KNOW, O my lady, that the cause of my beard being shorn and my eye
being outtorn was as follows: My father was a king and he had a
brother who was a king over another city; and it came to pass that I
and my cousin, the son of my paternal uncle, were both born on one and
the same day. And years and days rolled on and as we grew up I used to
visit my uncle every now and then and to spend a certain number of
months with him. Now my cousin and I were sworn friends, for he ever
entreated me with exceeding kindness. He killed for me the fattest
sheep and strained the best of his wines, and we enjoyed long
conversing and carousing. One day when the wine had gotten the
better of us, the son of my uncle said to me, "O my cousin, I have a
great service to ask of thee, and I desire that thou stay me not in
whatso I desire to do!" And I replied, "With joy and goodly will."
Then he made me swear the most binding oaths and left me, but
after a little while he returned leading a lady veiled and richly
appareled, with ornaments worth a large sum of money. Presently he
turned to me (the woman being still behind him) and said, "Take this
lady with thee and go before me to such a burial ground" (describing
it, so that I knew the place) "and enter with her into such a
sepulcher and there await my coming." The oaths I swore to him made me
keep silence and suffered me not to oppose him, so I led the woman
to the cemetery and both I and she took our seats in the sepulcher.
And hardly had we sat down when in came my uncle's son, with a bowl of
water, a bag of mortar, and an adze somewhat like a hoe. He went
straight to the tomb in the midst of the sepulcher and, breaking it
open with the adze, set the stones on one side. Then he fell to
digging into the earth of the tomb till he came upon a large iron
plate, the size of a wicket door, and on raising it there appeared
below it a staircase vaulted and winding. Then he turned to the lady
and said to her, "Come now and take thy final choice!"
She at once went down by the staircase and disappeared, then quoth
he to me, "O son of my uncle, by way of completing thy kindness,
when I shall have descended into this place, restore the trapdoor to
where it was, and heap back the earth upon it as it lay before. And
then of thy great goodness mix this unslaked lime which is in the
bag with this water which is in the bowl and, after building up the
stones, plaster the outside so that none looking upon it shall say:
'This is a new opening in an old tomb'. For a whole year have I worked
at this place whereof none knoweth but Allah, and this is the need I
have of thee," presently adding, "May Allah never bereave thy
friends of thee nor make them desolate by thine absence, O son of my
uncle, O my dear cousin!" And he went down the stairs and
disappeared for ever.
When he was lost to sight, I replaced the iron plate and did all his
bidding till the tomb became as it was before, and I worked almost
unconsciously, for my head was heated with wine. Returning to the
palace of my uncle, I was told that he had gone forth a-sporting and
hunting, so I slept that night without seeing him. And when the
morning dawned, I remembered the scenes of the past evening and what
happened between me and my cousin. I repented of having obeyed him
when penitence was of no avail. I still thought, however, that it
was a dream. So I fell to asking for the son of my uncle, but there
was none to answer me concerning him, and I went out to the
graveyard and the sepulchers, and sought for the tomb under which he
was, but could not find it. And I ceased not wandering about from
sepulcher to sepulcher, and tomb to tomb, all without success, till
night set in. So I returned to the city, yet I could neither eat nor
drink, my thoughts being engrossed with my cousin, for that I knew not
what was become of him. And I grieved with exceeding grief and
passed another sorrowful night, watching until the morning. Then
went I a second time to the cemetery, pondering over what the son of
mine uncle had done and, sorely repenting my hearkening to him, went
round among all the tombs, but could not find the tomb I sought. I
mourned over the past, and remained in my mourning seven days, seeking
the place and ever missing the path.
Then my torture of scruples grew upon me till I well-nigh went
mad, and I found no way to dispel my grief save travel and return to
my father. So I set out and journeyed homeward, but as I was
entering my father's capital a crowd of rioters sprang upon me and
pinioned me. I wondered thereat with all wonderment, seeing that I was
the son of the Sultan, and these men were my father's subjects and
amongst them were some of my own slaves. A great fear fell upon me,
and I said to my soul, "Would Heaven I knew what hath happened to my
father!" I questioned those that bound me of the cause of their so
doing, but they returned me no answer. However, after a while one of
them said to me (and he had been a hired servant of our house),
"Fortune hath been false to thy father. His troops betrayed him, and
the Wazir who slew him now reigneth in his stead, and we lay in wait
to seize thee by the bidding of him." I was well-nigh distraught and
felt ready to faint on hearing of my father's death, when they carried
me off and placed me in presence of the usurper.
