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The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade by Edgar Allan Poe · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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Speaker 1: work in the public domain, the thousand and second Tale
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Speaker 1: of Shahrazada Edgar Allan Poe. Truth is stranger than fiction.
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Speaker 1: Dot old saying, having had occasion lately in the course
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Speaker 1: of some Oriental investigations to consult the tell me now
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Speaker 1: ice its ornate, a work which, like the Zohar of
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Speaker 1: Simeon Jurchades, is scarcely known at all, even in Europe,
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Speaker 1: and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by
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Speaker 1: any American. If we accept perhaps the author of the
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Speaker 1: Curiosities of American literature, having had occasion, I say to
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Speaker 1: turn over some pages of the first mentioned very remarkable work.
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Speaker 1: I was not a little astonished to discover that the
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Speaker 1: literary world has hitherto been strangely in error respecting the
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Speaker 1: fate of the Vizier's daughter Shahrazada, as that fate is
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Speaker 1: depicted in the Arabian Nights, and that the denumather given,
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Speaker 1: if not altogether inaccurate as far as it goes, is
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Speaker 1: at least to blame in not having gone very very
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Speaker 1: much farther. For full information on this interesting topic, I
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Speaker 1: must refer the inquisitive reader to the is its ornate itself.
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Speaker 1: But in the meantime I shall be pardoned for giving
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Speaker 1: a summary of what either discovered. It will be remembered that,
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Speaker 1: in the usual version of the tales, a certain monarch,
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Speaker 1: having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not
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Speaker 1: only puts her to death, but makes a vow by
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Speaker 1: his beard and the prophet to espouse each night the
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Speaker 1: most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the next morning
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Speaker 1: to deliver her up to the executioner. Having fulfilled this
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Speaker 1: vow for many years to the letter, and with a
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Speaker 1: religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him
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Speaker 1: as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he
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Speaker 1: was interrupted one afternoon, no doubt, at his prayers, by
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Speaker 1: a visit from his grand vizier, to whose daughter it
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Speaker 1: appears there had occurred an idea. Her name was Shahrazada,
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Speaker 1: and her idea was that she would either redeem the
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Speaker 1: land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,
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Speaker 1: after the approved fashion of all all heroines. In the
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Speaker 1: attempt accordingly, and although we do not find it to
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Speaker 1: be leap here, which makes the sacrifice more meritorious, she
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Speaker 1: deputes her father, the Grand Vizier, to make an offer
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Speaker 1: to the King of her hand. This hand, the King
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Speaker 1: eagerly accepts. He had intended to take it at all events,
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Speaker 1: and had put off the matter from day to day
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Speaker 1: only through fear of the Vizier. But in accepting it
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Speaker 1: now he gives all parties very distinctly to understand that
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Speaker 1: Grand Vizier or no grand Vizier, he is not the
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Speaker 1: slightest design of giving up one iota of his vow
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Speaker 1: or of his privileges. When therefore, the fair Shahrazada insisted
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Speaker 1: upon marrying the King, and did actually marry him, despite
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Speaker 1: her father's excellent advice not to do anything of the kind.
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Speaker 1: When she would and did marry him, I say, will
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Speaker 1: I nail I? It was with her beautiful black eyes,
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Speaker 1: as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.
