Being the One Thousand and Second Night.
Translated from the Persian,
by Major G. O'G. Gahagan, H.E.I.C.S. [William Makepeace Thackeray].
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.1 #2 (Mar 1842).
Part the Second.—The Enchanted Princess.
"After flying about, for some time, the poor storks perched upon the palace, where it was evident that all was in consternation. 'Ah!' said the king, with a sigh, 'why, O cursed vizier, didst thou ever bring that beggar-woman into my presence? here it is, an hour after sunset, and at this hour I should have been seated at a comfortable supper, but for thy odious officiousness, and my own fatal curiosity.'
"What his majesty said was true; and, having eaten nothing all day (for they could not make up their stomachs to subsist upon raw frogs and fish), he saw, to his inexpressible mortification, his own supper brought into the royal closet at the usual hour, taken away from thence, and the greater part of it eaten up by the servants as they carried it back to the kitchen.
"For three days longer, as they lingered about Tehran, that city was in evident dismay and sorrow. On the first day a council was held, and a great deal of discussion took place between the mollahs and emirs; on the second day another council was held, and all the mollahs and emirs swore eternal fidelity to King Mushook: on the third day a third council was held, and they voted to a man that all faithful Persians had long desired the return of their rightful sovereign and worship, and proclaimed Ghuzroo Sultan of Persia. Ghuzroo and his son, Ameen Adawh, entered the divan. What a thrill passed through the bosom of Mushook (who was perched on a window of the hall) when he saw Ghuzroo walk up and take possession of his august throne, and beheld in the countenance of that unbeliever the traits of the very old woman who had sold him the box!
"It would he tedious to describe to your majesty the numberless voyages and the long dreary flights which the unhappy sultan and vizier now took. There is hardly a mosque in all Persia or Arabia on which they did not light; and as for frogs and fishes, they speedily learned to be so little particular as to swallow them raw with considerable satisfaction, and, I do believe, tried every pond and river in Asia.
"At last they came to India; and being then somewhere in the neighbourhood of Agra, they went to take their evening meal at a lake in a wood: the moon was shining on it, and there was upon one of the trees an owl hooting and screaming in the most melancholy manner.
"The two wanderers were discussing their victuals, and it did not at first come into their heads to listen to the owl's bewailings; but as they were satisfied, they began presently to hearken to the complaints of the bird of night that sate on a mango-tree, its great round white face shining in the moon. The owl sung a little elegy, which may be rendered in the following manner:—
'Too—too—too—oo long have I been in this imprisonment;
Who—o—o—o is coming to deliver me?
in the darkness of the night I look out, and see not my deliverer;
I make the grove resound with my strains, but no one hears me.
'I look out at the moon;—my face was once as fair as hers:
She is the queen of night, and I was a princess as celebrated.
I sit under the cypress-trees, and was once as thin as they are:
Could their dark leaves compare to my raven tresses?
'I was a princess once, and my talents were everywhere sung of;
I was indebted for my popularity not only to beauty but to whit;
Ah, where is the destined prince that is to come to liberate and to whoo?'
"Cut the verses short, Scheherazade," said the Sultan. And that obedient princess instantly resumed her story in prose.
"'What,' said King Mushook, stepping up to the owl, 'are you too the victim of enchantment?'
"'Alas! kind stranger, of whatever feather you be—for the moon is so bright that I cannot see you in the least,—I was a princess, as I have just announced in my poem; and famous, I may say, for my beauty all over India. Rotu Muckun is my name, and my father is King of Hindostan. A monster from Bombay, an idolater and practiser of enchantments, came to my court, and asked my hand for his son; but because I spurned the wretch, he, under the disguise of an old woman—'
"'With a box of trinkets,' broke out the vizier.
"'Of no such thing,' said the owl, or rather the disguised Princess Rotu Muckun; 'with a basket of peaches, of which I was known to be fond, entered the palace warden one evening as I was seated there with my maidens, and offered me a peach, of which I partook, and was that instant turned into an owl. My attendants fled, creaming at the metamorphosis; and as the old woman went away, she clenched her fist. at me and laughed, and said "Now, princess, you will remember the vengeance of Ghuzroo."'