Now between me and him there was an olden grudge, the cause of which
was this: I was fond of shooting with the stone bow, and it befell one
day, as I was standing on the terrace roof of the palace, that a
bird lighted on the top of the Wazir's house when he happened to be
there. I shot at the bird and missed the mark, but I hit the Wazir's
eye and knocked it out, as fate and fortune decreed. Now when I
knocked out the Wazir's eye, he could not say a single word, for
that my father was King of the city, but he hated me ever after, and
dire was the grudge thus caused between us twain. So when I was set
before him hand-bound and pinioned, he straightway gave orders for
me to be beheaded. I asked, "For what crime wilt thou put me to
death?" Whereupon he answered, "What crime is greater than this?"
pointing the while to the place where his eye had been. Quoth I, "This
I did by accident, not of malice prepense," and quoth he, "If thou
didst it by accident, I will do the like by thee with intention." Then
cried he, "Bring him forward," and they brought me up to him, when
he thrust his finger into my left eye and gouged it out, whereupon I
became one-eyed as ye see me.
Then he bade bind me hand and foot, and put me into a chest, and
said to the sworder, "Take charge of this fellow, and go off with
him to the wastelands about the city. Then draw thy scimitar and
slay him, and leave him to feed the beasts and birds." So the headsman
fared forth with me, and when he was in the midst of the desert, he
took me out of the chest (and I with both hands pinioned and both feet
fettered) and was about to bandage my eyes before striking off my
head. But I wept with exceeding weeping until I made him weep with
me and, looking at him I began to recite these couplets:
"I deemed you coat o'mail that should withstand
The foeman's shafts, and you proved foeman's brand.
I hoped your aidance in mine every chance,
Though fail my left to aid my dexter hand.
Aloof you stand and hear the railer's gibe
While rain their shafts on me the giber band.
But an ye will not guard me from my foes,
Stand clear, and succor neither these nor those!"
And I also quoted:
"I deemed my brethren mail of strongest steel,
And so they were- from foes to fend my dart!
I deemed their arrows surest of their aim,
And so they were- when aiming at my heart!"
When the headsman heard my lines (he had been sworder to my sire and
he owed me a debt of gratitude), he cried, "O my lord, what can I
do, being but a slave under orders?" presently adding, "Fly for thy
life and nevermore return to this land, or they will slay thee and
slay me with thee." Hardly believing in my escape, I kissed his hand
and thought the loss of my eye a light matter in consideration of my
escaping from being slain. I arrived at my uncle's capital, and
going in to him, told him of what had befallen my father and myself,
whereat he wept with sore weeping and said: "Verily thou addest
grief to my grief, and woe to my woe, for thy cousin hath been missing
these many days. I wot not what hath happened to him, and none can
give me news of him." And he wept till he fainted. I sorrowed and
condoled with him, and he would have applied certain medicaments to my
eye, but he saw that it was become as a walnut with the shell empty.
Then said he, "O my son, better to lose eye and keep life!"
After that I could no longer remain silent about my cousin, who
was his only son and one dearly loved, so I told him all that had
happened. He rejoiced with extreme joyance to hear news of his son and
said, "Come now and show me the tomb." But I replied, "By Allah, O
my uncle, I know not its place, though I sought it carefully full many
times, yet could not find the site." However, I and my uncle went to
the graveyard and looked right and left, till at last I recognized the
tomb, and we both rejoiced with exceeding joy. We entered the
sepulcher and loosened the earth about the grave, then, upraising
the trapdoor, descended some fifty steps till we came to the foot of
the staircase, when lo! we were stopped by a blinding smoke. Thereupon
said my uncle that saying whose sayer shall never come to shame:
"There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the
Glorious, the Great!" and we advanced till we suddenly came upon a
saloon, whose floor was strewed with flour and grain and provisions
and all manner necessaries, and in the midst of it stood a canopy
sheltering a couch. Thereupon my uncle went up to the couch and,
inspecting it, found his son and the lady who had gone down with him
into the tomb, lying in each other's embrace.
But the twain had become black as charred wood. It was as if they
had been cast into a pit of fire. When my uncle saw this spectacle, he
spat in his son's face and said: "Thou hast thy deserts, O thou hog!
