Читать книгу One Thousand and One Nights (Complete Annotated Edition) - Richard Francis Burton - Страница 184

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She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the Grand Chamberlain became Sultan they named him King Sásán; and after he had assumed the throne he governed the people in righteous way. Now as he was giving audience one day, Kanmakan’s verses came to his knowledge. Thereupon he repented him of the past and going in to his wife Nuzhat al-Zaman, said to her, “Verily, to join Halfah grass and fire,1305 is the greatest of risks, and man may not be trusted with woman, so long as eye glanceth and eyelid quivereth. Now thy brother’s son, Kanmakan, is come to man’s estate and it behoveth us to forbid him access to the rooms where anklets trinkle, and it is yet more needful to forbid thy daughter the company of men, for the like of her should be kept in the Harim.” Replied she, “Thou sayest sooth, O wise King!” Next day came Kanmakan according to his wont; and, going in to his aunt saluted her. She returned his salutation and said to him, “O my son! I have some what to say to thee which I would fain leave unsaid; yet I must tell it thee despite my inclination.” Quoth he, “Speak;” and quoth she, Know then that thy sire the Chamberlain, the father of Kuzia Fakan, hath heard of the verses thou madest anent her, and hath ordered that she be kept in the Harim and out of thy reach; if therefore, O my son, thou want anything from us, I will send it to thee from behind the door; and thou shalt not look upon Kuzia Fakan nor shalt thou return hither from this day forth.” When he heard this he arose and withdrew with out speaking a single word; and, betaking himself to his mother related what his aunt had said. She observed, “This all cometh of thine overtalking. Thou knowest that the news of thy passion for Kuzia Fakan is noised abroad and the tattle hath spread everywhere how thou eatest their food and thereafter thou courtest their daughter.” Rejoined he, “And who should have her but I? She is the daughter of my father’s brother and I have the best of rights to her.” Retorted his mother, “These are idle words. Be silent, lest haply thy talk come to King Sasan’s ears and it prove the cause of thy losing her and the reason of thy ruin and increase of thine affliction. They have not sent us any supper to-night and we shall die an hungered; and were we in any land but this, we were already dead of famine or of shame for begging our bread.” When Kanmakan heard these words from his mother, his regrets redoubled; his eyes ran over with tears and he complained and began improvising,

“Minish this blame I ever bear from you:

My heart loves her to whom all love is due:

Ask not from me of patience jot or little,

Divorce of Patience by God’s House! I rue:

What blamers preach of patience I unheed;

Here am I, love path firmly to pursue!

Indeed they bar me access to my love,

Here am I by God’s ruth no ill I sue!

Good sooth my bones, whenas they hear thy name,

Quail as birds quailed when Nisus o’er them flew:1306 Ah! say to them who blame my love that I Will love that face fair cousin till I die.”

And when he had ended his verses he said to his mother, “I have no longer a place in my aunt’s house nor among these people, but I will go forth from the palace and abide in the corners of the city.” So he and his mother left the court; and, having sought an abode in the neighbourhood of the poorer sort, there settled; but she used to go from time to time to King Sasan’s palace and thence take daily bread for herself and her son. As this went on Kuzia Fakan took her aside one day and said to her, “Alas, O my naunty, how is it with thy son?” Replied she, “O my daughter, sooth to say, he is tearful-eyed and heavy hearted, being fallen into the net of thy love.” And she repeated to her the couplets he had made; whereupon Kuzia Fakan wept and said, “By Allah! I rebuked him not for his words, nor for ill-will to him, but because I feared for him the malice of foes. Indeed my passion for him is double that he feeleth for me; my tongue may not describe my yearning for him; and were it not for the extravagant wilfulness of his words and the wanderings of his wit, my father had not cut off from him favours that besit, nor had decreed unto him exclusion and prohibition as fit. However, man’s days bring nought but change, and patience in all case is most becoming: peradventure He who ordained our severance will vouchsafe us reunion!” And she began versifying in these two couplets,

“O son of mine uncle! same sorrow I bear,

And suffer the like of thy cark and thy care

Yet hide I from man what I suffer for pine;

Hide it too, and such secret to man never bare!”