"'This is indeed marvellous!' exclaimed the King of Persia. 'Know, madam, that the humble individual who now addresses you was a year since no other than Persia's king.'
"'Heavens!' said the princess, trembling, and rustling all her feathers; 'can you be the famous and beautiful Mushook, who disappeared from Tehran with his grand vizier?'
"'No other, madam,' said the king, laying his claw on his breast; 'and the most devoted of your servants.'
"'Heigho!' said she; 'I would that you had resumed your former shape, and that what you said were true; but you men, I have always heard, are sad, sad deceivers!'
"'Being pressed farther to explain the meaning of her wish, the princess said that she never could resume her former appearance until she could find some one who would marry her under her present form; and what was more, she said an old Brahmin had made a prophecy concerning her, that she should be saved from destruction by a stork.
"'Phis speech,' said the vizier, drawing his majesty aside, 'is the sheerest and most immodest piece of fiction on the part of Madam Owl that ever I heard. What is the upshot of it? The hideous old wretch, pining for a husband, and not being able on account of her age and ugliness, doubtless, to procure one among birds of her own degree, sees us two slim, elegant, fashionable fellows pass, and trumps up instantly a story about her being a princess, and the deuce knows what. Even suppose she be a princess, let your majesty remember what the poet Ferooz observes—
"Women are not all beautiful—for one moon-eyed,
Nine hundred and ninety-nine are as ugly as Shaitan."
Let us have a care then, how we listen to her stories.'
"'Vizier,' answered his majesty, 'I have remarked that you are always talking about ugliness; and, by my beard! you are the ugliest man in my dominions. Be she handsome or hideous, I am sure that there is something in the story of the princess mysteriously connected with our fate. Do you not remember that extra ordinary dream which I had in my youth, and which declared that I too should be saved from danger by an owl? Had you not also such a dream on the self-same night? Let us not, therefore, disregard the warnings of Fate:—the risk shall be run, the princess shall be married, or my name's not Mushook.'
"'Well, sir,' said the vizier, with a shrug, 'if you insist upon marrying her, I cannot, of course, give any objection to the royal will: and your majesty must remember that I wash my hands of the business altogether.'
"'I marry her!' screamed the king, in a rage; 'Vizier, are you a fool? Do you suppose me such a fool as to buy a pig in a poke, as they say at Bagdad?'
"'I was sure your majesty would not be so imprudent,' said the vizier, in a soothing tone.
'Of course, I wouldn't; no, vizier, my old and tried servant, you shall marry the Princess Rotu Muckun, and incur the risk of this adventure.'
'The poor vizier knew he had only to obey, were his master to bid him to bite off his own nose; so he promised compliance in this instance with as good a grace as he could muster. But the gentlemen, in the course of this little dispute, had not taken into consideration that the ow] had wings as well as they, and had followed them into the dark brake where the colloquy took place, and could see them perfectly, and hear every word that passed.
"'Tut-tut-tut-too!' shrieked out the owl, in a shrill voice, 'my lord of Persia, and you, grand vizier, do you suppose that I, the Princess of Hindostan, am to be cast about from one person to another like a shuttlecock? Do you suppose that I, the loveliest woman in the universe, am tamely to listen to doubts regarding my beauty, and finally to yield up my charms to an ugly, old, decrepit monster, like your grand vizier?'
"'Madam'—interposed the King of Persia.
"'Tut-tut-too! don't madam me, sir,' said the princess, in a fluster,—'mademoiselle, if you please; and mademoiselle to remain, rather than be insulted so. Talk about buying a pig in a poke, indeed! here is a pretty gentlemanlike phrase for a monarch who has been used to good society!—pig in a poke, indeed! I'll tell you what, my lord, I have a great mind to make you carry your pigs to another market. And as for my poor person, I will see,' cried the owl, sobbing, 'if some noble-hearted person be not more favourable to-to-to to-it—to-oo-oo-oo-oo!' Here she set up such an hysterical howling, that his majesty the King of Persia thought she would have dropped off her perch.
