FIRST

THE FIRST KALANDAR'S TALE
KNOW, O my lady, that the cause of my beard being shorn and my eye

being outtorn was as follows: My father was a king and he had a
brother who was a king over another city; and it came to pass that I

and my cousin, the son of my paternal uncle, were both born on one and
the same day. And years and days rolled on and as we grew up I used to

visit my uncle every now and then and to spend a certain number of
months with him. Now my cousin and I were sworn friends, for he ever

entreated me with exceeding kindness. He killed for me the fattest
sheep and strained the best of his wines, and we enjoyed long

conversing and carousing. One day when the wine had gotten the
better of us, the son of my uncle said to me, "O my cousin, I have a

great service to ask of thee, and I desire that thou stay me not in
whatso I desire to do!" And I replied, "With joy and goodly will."

Then he made me swear the most binding oaths and left me, but
after a little while he returned leading a lady veiled and richly

appareled, with ornaments worth a large sum of money. Presently he
turned to me (the woman being still behind him) and said, "Take this

lady with thee and go before me to such a burial ground" (describing
it, so that I knew the place) "and enter with her into such a

sepulcher and there await my coming." The oaths I swore to him made me
keep silence and suffered me not to oppose him, so I led the woman

to the cemetery and both I and she took our seats in the sepulcher.
And hardly had we sat down when in came my uncle's son, with a bowl of

water, a bag of mortar, and an adze somewhat like a hoe. He went
straight to the tomb in the midst of the sepulcher and, breaking it

open with the adze, set the stones on one side. Then he fell to
digging into the earth of the tomb till he came upon a large iron

plate, the size of a wicket door, and on raising it there appeared
below it a staircase vaulted and winding. Then he turned to the lady

and said to her, "Come now and take thy final choice!"
She at once went down by the staircase and disappeared, then quoth

he to me, "O son of my uncle, by way of completing thy kindness,
when I shall have descended into this place, restore the trapdoor to

where it was, and heap back the earth upon it as it lay before. And
then of thy great goodness mix this unslaked time which is in the

bag with this water which is in the bowl and, after building up the
stones, plaster the outside so that none looking upon it shall say:

'This is a new opening in an old tomb'. For a whole year have I worked
at this place whereof none knoweth but Allah, and this is the need I

have of thee," presently adding, "May Allah never bereave thy
friends of thee nor make them desolate by thine absence, O son of my

uncle, O my dear cousin!" And he went down the stairs and
disappeared for ever.

When he was lost to sight, I replaced the iron plate and did all his
bidding till the tomb became as it was before, and I worked almost

unconsciously, for my head was heated with wine. Returning to the
palace of my uncle, I was told that he had gone forth a-sporting and

hunting, so I slept that night without seeing him. And when the
morning dawned, I remembered the scenes of the past evening and what

happened between me and my cousin. I repented of having obeyed him
when penitence was of no avail. I still thought, however, that it

was a dream. So I fell to asking for the son of my uncle, but there
was none to answer me concerning him, and I went out to the

graveyard and the sepulchers, and sought for the tomb under which he
was, but could not find it. And I ceased not wandering about from

sepulcher to sepulcher, and tomb to tomb, all without success, till
night set in. So I returned to the city, yet I could neither eat nor

drink, my thoughts being engrossed with my cousin, for that I knew not
what was become of him. And I grieved with exceeding grief and

passed another sorrowful night, watching until the morning. Then
went I a second time to the cemetery, pondering over what the son of

mine uncle had done and, sorely repenting my hearkening to him, went
round among all the tombs, but could not find the tomb I sought. I

mourned over the past, and remained in my mourning seven days, seeking
the place and ever missing the path.

Then my torture of scruples grew upon me till I well-nigh went
mad, and I found no way to dispel my grief save travel and return to

my father. So I set out and journeyed homeward, but as I was
entering my father's capital a crowd of rioters sprang upon me and

pinioned me. I wondered thereat with all wonderment, seeing that I was
the son of the Sultan, and these men were my father's subjects and

amongst them were some of my own slaves. A great fear fell upon me,
and I said to my soul, "Would Heaven I knew what hath happened to my

father!" I questioned those that bound me of the cause of their so
doing, but they returned me no answer. However, after a while one of

them said to me (and he had been a hired servant of our house),
"Fortune hath been false to thy father. His troops betrayed him, and

the Wazir who slew him now reigneth in his stead, and we lay in wait
to seize thee by the bidding of him." I was well-nigh distraught and

felt ready to faint on hearing of my father's death, when they carried
me off and placed me in presence of the usurper.

Now between me and him there was an olden grudge, the cause of which
was this: I was fond of shooting with the stone bow, and it befell one

day, as I was standing on the terrace roof of the palace, that a
bird lighted on the top of the Wazir's house when he happened to be

there. I shot at the bird and missed the mark, but I hit the Wazir's
eye and knocked it out, as fate and fortune decreed. Now when I

knocked out the Wazir's eye, he could not say a single word, for
that my father was King of the city, but he hated me ever after, and

dire was the grudge thus caused between us twain. So when I was set
before him hand-bound and pinioned, he straightway gave orders for

me to be beheaded. I asked, "For what crime wilt thou put me to
death?" Whereupon he answered, "What crime is greater than this?"

pointing the while to the place where his eye had been. Quoth I, "This
I did by accident, not of malice prepense," and quoth he, "If thou

didst it by accident, I will do the like by thee with intention." Then
cried he, "Bring him forward," and they brought me up to him, when

he thrust his finger into my left eye and gouged it out, whereupon I
became one-eyed as ye see me.

Then he bade bind me hand and foot, and put me into a chest, and
said to the sworder, "Take charge of this fellow, and go off with

him to the wastelands about the city. Then draw thy scimitar and
slay him, and leave him to feed the beasts and birds." So the headsman

fared forth with me, and when he was in the midst of the desert, he
took me out of the chest (and I with both hands pinioned and both feet

fettered) and was about to bandage my eyes before striking off my
head. But I wept with exceedingweeping until I made him weep with

me and, looking at him I began to recite these couplets:
"I deemed you coat o'mail that should withstand

The foeman's shafts, and you proved foeman's brand.
I hoped your aidance in mine every chance,

Though fail my left to aid my dexter hand.
Aloof you stand and hear the railer's gibe

While rain their shafts on me the giber band.
But an ye will not guard me from my foes,

Stand clear, and succor neither these nor those!"
And I also quoted:

"I deemed my brethren mail of strongest steel,
And so they were- from foes to fend my dart!

I deemed their arrows surest of their aim,
And so they were- when aiming at my heart!"

When the headsman heard my lines (he had been sworder to my sire and
he owed me a debt of gratitude), he cried, "O my lord, what can I