A Man of the pilgrims once slept a long sleep and awaking, found no trace of the caravan. So he rose up and walked on, but lost his way and presently came to a tent, where he saw an old woman standing at the entrance and by her side a dog asleep. He went up to the tent and, saluting the old woman, sought of her food, when she replied, "Go to that Wady and catch your sufficiency of serpents, that I may broil of them for you and give you to eat." Rejoined the pilgrim, "I dare not catch serpents nor did I ever eat them." the old woman, said, "I will go with you and catch some; fear not." So she went with him, followed by the dog, to the valley and, catching a sufficient number of serpents, proceeded to broil them. He saw nothing for it (says the story teller) but to eat, in fear of hunger and exhaustion; so he ate of the serpents. Then he was athirst and asked for water to drink; and she answered, "Go to the spring and drink." Accordingly, he went to the spring and found the water of it bitter; yet needs must he drink of it despite its bitterness, because of the violence of his thirst. Presently, he returned to the old woman and said to her, "I marvel, O ancient dame, at your choosing
The Pilgrim Man and the Old Woman. 187 to sojurn in this place"—
When it was the Four Hundred and Thirty fifth night
She asked, "And how is it then in your country?"; whereto he answered, "In my country are houses wide and spacious and fruits ripe and delicious and waters sweet and viands savorous and of goodly use and meats fat and full of juice and flocks innumerous and all things pleasant and all the goods of life, the like whereof are not, save in the Paradise which Allah the Omnipotent has promised to His servants pious." she replied, "All this have I heard: but tell me, have you a Sultan who rules over you and is tyrannical in his rule and under whose hand you are; one who, if any of you commit an offence, takes his goods and ruins him and who, whenas he will, turns you out of house and home and uproots you, stock and branch?" Replied the man, "Indeed that may be;" and she rejoined, "If so, By God, these your delicious food and life of daintyhood and gifts however good, with tyranny and oppression, are but a searching poison, while our coarse meat which in freedom and safety we eat is a healthful medicine. Have you not heard that the best of boons, after Al-Islam, the true Faith, are sanity and security?" "Now such boons (he who tells the said,tale) may be by the just rule of the Sultan, Vice regent of Allah on His earth, and the goodness of his polity. The Sultan of time past needed but little awfulness, for when the subjects saw him, they feared him; but the Sultan of these days has need of the most accomplished polity and the utmost majesty, because men are not as men of by gone time and this our age is one of folk opprobrious, and is greatly calamitous noted for folly and hardness of heart and inclined to hate and enmity. If, therefore, the Sultan (which
Almighty Allah forfend!) be weak or wanting in polity and majesty, this will be the assured cause of his country's ruin. the proverb, said, 'An hundred years of the Sultan's tyranny, but not one year of the people's tyranny one over other.' When the subjects oppress one another, Allah setts over them a tyrannical Sultan and a terrible King. Thus it is told in history that one day there was sent to Al-Hajjáj bin Yúsuf a slip of paper, on which was written, 'Fear Allah and oppress not His servants with all kinds of oppression.' When he read this, he mounted the pulpit (for he was eloquent and ever ready of speech), and said, 'O folk, Allah Almighty has made me ruler over you, by reason of your frowardness;'" ——
When it was the Four Hundred and Thirty sixth night
And among tales is that of
Abu al-Husn and his Slave Girl Tawaddud. 189