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Speaker 1: It seems, however, that this politic damsel, who had been
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Speaker 1: reading Machiavelli beyond doubt, had a very ingenious little plot
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Speaker 1: in her mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived,
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Speaker 1: upon I forget what specious pretense, to have her sister
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Speaker 1: occupy a couch sufficiently near that of the royal pair
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Speaker 1: to admit of easy conversation from bed to bed, and
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Speaker 1: a little before cock crowing, she took care to awaken
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Speaker 1: the good monarch, her husband, who bore her none the
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Speaker 1: worse will because he intended to wring her neck. On
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Speaker 1: the morrow. She managed to awaken him, I say, although
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Speaker 1: on account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion,
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Speaker 1: he slept well by the profound interest of a story
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Speaker 1: about a rat and a black cat, I think, which
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Speaker 1: she was narrating, all in an undertone, of course, to
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Speaker 1: her sister. When the day broke. It so happened that
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Speaker 1: this history was not altogether finished, and that Shahrazada, in
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Speaker 1: the nature of things, could not finish it just then,
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Speaker 1: since it was high time for her to get up
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Speaker 1: and be boustrom, a thing very little more pleasant than hanging,
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Speaker 1: only a trifle more genteel. The King's curiosit, however prevailing,
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Speaker 1: I am sorry to say, even over his sound religious
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Speaker 1: principles induced him, for this once to postpone the fulfillment
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Speaker 1: of his vow until next morning, for the purpose and
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Speaker 1: with the hope of hearing that night how it fared
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Speaker 1: in the end with the black cat. A black cat
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Speaker 1: I think it was, and the rat. The night having arrived, however,
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Speaker 1: the Lady Shahrazada not only put the finishing stroke to
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Speaker 1: the black cat and the rat. The rat was blue,
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Speaker 1: but before she well knew what she was about, found
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Speaker 1: herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference,
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Speaker 1: if I am not altogether mistaken, to a pink horse
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Speaker 1: with green wings, that went in a violent manner by
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Speaker 1: clockwork and was wound up with an indigo key. With
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Speaker 1: this history, the king was even more profoundly interested than
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Speaker 1: with the other. And as the day broke before its conclusion,
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Speaker 1: notwithstanding all the Queen's endeavors to get through with it
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Speaker 1: in time for the bow stringing, there was again no
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Speaker 1: resource but to postpone that ceremony as before, for twenty
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Speaker 1: four hour. The next night there happened a similar accident
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Speaker 1: with a similar result, and then the next, and then
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Speaker 1: again the next, so that in the end the good Monarch,
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Speaker 1: having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his
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Speaker 1: vow during a period of no less than one thousand
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Speaker 1: and one nights, either forgets it altogether by the expiration
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Speaker 1: of this time, or gets himself absolved of it. In
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Speaker 1: a regular way, or what is more probable, breaks it
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Speaker 1: outright as well as the head of his father confessor.
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Speaker 1: At all events, Shahrazada, who being lineally descended from eve Fell,
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Speaker 1: heir perhaps to the whole seven baskets of talk, which
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Speaker 1: the latter lady we all know picked up from under
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Speaker 1: the trees in the garden of Eden. Shahrazada, I say,
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Speaker 1: finally triumphed and the tariff upon beauty was repealed. Now
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Speaker 1: this conclusion, which is that of the story as we
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Speaker 1: have it upon record, is no doubt excessively proper and pleasant,
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Speaker 1: but alas like a great many pleasant things, is more
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Speaker 1: pleasant than true. And I am indebted altogether to the
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Speaker 1: is its Ornate for the means of correcting the error.
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Speaker 1: Le Mieux, says a French proverb st l Enemy Dubien,
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Speaker 1: And in mentioning that Seherazada had inherited the seven baskets
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Speaker 1: of talk, I should have added that she put them
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Speaker 1: out at compound interest until they amounted to seventy seven.
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Speaker 1: My dear sister, said she on the thousand and second night,
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Speaker 1: I quote the language of the is its Ornate. At
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Speaker 1: this point verbade him. My dear sister said, she now
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Speaker 1: that all this little difficulty about the bowstring has blown over,
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Speaker 1: and that this odious tax is so happily repealed, I
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Speaker 1: feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in
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Speaker 1: withholding from you and the King, whom I am sorry
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Speaker 1: to say snores, a thing no gentleman would do. The
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Speaker 1: full conclusion of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through
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Speaker 1: numerous other and more interesting adventures than those which I related.
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Speaker 1: But the truth is I felt sleepy on the particular
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Speaker 1: night of their narration, and so was seduced into cutting
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Speaker 1: them short, a grievous piece of misconduct for which I
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Speaker 1: only trust that Allah will forgive me. But even yet
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Speaker 1: it is not too late to remedy my great neglect.
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Speaker 1: And as soon as I have given the king a
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Speaker 1: pinch or two in order to wake him up so
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Speaker 1: far that he may stop making that horrible noise, I
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Speaker 1: will forthwith entertain you and him, if he pleases, with
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Speaker 1: the sequel of this very remarkable story. Hereupon the sister
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Speaker 1: of Shahrazada, as I have it from the is its ornet,
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Speaker 1: expressed no very particular intensity of gratification. But the King,
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Speaker 1: having been sufficiently pinched at length, ceased snoring, and finally
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Speaker 1: said hum, and then who when the Queen, understanding these words,
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Speaker 1: which are no doubt Arabic, to signify that he was
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Speaker 1: all attention and would do his best not to snore
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Speaker 1: any more. The Queen, I say, having arranged these matters
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Speaker 1: to her satisfaction, re entered thus at once into the
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Speaker 1: history of Sinbad the Sailor at length in my old age.
