THE CHRISTIAN KING'S DAUGHTER AND THE
MOSLEM.
"My spirit urged me, once upon a time, to go forth into the
country of the Infidels; and I strove with it and struggled to
put away from me this inclination; but it would not be rejected.
So I fared forth and journeyed about the land of the Unbelievers
and traversed it in all its parts; for divine grace enveloped me
and heavenly protection encompassed me, so that I met not a
single Nazarene but he turned away his eyes and drew off from me,
till I came to a certain great city at whose gate I found a
gathering of black slaves, clad in armour and bearing iron maces
in their hands. When they saw me, they rose to their feet and
asked me, 'Art thou a leach?'; and I answered, 'Yes.' Quoth they,
'Come speak to our King,' and carried me before their ruler, who
was a handsome personage of majestic presence. When I stood
before him, he looked at me and said, 'Art a physician, thou?'
'Yes,' quoth I; and quoth he to his officers, 'Carry him to her,
and acquaint him with the condition before he enter.' So they
took me out and said to me, 'Know that the King hath a daughter,
and she is stricken with a sore disease, which no doctor hath
been able to cure: and no leach goeth in to her and treateth,
without healing her, but the King putteth him to death. So
bethink thee what thou seest fitting to do.' I replied, 'The King
drove me to her; so carry me to her.' Thereupon they brought me
to her door and knocked; and behold, I heard her cry out from
within, saying, 'Admit to me the physician, lord of the wondrous
secret!' And she began reciting,
'Open the door! the leach now draweth near; * And in my soul a
wondrous secret speer:
How many of the near far distant are![FN#490] * How many distant
far are nearest near!
I was in strangerhood amidst you all: * But willed the
Truth[FN#491] my solace should appear.
Joined us the potent bonds of Faith and Creed; * We met as
dearest fere greets dearest fere:
He sued for interview whenas pursued * The spy, and blamed us
envy's jibe and jeer:
Then leave your chiding and from blame desist, * For fie upon
you! not a word I'll hear.
I care for naught that disappears and fleets; * My care's for
Things nor fleet nor disappear.'
And lo! a Shaykh, a very old man, opened the door in haste and
said to me, 'Enter.' So I entered and found myself in a chamber
strewn with sweet-scented herbs and with a curtain drawn across
one corner, from behind which came a sound of groaning and grame,
weak as from an emaciated frame. I sat down before the curtain
and was about to offer my salam when I bethought me of his words
(whom Allah save and assain!), 'Accost not a Jew nor a Christian
with the salam salutation;[FN#492] and, when ye meet them in the
way, constrain them to the straitest part thereof.' So I withheld
my salutation, but she cried out from behind the curtain, saying,
'Where is the salutation of Unity and Indivisibility, O Khawwas?'
I was astonished at her speech and asked, 'How knowest thou me?';
whereto she answered, 'When the heart and thoughts are whole, the
tongue speaketh eloquently from the secret recesses of the soul.
I begged Him yesterday to send me one of His saints, at whose
hands I might have deliverance, and behold, it was cried to me
from the dark places of my house, 'Grieve not; for we soon will
send thee Ibrahim the Basket-maker.' Then I asked her, 'What of
thee?' and she answered, 'It is now four years since there
appeared to me the Manifest Truth, and He is the Relator and the
Ally, and the Uniter and the Sitter-by; whereupon my folk looked
askance upon me with an evil eye and taxed me with insanity and
suspected me of depravity, and there came not in to me doctor but
terrified me, nor visitor but confounded me.' Quoth I, 'And who
led thee to the knowledge of what thou wottest?' Quoth she, 'The
manifest signs and visible portents of Allah; and, when the path
is patent to thee, thou espiest with thine own eyes both proof
and prover.' Now whilst we were talking, behold, in came the old
man appointed to guard her and said, 'What doth thy doctor?'; and
she replied, 'He knoweth the hurt and hath hit upon the
healing.'"--And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to
say her permitted say.
When it was the Four Hundred and Seventy-eighth Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that "when the
Shaykh, her guardian, went in to her he said, 'What doth thy
doctor?'; and she replied, 'He knoweth the hurt and hath hit upon
the healing.' Hereupon he manifested joy and gladness and
accosted me with a cheerful countenance, then went and told the
King, who enjoined to treat me with all honour and regard. So I
visited her daily for seven days, at the end of which time she
said to me, 'O Abu Ishak, when shall be our flight to the land of
Al-Islam?' 'How canst thou go forth,' replied I, 'and who would
dare to aid thee?' Rejoined she, 'He who sent thee to me, driving
thee as it were;' and I observed, 'Thou sayest sooth.' So when
the morrow dawned, we fared forth by the city-gate and all eyes
were veiled from us, by commandment of Him who when He desireth
aught, saith to it, 'Be,' and it becometh;[FN#493] so that I
journeyed with her in safety to Meccah, where she made a home
hard by the Holy House of Allah and lived seven years; till the
appointed day of her death. The earth of Meccah was her tomb, and
never saw I any more steadfast in prayer and fasting than she;
Allah send down upon her His mercies and have compassion on him
who saith,
'When they to me had brought the leach (and surely showed *
The signs of flowing tears and pining malady),
The face-veil he withdrew from me, and 'neath it naught *
Save breath of one unsouled, unbodied, could he see.
Quoth he, 'This be a sickness Love alone shall cure; *
Love hath a secret from all guess of man wide free.'
Quoth they, 'An folk ignore what here there be with him *
Nature of ill and eke its symptomology,
How then shall medicine work a cure?' At this quoth I *
'Leave me alone; I have no guessing specialty.'"
And they tell a tale of