This is thy judgment in the transitory world, and yet remaineth the
judgment in the world to come, a durer and a more enduring." I
marveled at his hardness of heart and, grieving for my cousin and
the lady, said: "By Allah, O my uncle, calm thy wrath. Dost not see
that all my thoughts are occupied with this misfortune, and how
sorrowful I am for what hath befallen thy son, and how horrible it
is that naught of him remaineth but a black heap of charcoal? And is
not that enough, but thou must smite him with thy slipper?" Answered
he: "O son of my brother, this youth from his boyhood was madly in
love with his own sister, and often and often I forbade him from
her, saying to myself, 'They are but little ones.' However, when
they grew up sin befell between them, and although I could hardly
believe it, I confined him and chided him and threatened him with
the severest threats, and the eunuchs and servants said to him:
'Beware of so foul a thing which none before thee ever did, and
which none after thee will ever do, and have a care lest thou be
dishonored and disgraced among the kings of the day, even to the end
of time.' And I added: 'Such a report as this will be spread abroad by
caravans, and take heed not to give them cause to talk or I will
assuredly curse thee and do thee to death.'
After that I lodged them apart and shut her up, but the accursed
girl loved him with passionate love, for Satan had got the mastery
of her as well as of him and made their foul sin seem fair in their
sight. Now when my son saw that I separated them, he secretly built
this souterrain and furnished it and transported to it victuals,
even as thou seest, and when I had gone out a-sporting, came here with
his sister and hid from me. Then His righteous judgment fell upon
the twain and consumed them with fire from Heaven, and verily the Last
Judgment will deal them durer pains and more enduring!" Then he wept
and I wept with him, and he looked at me and said, "Thou art my son in
his stead." And I bethought me awhile of the world and of its chances,
how the Wazir had slain my father and had taken his place and had
put out my eye, and how my cousin had come to his death by the
strangest chance. And I wept again and my uncle wept with me.
Then we mounted the steps and let down the iron plate and heaped
up the earth over it, and after restoring the tomb to its former
condition, we returned to the palace. But hardly had we sat down ere
we heard the tom-toming of the kettledrum and tantara of trumpets
and clash of cymbals, and the rattling of war men's lances, and the
clamors of assailants and the clanking of bits and the neighing of
steeds, while the world was canopied with dense dust and sand clouds
raised by the horses' hoofs. We were amazed at sight and sound,
knowing not what could be the matter. So we asked, and were told us
that the Wazir who had usurped my father's kingdom had marched his
men, and that after levying his soldiery and taking a host of wild
Arabs into service, he had come down upon us with armies like the
sands of the sea. Their number none could tell, and against them
none could prevail. They attacked the city unawares, and the citizens,
being powerless to oppose them, surrendered the place. My uncle was
slain and I made for the suburbs, saying to myself, "If thou fall into
this villain's hands, he will assuredly kill thee."
On this wise all my troubles were renewed, and I pondered all that
had betided my father and my uncle and I knew not what to do; for if
the city people or my father's troops had recognized me, they would
have done their best to will favor by destroying me. And I could think
of no way to escape save by shaving off my beard and my eyebrows. So I
shore them off and, changing my fine clothes for a Kalandar's rags,
I fared forth from my uncle's capital and made for this city, hoping
that peradventure someone would assist me to the presence of the
Prince of the Faithful, and the Caliph who is the Viceregent of
Allah upon earth. Thus have I come hither that I might tell him my
tale and lay my case before him. I arrived here this very night, and
was standing in doubt whither I should go when suddenly I saw this
second Kalandar. So I salaamed to him, saying, 'I am a stranger'
and he answered,- 'I too am a stranger!' And as we were conversing,
behold, up came our companion, this third Kalandar, and saluted us
saying, 'I am a stranger!' And we answered, `We too be strangers!'
Then we three walked on and together till darkness overtook us and
Destiny drave us to your house. Such, then. is the cause of the
shaving of my beard and mustachios and eyebrows, and the manner of
my losing my left eye. They marveled much at this tale, and the Caliph
said to Ja'afar, "By Allah, I have not seen nor have I heard the
like of what hath happened to this Kalandar!" Quoth the lady of the
house, "Rub thy head and wend thy ways." But he replied, "I will not
go till I hear the history of the two others." Thereupon the second
Kalandar came forward and, kissing the ground, began to tell
The Second Kalandar's Tale.