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Speaker 1: These are the words of Sinbad himself, as retailed by
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Speaker 1: Shahrazada at length in my old age. And after enjoying
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Speaker 1: many years of tranquility at home, I became once more
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Speaker 1: possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries, And one day,
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Speaker 1: without acquainting any of my family with my design, I
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Speaker 1: packed up some bundles of such merchandise as was most
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Speaker 1: precious and least bulky, and, engaging a porter to carry them,
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Speaker 1: went with him down to the sea shore to await
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Speaker 1: the arrival of any chance vessel that might convey me
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Speaker 1: out of the kingdom into some region which I had
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Speaker 1: not as yet explored. Having deposited the packages upon the sands,
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Speaker 1: we sat down beneath some trees and looked out into
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Speaker 1: the ocean. In the hope of perceiving a ship, but
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Speaker 1: during several hours we saw none whatever. At length, I
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Speaker 1: fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound,
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Speaker 1: and the porter, after listening awhile, declared that he also
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Speaker 1: could distinguish it. Presently, it grew louder, and then still louder,
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Speaker 1: so that we could have no doubt that the object
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Speaker 1: which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the
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Speaker 1: edge of the horizon, we discovered a black speck which
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Speaker 1: rapidly increased in size, until we made it out to
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Speaker 1: be a vast monster, swimming with a great part of
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Speaker 1: its body above the surface of the sea. It came
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Speaker 1: toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of
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Speaker 1: foam around its breast and illuminating all that part of
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Speaker 1: the sea through which it passed, with a long line
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Speaker 1: of fire that extended far off into the distance. As
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Speaker 1: the thing drew near, we saw it very distinctly. Its
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Speaker 1: length was equal to that of three of the loftiest
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Speaker 1: trees that grow, and it was as wide as the
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Speaker 1: great hall of Audience in your palace, Oh, most sublime
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Speaker 1: and munificent of the caliphs. Its body which was unlike
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Speaker 1: that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock,
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Speaker 1: and of a jetty blackness throughout all that portion of
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Speaker 1: it which floated above the water, with the exception of
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Speaker 1: a narrow, blood red streak that completely begirdled it. The belly,
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Speaker 1: which floated beneath the surface, and of which we could
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Speaker 1: get only a glimpse now and then as the monster
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Speaker 1: rose and fell with the billows, was entirely covered with
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Speaker 1: metallic skins als of a color like that of the
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Speaker 1: moon in misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white,
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Speaker 1: and from it their extended upwards of six spines, about
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Speaker 1: half the length of the whole body. This horrible creature
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Speaker 1: had no mouth that we could perceive, but as if
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Speaker 1: to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with
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Speaker 1: at least four score of eyes that protruded from their
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Speaker 1: sockets like those of the green dragonfly, and were arranged
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Speaker 1: all around the body in two rows, one above the
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Speaker 1: other and parallel to the blood red streak, which seemed
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Speaker 1: to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three
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Speaker 1: of these dreadful eyes were much larger than the others,
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Speaker 1: and had the appearance of solid gold. Although this beast
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Speaker 1: approached us, as I have before said, with the greatest rapidity.
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Speaker 1: It must have been moved altogether by necromancy, for it
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Speaker 1: had neither fins like a fish, nor web feet like
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Speaker 1: a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown
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Speaker 1: along in the manner of a vessel. Nor yet did
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Speaker 1: it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head
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Speaker 1: and its tail were shaped precisely alike. Only not far
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Speaker 1: from the latter were two small holes that served for nostrils,
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Speaker 1: and through which the monster puffed out its thick breath
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Speaker 1: with prodigious violence and with a shrieking, disagreeable noise. Our
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Speaker 1: terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but
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Speaker 1: it was even surpassed by our astonishment, when, upon getting
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Speaker 1: a nearer look, we perceived upon the creatures back a
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Speaker 1: vast number of animals, about the size and shape of men,
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Speaker 1: and altogether much resembling them, except that they wore no garments,
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Speaker 1: as men do, being supplied by nature, no doubt, with
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Speaker 1: an ugly, uncomfortable covering, a good deal like cloth, but
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Speaker 1: fitting so tight to the skin as to render the
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Speaker 1: poor wretches laughably awkward, and put them apparently to severe pain.
