a good vazír, worthy of his confidence, who assiduously attended to all his duties and was very faithful; but death overtook him, and the king, who was for some time undecided what to do, ultimately appointed in his place a man of great ambition, who secretly entertained a design of usurping the throne; and being in want of an accomplice he bribed a eunuch to introduce him to one of the ladies of the haram. But when he had become accustomed to the pleasures which awaited him in the fond embraces of love, he thought that it would be dangerous to carry out his purpose very hastily, so he drew the lady into his secret, and now neglected the eunuch who had assisted him thus far and who consequently made a vow to avenge himself on the ungrateful vazír.
One night the king had a very unpleasant dream: a scorpion crawled from his sleeve into his shoe, and when he attempted to take it out it bit him. In the morning the sultan related his dream to some of his courtiers, and as they could offer no satisfactory explanation of it he said: “You are only groping in the dark, and we must wait till a skilful interpreter can be found.”
The eunuch, who had heard the attendants conversing on the subject and thought this a favourable opportunity to revenge himself on the vazír, said that he was able to interpret the dream; and on being brought before the king spake as follows: “The interpretation is, that one of your majesty’s highest officials has withdrawn his head from the circle of obedience: by means of a eunuch he has gained admission into the royal haram, which he visits every night, and carries on a love-intrigue with one of the ladies; and moreover he entertains the most wicked design, at a fitting opportunity, of depriving your majesty of life (which God forbid!) and usurping the throne himself;—and there is a high degree of probability that the official is no other than the vazír.” On hearing this the king was wroth, but concealed his feelings, so that he should not compromise his dignity, and exclaimed: “Base wretch! there is nothing to warrant such a suspicion, unless, perhaps, some spite which you harbour against the vazír, and in consequence of which you malign him;” and he ordered the eunuch to be instantly put to death. But the king, though inclined to give some credit to the eunuch’s story, could hardly believe that a man such as his vazír, whom he had raised from a low position and made a sharer in the government of the kingdom, could be so ungrateful as to covet his throne and purpose depriving him of life.
During the past night the vazír had as usual visited his paramour, and they had then agreed to murder the king on the following night, but they wot not of what was in store for them. The king, who had been rendered uneasy by the revelation of the eunuch, entered his private apartments in the evening, and then secretly despatched a confidential servant to see whether the vazír was in his own house. When the messenger returned with the information that the vazír was not at home, the king had no longer any doubts, and knew that if the vazír had entered the haram he must have done so from the water-side. He quietly summoned all the watchmen and said to them: “Last night I dreamt that thieves entered the haram, and I am very uneasy; therefore I command you to kill any person either entering or issuing from it.” After the sentries had returned to their posts the king himself went into the haram, and, accompanied by some trusty eunuchs, rushed into the room where he supposed the vazír and the lady slept, and there discovering another guilty couple he slew them, and the former escaped.[49] While a eunuch ran after the vazír and his paramour, the king went out to see whether all the sentries were at their posts; and as soon as they perceived him they stabbed him to death, according to his own order. Meanwhile the eunuch pursued the vazír, who also went out by the water-side, was also mistaken in the darkness for a robber, and met the same fate as his master. Then the other eunuchs who were in search of the vazír, and were not aware of the king’s order, also issued by the same door and were all killed by the guards; so that in the morning when the dead bodies were counted they amounted to forty. On discovering the body of the king the people greatly deplored the misfortune, and, considering that he with all his attendants had been killed in consequence of a conspiracy, they laid hold of the watchmen and put them to death, after which the kingdom fell into a state of anarchy.
The vazír added that this narrative exemplified how one individual may become the cause of the death of many, and that from the misfortunes which followed Nassar’s exploits it plainly appeared that he was also one of the number of those ill-fated wretches, and that the misadventures of Shoayb of Baghdád likewise supported his statement. Quoth the king: “How is that?” whereupon the vazír related the
Story of the Unlucky Shoayb.
In days of yore there dwelt in the city of Baghdád a rich man called Shoayb, but various calamities befell him so that he became extremely poor and quitted the country, and his ill-luck followed him wheresoever he went, and in spite of all his diligence and skill he was unable to succeed in any affair which he undertook. One day he approached a river and discovered three men engaged in fishing, and as he had never seen this occupation exercised he looked on with much interest. The three fishermen, seeing that he was in a very destitute condition, easily induced him to enter their service, on condition that they should give him as his wages one fish for breakfast and another for supper.[50] After he had been a few days thus employed the river began to decrease in volume and also the fish in number, so that they caught only a tenth of the quantity which they used to get formerly. At last they could catch only one fish in a whole day, and were reduced to such straits that they resolved to go in quest of some other kind of work.
One day the sultan happened to pass that way and perceived to his great astonishment that there was scarcely any water in the river. He questioned the fishermen, who stated their case, when the vazír of the king, who was a very intelligent man, asked them: “Has any stranger come among you during these days and been taken into partnership with you?” They pointed to Shoayb and said: “This man is a stranger among us.” Then Shoayb was examined, and he recounted his former wealthy condition and his present destitution in such appropriate and eloquent language that the king and his vazír, as well as all the attendants, were greatly amazed, and when he had ended his narrative the vazír said: “To stay any longer in this place is contrary to the dictates of prudence!” So they all returned to the city, and on their way the king asked the vazír: “Why did you make those inquiries and then become so disconcerted by the answers you received that, by your declaration that it would be unsafe to stay any longer there, you almost forced us away from the place?” The vazír saluted the king and thus replied: “Most gracious sovereign, when your majesty asked for the cause of the river’s decrease I thought of three causes: First, that perhaps these fishermen had for several days forgotten God and the Prophet, and that therefore such a calamity had befallen them; because it is certain that when men give way to evil habits, the genii and demons are permitted to injure them and to destroy their prospects even as the withering blasts of autumn deprive the roses of their freshness and bloom. Secondly, that perchance these fishermen had in some way injured either your majesty or the inhabitants of this district, for which they were thus punished. Thirdly, that possibly a stranger had come amongst these fishermen, and that on account of the misfortunes which follow his heels they as his partners are compelled to participate in them, and therefore I questioned that stranger regarding his history; when I discovered that he had brought his ill-luck with him, in consequence of which the river itself has nearly dried up.” Quoth the king: “I have full confidence in your intelligence and experience, but I put no faith in your theories of good and ill-luck, because both are mere expressions and depend entirely upon circumstances. Thus, for instance, if a man be intelligent and honest, and manage his affairs properly, he will certainly have good luck, but a careless fool must naturally meet with ill luck:
Every man is master of his own fortune
According to his character and strength of mind:[51]
One, as Lukman,[52] wise and opportune;
The other as crazy Majnún[53]
