Aladdin and the Magic Lamp
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Oh no! The genie almost killed Aladdin!
No roc egg for the princess.
ON THE FORTY-FIRST NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
It seemed to Aladdin that Princess Badrou'l-Budour looked very distracted and preoccupied; and he asked her the cause of it, with much anxiety. Then Sett Badrou'l-Budour, all of a breath, said to him: "I will certainly die if I do not as soon as possible have an egg of the roc bird, which lives on the highest peak of Mount Caucasus!" And Aladdin, at these words, began to laugh and said: "By Allah, O my mistress Badrou'l-Budour, if it is only a question of having this egg to prevent you from dying, refresh your eyes! But just tell me, so that I know, what you mean to do with that bird's egg!" And Badrou'l-Boudour replied: "It is the holy old woman who has just prescribed the sight of it to me, as supremely effective in curing the sterility of women! And I want to have it to hang in the middle of the crystal vault of the hall with nine hundred and ninety-nine windows!" And Aladdin replied: "Upon my head and on my eyes, O my mistress Badrou'l-Budour! You're going to have that roc egg right now! »
He immediately left his wife and went to lock himself in his room. And he drew from his breast the magic lamp which he always carried with him, since the terrible danger which he had run by his negligence, and he rubbed it. And, at the same moment, appeared before him the genie of the lamp, ready to carry out his orders. And Aladdin said to him: "O excellent genie, who obeys me thanks to the virtues of your mistress the lamp, I ask you to bring me at once, to suspend it in the middle of the crystal vault, an egg of the gigantic roc bird, who lives on the highest peak of Mount Caucasus! »
Now scarcely had Aladdin uttered these words when the genie convulsed terribly, and his eyes blazed, and he gave in Aladdin's face a cry so frightful that the palace was shaken in its foundations and that Aladdin was thrown from it, like a sling stone, against the wall of the room and so violently that its length almost entered its width. And the genie, in his voice full of thunder, cried out to him: “Wretch human, what dare you to ask me? O most ungrateful of people of low status, now, despite all the services that I have rendered to you immediately, you dare to order me to go and fetch you the son of my supreme master, the Roc, to hang it on the roof of your palace! Do you not know, fool, that I and the lamp and all the genie servants of the lamp are the slaves of the great Roc, father of the eggs? Ah! you are lucky to be under the protection of my mistress, the lamp, and to wear on your finger this ring full of salutary virtues! Otherwise, your length would have already entered your width!" And Aladdin, motionless against the wall, said: “O genie of the lamp, by Allah! This request does not come from me, but it was suggested to my wife Badrou'l-Boudour by the holy old woman, mother of fertilization and healer of sterility!" Then the genie suddenly calmed down and resumed his usual tone towards Aladdin, and said to him: “Ah! I did not know! Ah! it's like that! it is therefore from this creature that the attack comes! You are very happy, Aladdin, to have nothing to do with it! Know, indeed, that it is your destruction and that of your wife and that of your palace that they wanted to obtain by this means! The person you call a holy old woman is neither a saint nor an old woman, but a man disguised as a woman. And this man is none other than the Maghrebi's brother, your exterminated enemy. And he looks like his brother like half a bean looks like his sister. And the proverb is true which says: The younger brother of the dog is more filthy than its elder, because the posterity of a dog always goes on bastardizing! And this new enemy, whom you did not know, is even more versed in magic and treachery than his older brother. And when he learned, by the operations of geomancy, that his brother had been exterminated by you and burned by order of the sultan, father of your wife Badrou'l-Budour, he resolved to avenge him on you and came here from the Maghreb, disguised as an old saint, to reach this palace. And he succeeds in entering it and suggesting to your wife this pernicious demand which is the greatest attempt against my supreme master, the Roc! So I warn you of his treacherous plans so that you can avoid them. Ouassalam!" And the genie, having thus spoken to Aladdin, disappeared.
Then Aladdin, on the verge of anger, hastened to go into the room with nine hundred and ninety-nine windows to find his wife Badrou'l-Budour. And, without revealing anything to her of what the genie had just taught him, he said to her: “O Badrou’l-Budour, my eyes! it is absolutely necessary, before bringing you the egg of the roc bird, that I hear with my own ears the holy old woman who prescribed this remedy for you. I beg you, therefore, to send for her with all diligence, and while I am here behind the curtain, to make her repeat his prescription, on the pretext that you no longer remember its exact content!" And Badrou'l-Budour answered: "On my head and my eye!" and immediately sent for the holy old woman.
Now, as soon as she entered the room with the crystal vault and, still veiled in her thick face veil, she approached Badrou'l-Boudour...
— At this point in her narration, Scheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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