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Speaker 1: On the very tips of their heads were certain square
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Speaker 1: looking boxes, which at first sight I thought might have
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Speaker 1: been intended to answer as turbans, But I soon discovered
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Speaker 1: that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I therefore
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Speaker 1: concluded they were contrivances designed by their grit weight to
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Speaker 1: keep the heads of the animals steady and safe upon
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Speaker 1: their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were fastened
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Speaker 1: black collars badges of servitude, no doubt, such as we
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Speaker 1: keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer,
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Speaker 1: so that it was quite impossible for these poor victims
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Speaker 1: to move their heads in any direction without moving the
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Speaker 1: body at the same time, and thus they were doomed
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Speaker 1: to perpetual contemplation of their noses, a view puggish and
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Speaker 1: snubby in a wonderful if not positively in an awful degree.
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Speaker 1: When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood,
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Speaker 1: it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a
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Speaker 1: great extent, and emitted from it a terrible flash of fire,
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Speaker 1: accompanied by a dense cloud of smoke and a noise
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Speaker 1: that I can compare it to nothing but thunder. As
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Speaker 1: the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd
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Speaker 1: man animals standing near the head of the large beast,
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Speaker 1: with a trumpet in his hand, through which, putting it
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Speaker 1: to his mouth, he presently addressed us in loud, harsh
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Speaker 1: and disagreeable accents, that perhaps we should have mistaken for
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Speaker 1: language had they not come altogether through the nose. Being
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Speaker 1: thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how
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Speaker 1: to reply, as I could in no manner understand what
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Speaker 1: was said, And in this difficulty I turned to the porter,
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Speaker 1: who was near swooning through affright, and demanded of him
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Speaker 1: his opinion as to what species of monster it was,
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Speaker 1: what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were
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Speaker 1: that so swarmed upon its back. To this, the porter replied,
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Speaker 1: as well as he could for trepidation, that he had
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Speaker 1: once before heard of this sea beast, that it was
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Speaker 1: a cruel demon with bowels of sulfur and blood of fire,
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Speaker 1: created by evil GENII as the means of inflicting misery
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Speaker 1: upon mankind, That the things upon its back were vermin,
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Speaker 1: such as sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a little
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Speaker 1: larger and more savage, and that these vermin had their uses,
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Speaker 1: however evil through the torture they caused a beast by
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Speaker 1: their nibbling and stingings. It was goaded into that degree
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Speaker 1: of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and
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Speaker 1: commit ill, and so fill the vengeful and malicious designs
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Speaker 1: of the wicked GENII. This account determined me to take
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Speaker 1: to my heels, and without once even looking behind me,
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Speaker 1: I ran at full speed up into the hills, while
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Speaker 1: the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite direction,
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Speaker 1: so that by these means he finally made his escape
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Speaker 1: with my bundles, of which I have no doubt he
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Speaker 1: took excellent care, although this is a point I cannot determine,
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Speaker 1: as I do not remember that I ever beheld him again.
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Speaker 1: For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm
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Speaker 1: of the men vermin who had come to the shore
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Speaker 1: in boats, that I was very soon overtaken, bound hand
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Speaker 1: and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately swam
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Speaker 1: out again into the middle of the sea. I now
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Speaker 1: bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to
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Speaker 1: peril my life in such adventures as this, but regret
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Speaker 1: being useless. I made the best of my condition and
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Speaker 1: exerted myself to secure the good will of the man
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Speaker 1: animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared to exercise
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Speaker 1: authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this
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Speaker 1: endeavor that in a few days the creature bestowed upon
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Speaker 1: me various tokens of his favor, and in the end
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Speaker 1: even went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments
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Speaker 1: of what it was, vain enough to denominate its language,
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Speaker 1: so that at length I was enabled to converse with
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Speaker 1: it readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent
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Speaker 1: desire I had of seeing the world washish, squashish, squeak, sinbad, Hey, diddle, diddle,
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Speaker 1: grunt and grumble hiss, fiss whiss, said he to me
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Speaker 1: one day after dinner. But I beg a thousand pardons.
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Speaker 1: I had forgotten that your Majesty is not conversant with
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Speaker 1: the dialect of the cocknas. So the man animals were called,
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Speaker 1: I presume because their language formed the connecting link between
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Speaker 1: that of the horse and that of the rooster. With
15:44
Speaker 1: your permission, I will translate washish, squashish and so forth.
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Speaker 1: That is to say, I am happy to find, my
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Speaker 1: dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow.
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Speaker 1: We are now about doing a thing which is called
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Speaker 1: circumnavigating the globe, And since you are so desirous of
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Speaker 1: seeing the world, I will strain a point and give
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Speaker 1: you a free passage upon back of the beast. When
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Speaker 1: the lady Shahrazada had proceeded thus far relates that is
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Speaker 1: its ornet, the King turned over from his left side
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Speaker 1: to his right, and said, it is in fact very surprising,
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Speaker 1: my dear queen, that you omitted hitherto these latter adventures
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Speaker 1: of Sinbad. Do you know I think them exceedingly entertaining
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Speaker 1: and strange. The King, having thus expressed himself, we are
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Speaker 1: told the fair Shahrazada resumed her history in the following words.
