Great Works of Literature I (Fall 2016)

Upon entering the Sixth Circle, Dante and Virgil come across tombs “kindled all of them to glowing heat” (IX 119). When I think of a heretic, I envision an intellectual who has forsaken his people’s principles. However, it seems that the heresy of these folk is much more specific.

Dante naturally inquires of Virgil regarding the cries. Virgil explains that these cries belong to the arch-heretics. Moreover, each tomb is crowded with these souls. They are left to cry endlessly until they are ultimately judged in the Valley of Jehosaphat. While Dante and Virgil are speaking, one soul in particular interrupts them: Farinata. With encouragement form Virgil, Dante speaks to this soul. With a brief interruption from Cavalcante de Cavalcanti, we get a glimpse into the specific punishment of the heretics.

Farinata identifies Dante as a Tuscan by means of his accent. While discussing their ancestral history, another shade by the name of Cavalcante de Cavalcanti pops up. Dante explains, “He looked around me, just as if he longed to see if I had come with someone else” (55-56). Cavalcante inquires after his son. He is stunned by Dante’s specific diction of “your Guido did disdain” (63). Cavalcante understands from this that his son is already dead. And so he retreats back, not to show himself again. We will return to this briefly.

Further in the Farinata’s conversation with Dante, he predicts Dante’s impeding exile from Florence. Dante notices that Farinata has the ability to prophesy that which will occur, but is unable to contextualize the present. The living says to the dead, “It seems, if I hear right, that you can see beforehand that which time is carrying, but you’re denied the sight of present things” (97-99). Farinata’s response elucidates exactly the punishment of the heretics: “We see, even as men who are farsighted, those things…that are remote from us; the Highest Lord allots us that much light. But when events draw near or are, our minds are useless; were we not informed by other, we should know nothing of your human state. So you can understand how our awareness will die completely at the moment when the portal of the future has been shut” (100-108). To complete the idea, Dante requests that Farinata convey to Cavalcante de Cavalcanti that his son is, in fact, still alive.

It seems that the heretics got their just dessert. For the Epicureans, it was claiming to understand the immortality (or lack there of) of the soul. Consequently, they are deprived of any ability to understand the world as it is. The same is true of all heretics. Further, as Farinata explains, after the Last Judgement, these souls will know absolutely nothing. For abusing their ability to think and comprehend for falsehood, they are damned to eternal ignorance.

Additionally, one can suggest that this is the natural consequence of heresy. It is not that these souls have gotten what they deserve, per se. Rather, the truth lies with the order of the world: if you abuse knowledge, knowledge will be taken from you. This does seem similar to the other explanation, though it seems there is nuance to be found. Further investigation is required!

The first realization that comes to a reader, who has never read this epic before, is that this Divine Comedy is not completely theological (and sadly not a joke book). The second realization the reader comes to is that this isn’t God’s hell, this is Dante’s hell, therefore Dante is the judge and he is playing by his rules, i.e. his justice. In Dante’s hell, the first circle the pilgrim enters is called Limbo. This is where great non-Catholic thinkers reside in hell. The list includes the “cherished” Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Personally, I wouldn’t mind being eternally stuck in Limbo. It has a “sweetly flowing stream” (4.108) and “a meadow fresh in bloom” (4.111). It is a place of comfort in a world of torment. Nevertheless, it seems at first that the shades of these thinkers are here because they are non-Catholic, and Virgil even goes on to say that they are here because they didn’t worship God and Christ the way they “should” (4.37)- yet Dante places priests, popes and cardinals in a deeper circle of hell for just avarice (7.46-48). But what is more startling is where Dante places Epicurus, a notable Ancient Greek philosopher. Epicurus tried to do something pivotal in humanity’s history. He wanted to prove that there is no immortal soul and that there is no life after death. He did this because he saw that the beliefs of an afterlife evoked a psychological fear of death in humanity. In Epicurean psychology, fear makes us unhappy (here, fear means anxiety, there is also another meaning of fear that is temporary and is directed towards an object; fear as anxiety stays within a person, who subscribes to certain beliefs, throughout his/her entire life), and it is psychological: it is not something real, meaning it just exists in your head, it isn’t really “out there” or “outside you”. Since Dante comes from a political background, he understands the theory of fear and it’s role for society. But more importantly, without the afterlife he would no longer be able to evoke this fear in this poem; he needs fear. Since Epicurus tried to get rid of this belief, Dante has him and his followers burning in their sarcophagi (canto 10). This is where Dante is unjust. This is where one could discern Dante’s philosophical bias. Not believing in a soul or the afterlife is not a crime nor a sin if you lived 200 years before Christ! All of these Greek philosophers lived way before Christ- yet they reside in Limbo, but not Epicurus. Epicurus is simply theology’s and these philosophers’ philosophies’ antithesis. Dante should not have punished someone who held beliefs that conflicted with his. Burning in his tomb with his followers is an unjust punishment for this poor gardener (Epicurus’ school was called “The Garden”). Speaking of his school, Epicurus allowed slaves and women in his school, while Aristotle tried to justify slavery and saw women as an inferior substance. Also, Epicurus appreciated life, while Plato saw it as suffering and a sickness. (You be the judge). So what is it that distinguishes these thinkers that are in Limbo and a thinker like Epicurus for Dante? In short, value judgments. Epicurus’ values were not in alignment with Dante’s own personal, subjective, values. Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato are in Limbo because they justified the immortal soul, life after death and other doctrines which helped out theology later on. But why is this justification of the afterlife important for Dante? This justification, mixed in with some religion, supports the fear of not knowing what will occur after death. Without all this Dante would not have been able to exact punishment on those Florentine contemporaries that went against him. If there is no belief then there is no fear, and Dante’s contemporaries will shrug of their punishment in the afterlife as an empty threat. Therefore, I see Dante’s divine justice, and this poem, as an allegory to the justice he thought the society he lived in deserved.

