Bagarag
as he stood transfixed with the javelins of loveliness that flew from her
on all sides, she cried: 'What, O Master of the Event! halt thou nought
for the Sword but to gaze before thee in silliness?'
Then he said, 'O rare in beauty! marvel of Aklis and the world! surely
the paradise of eyes is thy figure and the glory of thy face!'
But she shouted, 'To work with the Sword! Shame on thee! is there not
one, a bright one, a miracle in faithfulness, that awaiteth thy rescue on
the pillar?'
And she repeated the praises he had spoken of Noorna bin Noorka, his
betrothed. Then he grasped the Sword firmly, remembering the love of
Noorna, and crying, 'Lead me from this, O ye sons of Aklis, and thou,
Princess Gulrevaz, lead me, that I may come to her.'
So they said, 'Follow us!' and he sheathed the Sword in his girdle with
the word 'Sleep!' and followed them, his heart beating violently.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Arm'd with Fear the Foe finds passage to the vital part
Fear nought so much as Fear itself
If thou wouldst fix remembrance--thwack!
Nought credit but what outward orbs reveal
The overwise themselves hoodwink
The king without his crown hath a forehead like the clown
Vanity maketh the strongest most weak
Where fools are the fathers of every miracle
Who in a labyrinth wandereth without clue
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Shaving of Shagpat, v3
by George Meredith