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Speaker 1: Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative. I
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Speaker 1: thanked the man animal for its kindness, and soon found
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Speaker 1: myself very much at home on the beast, which swam
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Speaker 1: at a prodigious rate through the ocean. Although the surface
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Speaker 1: of the latter is in that part of the world
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Speaker 1: by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, So
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Speaker 1: that we went, so to say, either up hill or
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Speaker 1: downhill all the time that I think was very singular,
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Speaker 1: interrupted the king. Nevertheless, it is quite true, replied Shahrazada.
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Speaker 1: I have my doubts, rejoined the king. But pray be
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Speaker 1: so good as to go on with the story I will,
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Speaker 1: said the queen. The beast continued Sindbad to the Caliph,
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Speaker 1: swam as I have related up hill and down hill,
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Speaker 1: until at length we arrived at an island many hundreds
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Speaker 1: of miles in circumference, but which nevertheless had been built
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Speaker 1: in the middle of the sea by a colony of
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Speaker 1: little things like caterpillars. Asterisk one hum, said the king.
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Speaker 1: Leaving this island, said Sinbad. For Shahrazada, it must be understood,
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Speaker 1: took no notice of her husband's illmannered ejaculation. Leaving this island,
17:45
Speaker 1: we came to another, where the forests were of solid stone,
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Speaker 1: and so hard that they shivered to pieces. The finest
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Speaker 1: tempered axes with which we endeavored to cut them down.
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Speaker 1: Asterisk too, hum, said the king again, but Shahrazada, paying
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Speaker 1: him no attention, continued in the language of Sindbath. Passing
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Speaker 1: beyond this last island, we reached a country where there
18:07
Speaker 1: was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty
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Speaker 1: or forty miles within the bowels of the earth, and
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Speaker 1: that contained a greater number of far more spacious and
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Speaker 1: more magnificent palaces than are to be found in all
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Speaker 1: Damascus and Baghdad. From the roofs of these palaces there
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Speaker 1: hung myriads of gems, like diamonds, but larger than men.
18:26
Speaker 1: And in among the streets of towers and pyramids and
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Speaker 1: temples there flowed immense rivers, as black as ebony, and
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Speaker 1: swarming with fish that had no eyes. Asterisk three hum,
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Speaker 1: said the King. We then swam into a region of
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Speaker 1: the sea, where we found a lofty mountain, down whose
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Speaker 1: sides their stream torrents of melted metal, some of which
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Speaker 1: were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long. Asterisk four.
18:49
Speaker 1: While from an abyss on the summit issued so vast
18:52
Speaker 1: a quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted
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Speaker 1: out from the heavens, and it became darker than the
18:58
Speaker 1: darkest midnight, so that when we were even at the
19:00
Speaker 1: distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the mountain,
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Speaker 1: it was impossible to see the whitest object, however close
19:06
Speaker 1: we held it to our eyes. Asterisk five hum, said
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Speaker 1: the king. After Quitting this coast, the beast continued his
19:15
Speaker 1: voyage until we met with a land in which the
19:17
Speaker 1: nature of things seemed reversed. For we here saw a
19:20
Speaker 1: great lake, at the bottom of which more than a
19:22
Speaker 1: hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished
19:25
Speaker 1: in full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.
19:29
Speaker 1: Asterisk six, who said the king, some hundred miles farther
19:34
Speaker 1: on brought us to a climate where the atmosphere was
19:37
Speaker 1: so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as
19:39
Speaker 1: our own does feather Asterisk seven fiddle the dee, said
19:44
Speaker 1: the king. Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently
19:48
Speaker 1: arrived at the most magnificent region in the whole world.
19:52
Speaker 1: Through it there meandered a glorious river for several thousands
19:55
Speaker 1: of miles. This river was of unspeakable depth and of
19:59
Speaker 1: a trend disparancy richer than that of amber. It was
20:03
Speaker 1: from three to six miles in width, and its banks,
20:05
Speaker 1: which arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in
20:08
Speaker 1: perpendicular height, were crowned with ever blossoming trees and perpetual,
20:12
Speaker 1: sweet scented flowers that made the whole territory one gorgeous garden.