Three forms of violence find punishment in the Seventh Circle of Hell. In the second ring are those violent to self: “suicides, self-robbers of your world, / or those who gamble all their wealth away / and weep up there when they should have rejoiced” (11.43-45). Spirits who took their own life or livelihood are trapped in the rooted, mute bodies of trees and tormented by harpies. They may only speak when damaged by outside forces, when “from that splintered trunk a mixture poured / of words and blood” (13.43-44).

The trees paint a metaphor for the lives within them. Dante associates self-violence with self-pity and surrender of responsibility. In life these people sinned by being like trees, allowing society to scratch abuse into their bark and rip down their leaves, only weeping afterward at the injustice. In death, they become their sin. Passivity toward self-preservation is punished here with enforced eternal passivity.

Another clause of their punishment states that on Judgement Day the self-violent will return to Earth to drag their bodies into Hell and “all along the mournful / forest, our bodies shall hang forever more, / each one on a thorn of its own alien shade” (13.106-107). In their branches, they hold both the weight of their earthly vessel and bare their guilt for all to see, a physical consequence and visible representation of murdering themselves. First the self-violent must stew in the sin of their life; then they must shoulder the sin of their death.

This model of justice is retributive rather than corrective, and the model entirely loses its justice modifier when applied to crimes against the self. Whatever sense there is in punishing harm to others with harm to the offender falls away when self-harm is punished with more of the same.

Why follow this model of justice, then? The god of Dante’s world is spiteful. Listen to the mumbles of the Slothful: “Sluggish we were / in the sweet air made happy by the sun, / and the smoke of sloth was smoldering in our hearts; / now we lie sluggish here in this black muck!” (8.121-124). The words read as a punitive chant: “We have been ungrateful children; we deserve no dinner!” Dante’s god is above criticism—a playground bully—so he looks upon those who do not fully enjoy his creation and shoves their faces in the mud. This same attitude comes through when the self-violent’s right to their bodies is forfeit because “wrong it is / for a man to have again what he once cast off” (13.104-105).

What would be a petty grudge on Earth is divine justice in Hell.

“Having mended the net, he cast it into the sea, and      waited for it to sink. When he pulled, he found that it was so heavy that he  was unable to haul it. He shook it and found that it was  caught at the  bottom. Saying “There is no power or strength save in God, the Almighty,    the Magnificent,” he took off his clothes and dove for the net. He worked at  it until he managed to free it, and as he hauled it to the shore, he felt that  there was something heavy inside. He struggled with the net, until he  opened it and found a large long necked brass jar, with a lead stopper  bearing the mark of a seal ring. When the fisherman saw the jar, he was  happy and said to himself, “I will sell it in the copper market, for it must be worth at least    two measures of wheat.”