"He was a good-natured sovereign, and could not bear to see the tears of a woman."
"What a fool!" said the Sultan. But Scheherazade took no notice.
"And having his heart melted by her sorrows, said to her, 'Cheer up, madam, it shall never be said that Mushook deserted a lady in distress. I swear to you by the ninth book of the Koran, that you shall have my hand as soon as I get it back myself; in the meanwhile accept my claw, and with it the heart of the King of Persia.'
"'Oh, sir!' said the owl, 'this is too great joy—too much honour—I cannot,' said she, in a faint voice, 'bear it!—O Heavens!— Maidens, unlace me!—Some water—some water—a jug-jug-jug—'
"Here what the king had formerly feared actually took place, and the owl, in an excess of emotion, actually tumbled off the branch in a fainting fit, and fell into the thicket below.
"The vizier and his majesty ran like mad to the lake for water; but ah! what a scene met their view on coming back!
"Forth there came to meet them the loveliest damsel that ever greeted the eyes of monarch or vizier. Fancy, sir, a pair of eyes—"
"Cut the description short, Scheherazade," interrupted the Sultan; "your eves, my dear, are quite pretty enough for me."
"In short, sir, she was the most lovely woman in the world of her time; and the poor old vizier, as he beheld her, was mad to think what a prize he had lost. The King of Persia flung himself at her feet, and vowed himself to be the happiest of men.'
"Happiest of men!" roared out the Sultan. "Why, woman, he is a stork: how did he get back to his shape, I want to know?"
"Why, sir, it must be confessed, that when the Princess of Hindostan, now restored to her pristine beauty, saw that no sort of change had taken place in her affianced husband, she felt a little ashamed of the connexion, and more than once in their journey from Agra to the court of her father at Delhi, she thought of giving her companion the slip; 'For how,' said she, 'am I to marry a stork?' However, the king would never leave her for a moment out of his sight, or, When his majesty slept, the vizier kept his eye upon her; and so at last they walked and walked until they came near to Delhi on the banks of the Jumna.
"A magnificent barge was floating down the river, pulled by a hundred men with gilded oars, and dressed in liveries of cloth of gold. The prow of the barge was shaped like a peacock, and formed of precious stones and enamel; and at the stern of the vessel was an awning of crimson silk, supported by pillars of silver, under which, in a yellow satin robe, covered with diamonds of intolerable brightness, there sat an old gentleman smoking, and dissolved seemingly in grief.
"'Heavens! cried the princess, ''tis my father!' and straightway she began flapping her pocket-handkerchief, and crying at the top of her voice, 'Father, father, 'tis your Rotu Muckun calls!'
"When the old gentleman, who was smoking in yellow satin, heard that voice, he started up wildly, let drop his hookah, shouted hoarsely to the rowers to pull to the shore, and the next minute tumbled backwards in a fainting fit—The next minute but one he was in the arms of his beloved girl, the proudest and happiest of fathers.
"The princess at the moment of meeting, and in the hurry of running into the boat, had, it must be confessed, quite forgotten her two storks; and as these made an effort to follow her, one of the rowers with his gilded oar gave the grand vizier a crack over the leg, which caused that poor functionary to limp for many years after. But our wanderers were not to be put off so. Taking wing they flew right under the awning of the boat, and perched down on the sofa close by the King of Hindostan and his daughter.
"'What, in Heaven's name,' said Hindostan, 'are these filthy birds, that smell so horribly of fish? Faugh! turn them out.'
"'Filthy yourself, sir, my brother,' answered the King of Persia, 'the smell of fish is not much worse than that of tobacco, I warrant. Heigho! I have not had a pipe for many a long day!'