20:16
Speaker 1: But the name of this luxuriant land was the Kingdom
20:18
Speaker 1: of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable death astor
20:23
Speaker 1: escape humph, said the King. We left this kingdom in
20:27
Speaker 1: great haste, and after some days came to another, where
20:31
Speaker 1: we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous animals with
20:34
Speaker 1: horns resembling sides upon their heads. These hideous beasts dig
20:39
Speaker 1: for themselves vast caverns in the soil of a funnel shape,
20:42
Speaker 1: and line the sides of them with rocks so disposed
20:45
Speaker 1: one upon the other that they fall instantly when trodden
20:48
Speaker 1: upon by other animals, thus precipitating them into the monsters dens,
20:52
Speaker 1: where their blood is immediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards
20:56
Speaker 1: hurled contemptuously out to an immense distance from the caverns
21:00
Speaker 1: of death. Asterisk nine pooh, said the King. Continuing our progress,
21:06
Speaker 1: we perceived a district with vegetables that grew not upon
21:09
Speaker 1: any soil, but in the air asterisk ten. There were
21:13
Speaker 1: others that sprang from the substance of other vegetables asterisk eleven.
21:17
Speaker 1: Others that derived their substance from the bodies of living
21:20
Speaker 1: animals asterisk twelve. And then again there were others that
21:24
Speaker 1: glowed all over with intense fire asterisk thirteen, others that
21:28
Speaker 1: moved from place to place at pleasure asterisk fourteen. And
21:32
Speaker 1: what was still more wonderful, We discovered flowers that lived
21:36
Speaker 1: and breathed, and moved their limbs at will, and had
21:38
Speaker 1: moreover the detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures
21:43
Speaker 1: and confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the
21:46
Speaker 1: fulfillment of appointed tasks asterisk fifteen. Shaw said the king
21:52
Speaker 1: quitting this land, we soon arrived at another, in which
21:55
Speaker 1: the bees and the birds are mathematicians of such genius
21:58
Speaker 1: and erudition that they give daily instructions in the science
22:01
Speaker 1: of geometry to the wise men of the empire. The
22:05
Speaker 1: king of the place, having offered a reward for the
22:07
Speaker 1: solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon
22:10
Speaker 1: the spot, the one by the bees and the other
22:13
Speaker 1: by the birds, but the king keeping their solution as secret.
22:16
Speaker 1: It was only after the most profound researches in labor
22:19
Speaker 1: and the writing of an infinity of big books during
22:23
Speaker 1: a long series of years, that the men mathematicians at
22:26
Speaker 1: length arrived at the identical solutions which have been given
22:29
Speaker 1: upon the spot by the bees and by the birds.
22:32
Speaker 1: Asterisk sixteen O Mai, said the King. We had scarcely
22:37
Speaker 1: lost sight of this empire when we found ourselves close
22:40
Speaker 1: upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads
22:42
Speaker 1: a flock of fouls a mile in breadth and two
22:45
Speaker 1: hundred forty miles long, so that although they flew a
22:48
Speaker 1: mile during every minute, it required no less than four
22:52
Speaker 1: hours for the whole flock to pass over us, in
22:54
Speaker 1: which there were several millions of millions of foul Asterisk
22:58
Speaker 1: seventeen O f Why, said the King. No sooner had
23:03
Speaker 1: we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us great annoyance,
23:06
Speaker 1: than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl
23:08
Speaker 1: of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocks
23:11
Speaker 1: which I met in my former voyages. For it was
23:14
Speaker 1: bigger than the biggest of the domes on your Seralio, oh,
23:17
Speaker 1: most munificent of Caliph's. This terrible fowl had no head
23:22
Speaker 1: that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly,
23:25
Speaker 1: which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness of a
23:28
Speaker 1: soft looking substance, smooth, shining, and striped with various colors
23:33
Speaker 1: in its talons. The monster was bearing away to his
23:36
Speaker 1: airy in the heavens, a house from which it had
23:38
Speaker 1: knocked off the roof, and in the interior of which
23:41
Speaker 1: we distinctly saw human beings, beyond doubt, were in a
23:44
Speaker 1: state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited them.