The fisherman was ecstatic to bring his catch to the local merchant to sell the jar for its metal. He lugged the heavy jar across the sand away from the sea. But as he reached land, he had no more strength to haul his catch to the town for the merchant. He was so tired from diving down to the jar, hauling it to shore, and dragging it across the sand that he collapsed from exhaustion. The fisherman awoke to the sight of the merchant, who had been taking a stroll by the sea. “Are you okay, fisherman?” the merchant asked the fisherman as he slapped his face to wake him. “Yes,” the fisherman with excitement, “I just caught this jar at sea and was actually planning to bring it to town for you. Look at all this brass, and this seal ring. And feel how heavy this is. There must be something inside, and it is not just water. It is far to heavy to be water, it must be valuable. It may even be gold dinars! Help me open the jar!” The merchant replied with skepticism, “Yes fisherman, the metal is valuable. But whatever is in is probably worthless. Bring it to my shop and we will open it there. If we open it here, the contents might be too hard to put back into the jar and bring to my shop.”

“You must help me haul this to your shop, it is too heavy for me to do alone. But I assure you, there must be something amazing inside,” the fisherman promised the merchant. The two men hauled the jar all through town to the merchant’s shop, where he could then sell it to the copper market. It took them many hours. When they finally arrived at the shop, there had been a copper trader already waiting to see if the merchant had anything for him to trade. “Look here,” said the merchant, “a heavy brass with a lead stopper. You could melt this brass into anything you want. But first, I must open it and see what is inside, then pay this fisherman who found it.”
“Well, I’ll buy the jar off of you, but it must not be opened. You might break the jar trying to open it,” the copper trader said slyly, hoping to keep whatever is inside for himself. “No, the fisherman shot back, “whatever is inside of here is valuable and I will not sell this jar to either of you until I see what is inside.” The merchant and copper trader agreed to open the jar to see if there is anything valuable that the merchant can buy from the fisherman. At first, the fisherman tried to pull off the lead stopper, but it would not budge. Then the merchant tried, and he could not pull it either. “Let me try,” the copper trader said, “I do this all the time.”

The copper trader tapped on the back of the jar to put pressure against the lead stopper to help open it. He pulled the stopper off with ease and poured the contents on the floor. A heap of sand from inside the jar formed on the floor. “Look what you have done to my shop. I told you there was nothing in here,” the merchant barked at the fisherman. But the sand began move in front of their eyes and formed into the shape of a large monstrous person. All the men gasped when they realized what it was. “A demon!” the merchant shrieked.

“You are a lucky man,” the demon said to the copper trader who opened the jar. “Why?” he asked. The demon replied, “You get to decide how you would like to die. I waited eight hundred years for someone to open this jar and release me from this tiny cramped jar. Then, I made a vow to kill whoever finally opens this jar. “

“But no, the merchant gave me this jar to open, I only opened it for him. And we released you,” the copper trader said defensively. The merchant shot back, “No demon, this fisherman found this jar and gave it to me. He discovered it. I am innocent, blame the fisherman!”

“So then it is you the fisherman who must die. How would you like to die?” the demon asked.

“But demon, the fisherman acted in good faith. He released you from your confinement in the jar. Let him go,” the copper trader pleaded, begging for sympathy for the fisherman who found this otherwise valuable jar. The devil shook his head and refused.

The merchant also felt sorry for the fisherman who brought him this valuable jar in god faith to sell to the copper trader, and said, “Demon, I have a proposition. If I could tell you a story so interesting and so crazy, could you release this man of half of your claim against him?”
“Go ahead,” the demon said. The merchant cleared his throat and began to tell his tale…

After the demon released the merchant, he said to the four men, “all of your stories were strange. But now that I no longer pose a threat to you, oh merchant, I will share with you how my son came to be killed by one of the stones you threw. This is the strangest story of all.” One old man looked at the other and each said, “By God, I shall not leave until I hear the story of the demon.” The merchant, weary of remaining in this place much longer, began to discreetly move away. The demon noticed this, and so he said to the merchant, “merchant, I will strike a deal with you: if you stay and listen to my story, and do not find it to be stranger than each story of these old men, then I will grant you one wish.” The merchant, now entreated by the demon’s offer, agreed to stay and hear the story.