When his mother heard this from her, she thanked her and blessed her: then she left her and acquainted her son with what she had said; whereupon his desire for her increased and he took heart, being eased of his despair and the turmoil of his love and care. And he said, “By Allah, I desire none but her!”; and he began improvising,

“Leave this blame, I will list to no flout of my foe!

I divulged a secret was told me to keep:

He is lost to my sight for whose union I yearn,

And I watch all the while he can slumber and sleep.”

So the days and nights went by whilst Kanmakan lay tossing upon coals of fire,1307 till he reached the age of seventeen; and his beauty had waxt perfect and his wits were at their brightest. One night, as he lay awake, he communed with himself and said, “Why should I keep silence till I waste away and see not my lover? Fault have I none save poverty; so, by Allah, I am resolved to remove me from this region and wander over the wild and the word; for my position in this city is a torture and I have no friend nor lover therein to comfort me; wherefore I am determined to distract myself by absence from my native land till I die and take my rest after this shame and tribulation.” And he began to improvise and recited these couplets,

“Albeit my vitals quiver ‘neath this ban;

Before the foe myself I’ll ne’er unman!

So pardon me, my vitals are a writ

Whose superscription are my tears that ran:

Heigh ho! my cousin seemeth Houri may

Come down to earth by reason of Rizwan:

’scapes not the dreadful sword lunge of her look

Who dares the glancing of those eyne to scan:

O’er Allah’s wide spread world I’ll roam and roam,

And from such exile win what bread I can

Yes, o’er broad earth I’ll roam and save my soul,

All but her absence bear ing like a man

With gladsome heart I’ll haunt the field of fight,

And meet the bravest Brave in battle van!”

So Kanmakan fared forth from the palace barefoot and he walked in a short sleeved gown, wearing on his head a skull cap of felt1308 seven years old and carrying a scone three days stale, and in the deep glooms of night betook himself to the portal of al-Arij of Baghdad. Here he waited for the gate being opened and when it was opened, he was the first to pass through it; and he went out at random and wandered about the wastes night and day. When the dark hours came, his mother sought him but found him not; whereupon the world waxt strait upon her for all that it was great and wide, and she took no delight in aught of weal it supplied. She looked for him a first day and a second day and a third day till ten days were past, but no news of him reached her. Then her breast became contracted and she shrieked and shrilled, saying, “O my son! O my darling! thou hast revived my regrets. Sufficed not what I endured, but thou must depart from my home? After thee I care not for food nor joy in sleep, and naught but tears and mourning are left me. O my son, from what land shall I call thee? And what town hath given thee refuge?” Then her sobs burst out, and she began repeating these couplets,

“Well learnt we, since you left, our grief and sorrow to

sustain,

While bows of severance shot their shafts in many a railing rain:

They left me, after girthing on their selles of corduwayne

To fight the very pangs of death while spanned they sandy plain:

Mysterious through the nightly gloom there came the moan of dove;

A ring dove, and replied I, ‘Cease thy plaint, how durst complain?’

If, by my life, her heart, like mine, were full of pain and pine

She had not decks her neck with ring nor sole with ruddy stain.1309 Fled is mine own familiar friend, bequeathing me a store Of parting pang and absence ache to suffer evermore.”

Then she abstained from food and drink and gave herself up to excessive tear shedding and lamentation. Her grief became public property far and wide and all the people of the town and country side wept with her and cried, “Where is thine eye, O Zau al- Makan?” And they bewailed the rigours of Time, saying, “Would Heaven we knew what hath befallen Kanmakan that he fled his native town, and chased himself from the place where his father used to fill all in hungry case and do justice and grace?” And his mother redoubled her weeping and wailing till the news of Kanmakan’s departure came to King Sasan. — And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.