23:49
Speaker 1: We shouted with all our might in the hope of
23:51
Speaker 1: frightening the bird into letting go of its prey, But
23:53
Speaker 1: it merely gave a snort or puff, as if of rage,
23:56
Speaker 1: and then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack,
23:59
Speaker 1: which proved to be fit filled with sand stuff. Said
24:02
Speaker 1: the King. It was just after this adventure that we
24:06
Speaker 1: encountered a continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but
24:09
Speaker 1: which nevertheless was supported entirely upon the back of a
24:13
Speaker 1: sky blue cow that had no fewer than four hundred
24:15
Speaker 1: horns asterisk eighteen. That now I believe, said the King,
24:21
Speaker 1: because I have read something of the kind before in
24:24
Speaker 1: a book. We passed immediately beneath this continent, swimming in
24:28
Speaker 1: between the legs of the cow, and after some hours
24:31
Speaker 1: found ourselves in a wonderful country, indeed, which I was
24:35
Speaker 1: informed by the man animal was his own native land,
24:38
Speaker 1: inhabited by things of his own species. This elevated the
24:42
Speaker 1: man animal very much in my esteem, and in fact
24:45
Speaker 1: I now began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity
24:48
Speaker 1: with which I had treated him. For I found that
24:50
Speaker 1: the man animals in general were a nation of the
24:52
Speaker 1: most powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain
24:56
Speaker 1: Asterisk nineteen, which no doubt served to stimulate them by
25:01
Speaker 1: their painful writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts
25:04
Speaker 1: of imagination. Nonsense, said the King. Among the magicians were
25:10
Speaker 1: domesticated several animals of very singular kinds. For example, there
25:14
Speaker 1: was a huge horse whose bones were iron, and whose
25:17
Speaker 1: blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had
25:21
Speaker 1: black stones for his usual food, And yet in spite
25:24
Speaker 1: of so hard a diet, he was so strong and
25:27
Speaker 1: swift that he would drag a load more weighty than
25:29
Speaker 1: the grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing
25:32
Speaker 1: that of the flight of most birds Asterisk twenty twaddle.
25:36
Speaker 1: Said the King. I saw also among these people a
25:40
Speaker 1: hen without feathers, but bigger than a camel. Instead of
25:43
Speaker 1: flesh and bones, she had iron and brick. Her blood,
25:47
Speaker 1: like that of the horse, to whom in fact she
25:49
Speaker 1: was nearly related, was boiling water, and like him, she
25:53
Speaker 1: ate nothing but wood or black stones. This hen brought
25:57
Speaker 1: forth very frequently a hundred chickens in the day, and
26:00
Speaker 1: after birth they took up their residence for several weeks
26:03
Speaker 1: within the stomach of their mother. Asterisk twenty one. Foul lull,
26:08
Speaker 1: said the king one of this nation of mighty conjurers,
26:12
Speaker 1: created a man out of brass and wood and leather,
26:15
Speaker 1: and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would have
26:17
Speaker 1: beaten at chess all the race of mankind, with the
26:20
Speaker 1: exception of the great caliph Coronal rasket Asterisk twenty two.
26:25
Speaker 1: Another of these magi constructed of like material a creature
26:29
Speaker 1: that put to shame even the genius of him who
26:31
Speaker 1: made it. For so great were its reasoning powers, that
26:34
Speaker 1: in a second it performed calculations of so vast an
26:37
Speaker 1: extent that they would have required the united labor of
26:40
Speaker 1: fifty thousand fleshy men for a year Astis twenty three.
26:44
Speaker 1: But a still more wonderful conjure of fashion for himself,
26:47
Speaker 1: a mighty thing that was neither man nor beast, but
26:50
Speaker 1: which had brains of lead intermixed with a black matter
26:53
Speaker 1: like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such incredible
26:56
Speaker 1: speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble
26:59
Speaker 1: in riding out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in
27:01
Speaker 1: an hour, and this with so exquisite a precision, that
27:04
Speaker 1: in all the copies there should not be found one
27:06
Speaker 1: to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair.
27:10
Speaker 1: This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected
27:13
Speaker 1: or overthrew the mightiest empires at a breath. But its
27:16
Speaker 1: powers were exercised equally for evil and for good. Ridiculous,
27:21
Speaker 1: said the King. Among this nation of necromancers, there was
27:24
Speaker 1: also one who had in his veins the blood of
27:26
Speaker 1: the salamanders. For he made no scruple of sitting down
27:29
Speaker 1: to smoke his chibook in a red hot oven until
27:32
Speaker 1: his dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor Astis twenty four.
27:37
Speaker 1: Another had the faculty of converting the common metals into
27:39
Speaker 1: gold without even looking at them during the process. Asterisk
27:44
Speaker 1: twenty five. Another had such a delicacy of touch that
27:47
Speaker 1: he made a wire so fine as to be invisible.