And so the demon began, “my mortal friends, give me your ears, eyes, and minds. The absence of one detail from this tale undoes the whole.

“Years ago, I was a very rich man. I acquired my wealth through success as a trader in the market selling jewelry of only the finest kind. Traders would travel from long and far to purchase my jewels. My son would play in the market and often get into fights with the other children while they were playing. He was a fierce child—controlled by a demon. I feared one day he would engage in a fight beyond his strength.

“One day, a trader stopped by my stand in the market. With a face covered by cloth and a head wrapped in garb, he whispered in a low voice, ‘if you want to be rich, you will come with me.’ I replied to the man, ‘thank you, good man, but I am already quite rich.’ The man persisted and hissed at me, ‘that may be so, the business of trade treats you well. But the riches of which I speak are greater than anything you have ever known.’ Intrigued by his ambiguity and secrecy, I obliged to go with him. I closed up my stand, collected my son, and the three of us began walking out of the market.

“As we were leaving, I turned to the man and asked, ‘why do you hide your face?’ He turned his body to stare in my face with his dark, deep eyes—the like I had never seen before—and he said, “do not seek that for which you are not prepared to die.” Confused, again, by his statement, I retreated, and we continued to walk out of the market.

“Upon reaching the market’s end, the man said to me, ‘your son must remain here.’ I hastily explained to the man, ‘I do not go anywhere without my son.’ With a sense of malice, the man told me, ‘you must accustom yourself to his absence, for he will die before you.’

“I shuddered at his words. My intuition told me to return to my stand with my son and forget that I had ever met this man. But I felt seduced by his presence. ‘Play with your friends, son; I will return soon.’ Some inclination within me could not resist.

“We walked and walked, far from the market, until we reached the outskirts of the town. After some time, I asked the man, ‘why can you not show me your face?’ He told me as he did before: ‘I can show it to you, but you must be prepared to die.’

“We walked further until we arrived at a date tree—a lone tree in an open field. The man explained to me that the pits of these dates are sweeter than the sweetest fruit: they are made of gold. ‘Do not pick one of the dates, however. You must live here for one year—tending to every one of the tree’s needs. If you can succeed in this year, the tree will belong to you, and you will acquire all of the dates and their gold pits. But, if you fail, you will become the slave of this tree for your entire life.’

“Thoughts drifted to my son. What would he think happened to me? A whole year lost, but unbelievable riches gained. I thought back to the days of my childhood where I planted many trees with my father. I knew I would succeed and so I did not fear slavery. ‘I accept.’

“The year went by, and I succeeded in satisfying the tree. It gave itself over to me. I could now sell all these precious dates for bundles of money. The first thing I did, though, was return to the market to find my son.

“Weaving in and out of the crowds of people, I searched everywhere for him. He was nowhere to be found. I figured that perhaps he had gone home, so I went to my stand and reopened it. At midday there would be much business, and I could commence selling the dates I had with me.

“My stand had never been so popular as it was on that day. Hundreds of merchants came to inspect these remarkable fruits. The masked man was right—I had achieved a richness I never thought possible! Basking in the glory of my treasure, I saw a peasant in the corner of my eye. A feeling of generosity was aroused within me, and I decided to give him a gift. I purchased regular dates and mixed a gold-pitted date with the bunch, so he would not know that I was giving him such a kindness. He happily accepted the bit of food to eat, and I returned to my stand. As nightfall came, someone with a covered face approached my stand. It was not the same man I had met a year ago. No, no—It was my son!

“‘My son! My son, how I have missed you. Why is your face covered like this?’ He got so close to me, I extended my arms to embrace him, but he glared in my face with his dark, deep eyes—a glare I had only seen once before. He turned and ran. I left my shop and chased after him. I chased him for a far distance, until I recognized where we were. He stopped. He turned his body to face me and before I could utter a word, he turned again. And now with his back toward me a stone flew from above, hit my son’s head, and he fell to the ground—dead.”

The merchant looked at the demon, straight in the face with deep, dark eyes, and inquired, “why would you choose gold over your son?” “I did not choose.” replied the demon, as he looked down in shame. “It was the demon who did all this. And now I have become the same for my son’s death.”

Without notice, the merchant covered his face with a cloth and walked away.