"'Here Rotu Muckun, seeing her father's wonder that a stork should talk his language, and his anger at the bird's impudence, interposed and related to his majesty all the circumstances attending the happy change that had taken place.
"While she was speaking (and her story was a pretty long one), the King of Persia flung himself back in an easy attitude on one of the sofas, crossing his long legs, and folding his wings over his chest. He was, to tell the truth, rather piqued at the reception which his brother of Hindostan had given him. Old Munsoor stood moodily at a little distance, holding up his game leg.
"His master, however, was determined to shew that he was perfectly at his ease. 'Hindostan, my old buck,' said he, 'what a deuced comfortable sofa this is; and, egad, what a neat turn-out of a barge.'
"The old gentleman, who was a stickler for ceremony, said drily, 'I am glad your majesty finds the sofa comfortable, and the barge to your liking. 'Here we don't call it a barge, but a BUDGEROW.'
"As he spoke this word, the King of Persia bounced off his seat as if he had been shot, and upset the hookah over the King of Hindostan's legs; the moody old grand vizier clapped his wings and screamed for joy; the princess shrieked for astonishment; and the whole hoat's crew were in wonder, as the'y saw the two birds turn towards the east, bob their long bills three times, and call out 'Budgerow!'
"At that word the birds disappeared, and in their place, before the astonished sovereign of Hindostan there stood two gentlemen in the Persian habit. One of them was fat, old, and one-eyed, of a yellow complexion, and limping on a leg—'twas Munsoor, the vizier. The other—ah, what a thrill passed through Rotu Muckun's heart as she beheld him!—had a dark countenance, a dark flashing eye, a royal black beard, a high forehead, on which a little Persian cap was jauntily placed. A pelisse of cashmere and sables covered his broad chest, and showed off his excessively slim waist to advantage; his little feet were encased in yellow slippers; when he spoke, his cornelian lips displayed thirty-two pearly teeth: in his girdle was his sword, and on the hilt of it that famous diamond, worth one hundred and forty-three millions of tomauns.
"When the King of Hindostan saw that diamond, he at once knew that Mushook could be no impostor, and taking him heartily by the hand, the good-natured monarch ordered servants to pick up the pieces of the chillum, and to bring fresh ones for the King of Persia and himself.
"'You say it is a long time since you smoked a pipe,' said Hindostan, waggishly; 'there is a lady here that I dare swear will fill one for you.' With this and other sallies the royal party passed on to Delhi, where Munsoor was accommodated with diaculum and surgical aid, and where the marriage was celebrated between the King of Persia and the Princess of Hindostan."
"And did the King of Persia ever get his kingdom back again?" asked the Sultan.
"Of course he did, sir," replied Scheherazade, "for where did you ever hear of a king who had been kept out of his just rights by a wicked enchanter, that did not regain his possessions at the end of a story? No, sir, at the last page of a tale, wicked enchanters are always punished, and suffering virtue always rewarded; and though I have my doubts whether in real life—"
"Be hanged to your prate, madam, and let me know at once how King Mushook got back his kingdom, and what he did to Ghuzroo and his son Ameen Adawbh?"
"Why, sir, marching with five hundred thousand men, whom his father-in-law placed under his command, King Mushook went, via Caubul and Affghanistan, into Persia; he defeated the usurping Ghuzroo upon the plains of Tehran, and caused that idolatrous monarch to be bastinadoed to death. As for his son, Ameen Adawd, as that young prince had not taken any part in his father's rebellion, Mushook, who was a merciful sovereign, only ordered him to take a certain quantity of the powder, and to wish himself to be a stork. Then he put him into a cage, and hung him outside the palace wall. This done, Mushook and his princess swayed magnificently the sceptre of Persia, lived happily, were blest by their subjects, had an infinite number of children, and ate pilau and rice every day.
"Now, sir, it happened, alter several years' captivity in the cage, that the Prince Ameen Adawb—" * * *
Here Scheherazade paused; for looking at her royal husband, she saw that his majesty was fast asleep, and deferred the history of Prince Ameen Adawb until another occasion.