THE STORY OF THE PORTER WITH THE YOUNG LADIES
Source
The saâlouk is not killed. He returns to his uncle's city and tells him what happened to his son.
They look for the grave, find it, and go down the underground staircase.
ON THE EIGHTH NIGHT
Sheherazade said, continuing the story of the first saâlouk:
The vizier had me tied and put in a crate. Then he said to the sword-bearer: "I entrust this one to you." Take your sword out of its scabbard. And take him from here. Take him outside the city, kill him, and leave him there to be eaten by wild beasts. »
So the sword-bearer took me and we went away until we got out of the city. He then pulled me out of the crate, bound by the hands and chained by the feet, and wanted to blindfold me before putting me to death. So I began to cry and recite these stanzas:
I took you as an unfailing cuirass to protect me from enemy javelins:
And you were yourself the spearhead, the sharp iron, which pierces!
For me, when power was my lot, my right hand, which was supposed to punish,
Refrained, passing the weapon to my helpless left hand. So I acted.
So spare me, please, cruel reproaches and blame, and let my enemies only shoot me the arrows of pain!
To my poor soul tried by enemy tortures, grant the gift of silence,
And do not compress it by the harshness of words and their weight!
“I took my friends to use strong breastplates! They were!*
But against me, in the hands of my enemies!
I took them to use as murderous arrows! They were! But in my heart!
I have fervently cultivated hearts to make them faithful.
They were faithful! But in other loves!
I took care of them with all my fervor so that they would be constant!
They were consistent! But in betrayal!
When the sword-bearer heard my verses, he then remembered that he had been my father's sword-bearer and that I had showered him with blessings, and he said to me: "How was I going to kill you?? And I'm your submissive slave!" Then he said to me: “Leap on! Your life is saved! And do not return to this country again, for you would perish and you would cause me to perish with you; as the poet says:
Go! Free yourself, friend, and save your soul from the tyranny of all bonds!
And let the houses serve as tombs for those who built them!
Go! You will find other lands than yours, other countries than your country;
But you will never find any other soul than your soul!
*Dream! What an astonishing thing, what a senseless thing to live in a land of humiliation, when the land of Allah is infinitely wide!
Nevertheless ! it is written!... it is written that the man whose destiny is to die in a land,
Can only die in the land of his destiny! But you, do you know the land of your destiny?...
And, above all, do not forget that the neck of the lion develops
And grows only when the soul of the lion has developed, in complete freedom!"
When he had finished these verses, I kissed his hands. And I only really believed in my salvation when I saw myself already in the distance.
Subsequently, I consoled myself for the loss of my eye by thinking of my deliverance from death. And I continued to travel, and I arrived at my uncle's city. So I went to his house and told him what had happened to my father and what had happened to me, to lose my eye in this way. Then he began to cry many tears, and cried out, “O my brother’s son! you have just added an affliction to my afflictions and a pain to my pains. Because I must tell you that the son of your poor uncle who is in front of you has been lost for days and days, and I don't know what has happened to him, and no one can tell me where he is!" Then he began to cry so much that he fainted. When he came back to life, he said to me: “O my child! I afflicted myself a considerable affliction for the son of your uncle, me your uncle! And you, you just added pain to my pain, by telling me what happened to you and what happened to your father! But for you, my child, it is better to have lost your eye than your life!"
At these words, I could no longer be silent about what had happened to my uncle's son, his own child. So I told him the whole truth. At my words, my uncle rejoices to the limit of joy, he really rejoices very much at my words about his son. And he said to me: “Oh! quickly show me this tomb." And I replied: “By Allah! O my uncle, I do not know its location. Because I went many times to look for it, without being able to find its location!"
So, I and my uncle went to the cemetery, and this time, looking to the right and looking to the left, I finally recognized the grave. Then, me and my uncle, were at the limit of joy, and we entered under the dome; we removed the soil and then the lid; and I and my uncle descended fifty steps. When we reached the end of the stairs, we saw smoke rising toward us, which blinded us. But immediately my uncle pronounced the Word which removes all fear from whoever pronounces it, this one: “There is no power and no strength except in Allah the Highest, the Almighty!"
Then, we walked, and we arrived in a large room filled with flour, grains of all kinds, food of all kinds, and many other things too. And we saw, in the middle of the room, a curtain lowered over a bed. Then my uncle looked inside the bed, and found and recognized his son, who was there in the arms of the woman who had come down with him; but both had become black like coal, absolutely as if they had been thrown into a pit of fire!
At this sight, my uncle spat in the face of his son and exclaimed: “You deserve it, you scoundrel! This is the torture of this lower world, but you still have the torture of the other world, which is more terrible and more lasting!" And so saying, my uncle, after spitting in his son's face, took off his slippers and struck him in the face with the sole.
— At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
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