“He spent the rest of the time with his family, and when the year came to an end, save for the time needed for the journey, he performed his ablutions, performed his prayers, and, carrying his burial shroud, began to bid his family good-bye. His sons hung around his neck, his daughters wept, and his wife wailed. Their mourning scared him, and he began to weep, as he embraced and kissed his children good-bye.”

When he regained composure and his tears dried, the merchant remembered he wanted to leave one last thing for his family before his inevitable death. “My family, I want you to know of what happened to the uncle and his nephew, a tale that you should all keep in mind in the wake of my perishing. Listen”:

One early morning, a man and his nephew headed out, as planned, to climb a faraway hill, in pursuit of a rare fruit that was rumored to grace it’s peak, and only it’s peak. This hill was not any hill, however. It took from dusk until dawn to fully ascend any given side of its dense and winding terrain; a full-day’s hike to the top. In addition, many large and ravenous birds inhabited the trees that lined the slope, posing as a threat to anyone who tried to complete the mission. There were people who attempted to do just this, however none of the trekkers made it out alive.

The uncle and his nephew arrived with immense preparation – ready to use their tactical and physical skill to get past the birds, and confident that they would succeed. As they made their way through the tall grasses, massive trees, and dense underbrush, the uncle and the nephew fought off dozens of swooping and ferocious birds, each one a closer call than the last. One even gnawed at the sleeve of the nephew’s coat.

Eventually they reached the top, exhausted and ready to discover the rare fruit beheld by this monstrous hill. It was right in front of them, an exotic-looking plant with spider leg branches. On each one was a small, marbled, green and red fruit, the size of a pea. They indulged until the sun set, and right as they settled in to rest, a strong wind picked up one of the large spider leg branches and impaled the nephew, taking his life instantly. The uncle mourned for days and days, contemplating the accident and wondering why.

Just like my coincidental and unfortunate brush with the demon’s son, resulting in my passing, the nephew’s fate was ill-starred. Everything happens for a reason, as all of the Creator’s threads are intertwined.

 He said to them, “Children, this is God’s will and decree, for man was created to die.”

Demon, as for my story, these are the details. These two dogs are my brothers. We were raised by the great Huntmaster in Abha. As hunting dogs, we were trained to kill the biggest game in the vastness of the mountain range. Despite being the youngest of all three, I was the strongest, the fastest, and the most cunning companion that the Huntmaster ever had. Every hunting trip, I would aid my master in capturing his most prized possessions – Antelopes with marvelous horns, striped hyenas, and even the mysterious red foxes. My master rewarded me generously for my efforts. I was well-fed, well-groomed, and I even earned the spot next to his bed to sleep – an accolade only for the best hunting dog in a household.

My brothers, jealous of my talents and the way I was treated, soon planned a scheme against me. We were on our way from an unfruitful trip, when my brothers pulled me aside to notify me that they saw a cape hare on the very top of this hill. They said that they were to slow to catch it and figured only I, the strongest, fastest, and the most cunning dog, will be able to. Blinded by my brothers’ praises, I immediately sprinted towards the mountaintop, determined to capture the rarest game that lives in the wilderness. When I reached the tip of the cliff, hastily looking around for the hare, I did not even notice my brothers sneaking up on me and, working in unison, kicking me off of the cliff with their muscular legs.

It was then that I realized that it was a scheme. There was no cape hare, and they just needed a way to get me to the mountaintop to push me off. As I was falling, I thought for sure that it was the end of my life.

But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister Dinarzad said, “Sister, what a lovely story!” Shahrazad replied, “Tomorrow night I shall tell you something even lovelier, stranger, and more wonderful if I live, the Almighty God willing.”

THE SEVENTH NIGHT

The following night Dinarzad said to her sister Sharazad, “For God’s sake, sister, if you are not sleepy, tell us a little tale.” The king added, “Let it be the completion of the story of the black dog and his brothers.” Shahrazad replied, “With the greatest pleasure”:

I heard, O happy King, that the second old man said to the demon:

When I woke up, I was in disbelief. I was in a bed for the first time in my life, cushioned by silky sheets that wrapped around my body. I attempted to stretch, and to my horror, my body no longer looked like the way I remembered it to – long, lanky arms replaced my forelegs, and my hind legs, too, resembled more like a man and less like a beast. A young maiden walked in and informed me of the events that took place after I fell from the cliff. A soothsayer, she resides right under the cliff, living in solidarity as she practices magic. She rescued me, lying unconsciously with all my limbs broken. She decided that the best way to heal me was to turn me into a man, for man have better means of regeneration than a beast. Her magical potions also gave me the ability to communicate.