27:50
Speaker 1: Astus twenty six. Another had such quickness of perception that
27:54
Speaker 1: he counted all the separate motions of an elastic body
27:57
Speaker 1: while it was springing backward and forward, at the rate
27:59
Speaker 1: of nine one hundred millions of times in a second
28:02
Speaker 1: Asterisk twenty seven. Absurd, said the King. Another of these magicians,
28:08
Speaker 1: by means of a fluid that nobody ever yet saw,
28:11
Speaker 1: could make the corpses of his friends, brandish their arms,
28:14
Speaker 1: kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and
28:17
Speaker 1: dance at his will. Asterisk twenty eight. Another had cultivated
28:21
Speaker 1: his voice to so great an extent that he could
28:23
Speaker 1: have made himself heard from one end of the world
28:25
Speaker 1: to the other. Asterisk twenty nine. Another had so long
28:30
Speaker 1: an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and
28:32
Speaker 1: indict a letter at Bagdad, or indeed at any distance whatsoever,
28:37
Speaker 1: Asterisk thirty. Another commanded the lightning to come down to
28:40
Speaker 1: him out of the heavens, and it came at his
28:42
Speaker 1: call and serve him for a plaything. When it came.
28:45
Speaker 1: Another took two loud sounds, and out of them made
28:48
Speaker 1: a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two
28:52
Speaker 1: brilliant lights asterisk thirty one. Another made ice in a
28:56
Speaker 1: red hot furnace asterisk thirty two. Another directed the son
29:01
Speaker 1: to paint his portrait, and the sun did asterisk thirty three.
29:06
Speaker 1: Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets, and,
29:09
Speaker 1: having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their
29:12
Speaker 1: depths and found out the solidity of the substance of
29:15
Speaker 1: which they were made. But the whole nation is indeed
29:19
Speaker 1: of so surprising a necromatic ability, that not even their
29:22
Speaker 1: infants nor their commonest cats and dogs, have any difficulty
29:26
Speaker 1: in seeing objects that do not exist at all, Or that,
29:29
Speaker 1: for twenty millions of years before the birth of the
29:31
Speaker 1: nation itself had been blotted out from the face of
29:33
Speaker 1: creation Asterisk thirty four. Preposterous, said the king. The wives
29:41
Speaker 1: and daughters of these incomparably great and wise Magi, continued Shahrazada,
29:45
Speaker 1: without being in any manner disturbed by these frequent and
29:48
Speaker 1: most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of her husband. The
29:51
Speaker 1: wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers are everything that
29:54
Speaker 1: is accomplished and refined, and would be everything that is
29:58
Speaker 1: interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them,
30:02
Speaker 1: and from which not even the miraculous powers of their
30:05
Speaker 1: husbands and fathers has hitherto been adequate to save. Some
30:10
Speaker 1: fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others. But
30:13
Speaker 1: this of which I speak has come in the shape
30:15
Speaker 1: of a crotchet. A what said the king, A crotchet,
30:20
Speaker 1: said Shahrazada. One of the evil genii, who are perpetually
30:24
Speaker 1: upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into
30:27
Speaker 1: the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which
30:29
Speaker 1: we describe as personal beauty consists altogether in the protuberance
30:33
Speaker 1: of the region which lies not very far below the
30:35
Speaker 1: small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is
30:40
Speaker 1: in the direct ratio of the extent of this lump.
30:43
Speaker 1: Having been long possessed of this idea, and boasters being
30:46
Speaker 1: cheap in that country, the days have long gone by
30:49
Speaker 1: since it was possible to distinguish a woman from a
30:51
Speaker 1: dromedary stop, said the King. I can't stand that, and
30:55
Speaker 1: I won't. You have already given me a dreadful headache
30:59
Speaker 1: with your lies. The day, too, i perceive, is beginning
31:03
Speaker 1: to break how long have we been married? My conscience
31:07
Speaker 1: is getting to be troublesome again. And then that dromedary touch,
31:11
Speaker 1: Do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole
31:14
Speaker 1: you might as well get up and be throttled. These words,
31:18
Speaker 1: as I learned from the ice its ornet, both grieved
31:21
Speaker 1: and astonished Scheherrazada. But as she knew the king to
31:25
Speaker 1: be a man of scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to
31:28
Speaker 1: forfeit his word, she submitted to her fate with a
31:30
Speaker 1: good grace. She derived, however, great consolation, during the tightening
31:36
Speaker 1: of the bowstring from the reflection that much of the
31:38
Speaker 1: history remained still untold, and that the petulance of her
31:41
Speaker 1: brute of a husband had reaped for him a most
31:43
Speaker 1: righteous reward in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.