I lived with this sorceress for a while, putting my innate ability of hunting to use. I eventually moved out into the city, living well off of the game that I capture in the mountains. A week ago, I was in the middle of another hunting trip, when I saw two black dogs running to catch a deer. I immediately recognized them. They were so focused on the deer that they were totally oblivious of my presence, and of course, they did not recognize that I am the little brother that they tried to kill. I briskly captured them and held onto them in my residence, unsure of what to do with my own kin that plotted murder against me. I decided to consult the sorceress that saved my life, but found out that she has been travelling in this country when I met this man, together with this old man with the deer.

When I asked him about himself, he told me about his encounter with you, and I resolved not to leave until I found out what would happen between you and him. This is my story. Isn’t it amazing?
The demon replied, “By God, it is strange and amazing. I grant you one-third of my claim on him for his crime.”

But this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the salesman and the thief…

Dinarzad asked, “Please, sister, what is the story of the salesman and the thief?” Shahrazad said…”’

Let me tell you about the salesman and the thief.

There was a man, old and kind. His heart was gentle, which was uncommon of those in his line of work. However, of all the things he was, a brute was not one. The old man made his living selling snakes. Anacondas, garters, vipers, cobras, and pythons included. More valuable than any snake in his shop, though, was a beautiful golden flute which the salesman kept encased and wrapped in old rags in a corner nearly invisible.

One day, a stranger came upon the shop.

“My, what a fine shop you have here! I’ve traveled far in all directions and had yet to see such a remarkable collection until today,” he said.

“Why thank you, kind traveler. Might I ask the name of the man who compliments my work so?” responded the salesman.

“You may call me Voleur, though I do insist you tell me more about your snakes”

And so, the salesman took the voleur around the shop, granting interesting detail about the traits and prices of every snake.

Upon turning the corner where the golden flute lay hidden, Voleur unsheathed a sword and held the salesman against the wall.

“Guess, merchant where I hail from.” he said.

“You are a Frenchman, of course.”

“Ah, you must be a worldly man”

“And you must be a thief” interrupted the salesman.

“It was foolish of you to tell a wanderer so much about your possessions, an old defenseless man such as yourself against a youthful lad like me”

“Oh, please thief, do not take my snakes as they are all I have. I am left with no wife or children. Instead, all me to offer you this golden flute” said the merchant as he motioned to the rag covered box.

“All you have to do is hold it to your lips and you’ll play the most beautiful sounds for miles to hear”

Voleur opened the case and lifted the flute as if to play, but at first breath, the sword dropped and out of his clothes slithered a snake!

“What have you done?” cried the snake.

“Ha ha ha, I’ve done nothing. You’ve turned yourself into a snake” laughed the merchant.

For four days the snake would approach the shop, begging to be returned to his human form, but the salesman would say he could not.

On the fifth day, the snake instead asked the merchant why he could not change him back.

In response, the merchant said “the flute is not mine, I acquired it a time ago while traveling to Agrabah.

“Tell me, salesman, how I may arrive there and who to seek so I may resume my human form.”

But the salesman simply put the snake Voleur in a basket and carried him off.

Here, Scheherazade detached and said:

“As intriguing as this story is, it is not nearly as interesting as the story of the sorcerer and the flute. Wait until tomorrow and I will tell you.”

The merchant himself went back home to his family, his wife, and his children, and he lived with them until the day he died. But this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the Princess and the horse.

Dinarzad asked, “Please, sister, what is the story of the princess and the horse?” Shahrazad said…

 I heard, O happy King, there was a princess on the southernmost tip of the Cairo Kingdom, the only offspring of the queen and king. She began riding horses at the age of seven and developed a deep passion for the sport. The man who took care of the stable had a young boy, around the same age as the princess. The pair grew up together, riding horses everyday until nightfall. They fell in love and the boy asked the princess to marry him. The princess, deeply in love, accepted in a heartbeat but when the queen found out she became enraged and said to herself, “I would rather be dead than have my beautiful daughter marry a poor stable boy.” Then, on a dark night the queen went over to the farm house where the boy and his father slept. The queen, knowing soothsaying and magic, cast a spell on the boy turning him into a horse. The next morning when the princess went over to see the boy, she found his father weeping. The boy’s father told the princess the boy had gone missing in the middle of the night without leaving anything behind. The princess, with an anguished heart, grieved for the boy and didn’t set foot in the stables for a year. During that time, the queen arranged a marriage for her daughter with the prince of a neighboring kingdom. When alone, the princess would think of the boy, sigh deeply with grief and say, “None has felt a pain as great as mine.” In her depression, the princess grew thinner and thinner, and pale with sadness. On the night in which the princess was to get married, she ran into the woods hoping to die but encountered a white horse. When the horse saw the princess it ran to her and threw itself at her feet, whining and rubbing its head against her. The princess, touched with pity, looked into its eyes and saw the boy’s eyes and fainted. The horse waited patiently for the princess to wake up but the king and his servants came into the woods looking for her. The princess was taken home by the king and nursed back to health. Three months went by before the princess was fully healed and able to leave the palace. She ran back to the woods and found the white horse and looking once again into its eyes began to weep. The princess hopped on the horse’s back and went to a mystical island looking for a witch to help the boy.  The princess found an old lady who immediately saw her plight and filled a bowl of water, uttered an incantation and an oath, and said to the boy, “Horse, if you have been created in this imagine by the Almighty God of Heavens, stay as you are, but if you have been put under a spell, change back to your original form.” Then she sprinkled the boy with water and he returned to his human form. The princess and the boy rushed to each other and quickly embraced. The boy told the princess and the old lady what the evil queen had done. The old lady became furious and turned both the queen and king into frogs. The princess and the boy returned to the Cairo Kingdom, married immediately and became the new king and queen of the land. But this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the fisherman.

The following text is found on page 577. My words start from the italics.

‘Then they separated, and each of them went on his way. The merchant himself went back home to his family, his wife, and his children, and he lived with them until the day he died. But this story is not as strange or as amazing as the story of the beggar and the King…

Dinarzad asked, “Please, sister, what is the story of the beggar and the king?” Shahrazad said…”’

“Once there was a king who held a feast in his palace for the rulers of the neighboring kingdoms. After much food and wine, each royal began boasting about the greatness of their respective countries. One queen claimed her people produced the finest wine in the entire world. Everybody agreed this was true, because she always supplied the wine for every royal family gathering. Another king claimed his subject were the best fighters, and everybody agreed this was also true, because this brother held the most territory. And so each ruler claimed a certain positive quality or skill exclusive to their people, until the sultan got up and claimed that that his people were the best storytellers. At this, his counterparts disagreed, because one sister had already claimed that skill for her people. The king did not relent, but insisted on providing a proof. And so he began his story:

‘There was once a clever old beggar who walked into the coffee shop. He was hungry for a meal and begged the customers for some money to buy food, but not a single patron would give him even one dinar. Eventually, a young officer grew impatient of the old man’s frequent begging and cried out, “Old geezer, go steal people’s time somewhere else!” The clever senior replied, “let me make it worth your time to see me and provide shelter for me. I’ll tell you my life story, and if you are not entertained by the end of it, I’ll go away and never come back.” But the young man did not agree to the offer and drew his sword instead, so the old man left. He travelled all over the city, begging to tell his story in return for some food or shelter: he went to the tanneries, the spice market, the produce market, and even the temples, but everybody turned him away, for the beggar’s notoriety had spread across town. Finally, at twilight, the beggar reached the fish market, and found a few stalls still open. A poor fisherman and his family were having a late picnic by the shore, and agreed to listen to beggar’s tale. They were fascinated, but could only afford to give the old man some water and half a salty fish. These the clever beggar accepted graciously and went on his way. Slowly but surely, the old beggar’s reputation as a great story teller grew, and he was invited to give a story at the city’s main square, to all of its inhabitants, young and old, rich and poor. “This is the story of the fisherman and the demon”, the beggar began…

‘But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister Dinarzad said, “Sister, what a thrilling story!” Shahrazad replied, “The rest is even more thrilling.” The king said to himself, “I will not have her put to death until I hear the beggar’s story; then I will put her to death, as is my custom with the others.”

The following night, Dinarzad said to her sister Shahrazad, “For God’s sake, sister, if you are not too sleepy, tell us one of your little tales.” Shahrazad replied, “With the greatest pleasure”: