THE EBONY HORSE

THERE was once in times of yore and ages long gone before, a great
and puissant King, of the kings of the Persians, Sabur by name, who

was the richest of all the kings in store of wealth and dominion and
surpassed each and every in wit and wisdom. He was generous,

openhanded and beneficent, and he gave to those who sought him and
repelled not those who resorted to him, and he comforted the

brokenhearted and honorably entreated those who fled to him for
refuge. Moreover, he loved the poor and was hospitable to strangers

and did the oppressed justice upon the oppressor. He had three
daughters, like full moons of shining light or flower gardens blooming

bright, and a son as he were the moon. And it was his wont to keep two
festivals in the twelvemonth, those of the Nau-Roz, or New Year, and

Mihrgan, the Autumnal Equinox, on which occasions he threw open his
palaces and gave largess and made proclamation of safety and

security and promoted his chamberlains and viceroys. And the people of
his realm came in to him and saluted him and gave him joy of the

holy day, bringing him gifts and servants and eunuchs.
Now he loved science and geometry, and one festival day as he sat on

his kinglythrone there came in to him three wise men, cunning
artificers and past masters in all manner of craft and inventions,

skilled in making things curious and rare, such as confound the wit,
and versed in the knowledge of occult truths and perfect in

mysteries and subtleties. And they were of three different tongues and
countries: the first a Hindi or Indian, the second a Roumi or Greek,

and the third a Farsi or Persian. The Indian came forward and,
prostrating himself before the King, wished him joy of the festival

and laid before him a present befitting his dignity; that is to say, a
man of gold, set with precious gems and jewels of price and hending in

hand a golden trumpet. When Sabur saw this, he asked, "O sage, what is
the virtue of this figure?" and the Indian answered: "O my lord, if

this figure be set at the gate of thy city, it will be a guardian over
it; for if an enemy enter the place, it will blow this clarion against

him and he will be seized with a palsy and drop down dead." Much the
King marveled at this and cried, "By Allah, O sage, an this thy word

be true, I will grant thee thy wish and thy desire."
Then came forward the Greek and, prostrating himself before the

King, presented him with a basin of silver in whose midst was a
peacock of gold, surrounded by four and twenty chicks of the same

metal. Sabur looked at them and turning to the Greek, said to him,
"O sage, what is the virtue of this peacock?" "O my lord," answered

he, "as often as an hour of the day or night passeth, it pecketh one
of its young and crieth out and flappeth its wing, till the four and

twenty hours are accomplished. And when the month cometh to an end, it
will open its mouth and thou shalt see the crescent therein." And

the King said, "An thou speak sooth, I will bring thee to thy wish and
thy desire."

Then came forward the Persian sage and, prostrating himself before
the King, presented him with a horse of the blackest ebony wood inlaid

with gold and jewels, and ready harnessed with saddle, bridle, and
stirrups such as befit kings, which when Sabur saw, he marveled with

exceeding marvel and was confounded at the beauty of its form and
the ingenuity of its fashion. So he asked, "What is the use of this

horse of wood, and what is its virtue and what the secret of its
movement?" and the Persian answered, "O my lord, the virtue of this

horse is that if one mount him, it will carry him whither he will
and fare with its rider through the air and cover the space of a

year in a single day."
The King marveled and was amazed at these three wonders, following

thus hard upon one another on the same day, and turning to the sage,
said to him: "By Allah the Omnipotent, and our Lord the Beneficent,

who created all creatures and feedeth them with meat and drink, an thy
speech be veritable and the virtue of thy contrivance appear, I will

assuredly give thee whatsoever thou lustest for and will bring thee to
thy desire and thy wish!" Then he entertained the sages three days,

that he might make trial of their gifts, after which they brought
the figures before him and each took the creature he had wroughten and

showed him the mystery of its movement. The trumpeter blew the
trump, the peacock pecked its chicks, and the Persian sage mounted the

ebony horse, whereupon it soared with him high in air and descended
again. When King Sabur saw all this, he was amazed and perplexed and

felt like to fly for joy and said to the three sages: "Now I am
certified of the truth of your words and it behooveth me to quit me of

my promise. Ask ye, therefore, what ye will, and I will give you
that same."

Now the report of the King's daughters had reached the sages, so
they answered: "If the King be content with us and accept of our gifts

and allow us to prefer a request to him, we crave of him that he
give us his three daughters in marriage, that we may be his

sons-inlaw, for that the stability of kings may not be gainsaid."
Quoth the King, "I grant you that which you wish and you desire,"

and bade summon the kazi forthright, that he might marry each of the
sages to one of his daughters. Now it fortuned that the Princesses

were behind a curtain, looking on, and when they heard this, the
youngest considered her husband-to-be and behold, he was an old man, a

hundred years of age, with hair frosted, forehead drooping, eyebrows
mangy, ears slitten, beard and mustachios stained and dyed, eyes red

and goggle, cheeks bleached and hollow, flabby nose like a brinjall or
eggplant, face like a cobblees apron, teeth overlapping and lips

like camel's kidneys, loose and pendulous- in brief, a terror, a
horror, a monster, for he was of the folk of his time the unsightliest

and of his age the frightfulest. Sundry of his grinders had been
knocked out and his eyeteeth were like the tusks of the Jinni who

frighteneth poultry in henhouses.
Now the girl was the fairest and most graceful of her time, more

elegant than the gazelle, however tender, than the gentlest zephyr
blander, and brighter than the moon at her full, for amorous fray

right suitable, confounding in graceful sway the waving bough and
outdoing in swimming gait the pacing roe,- in fine, she was fairer

and sweeter by far than all her sisters. So when she saw her suitor,
she went to her chamber and strewed dust on her head and tore her

clothes and fell to buffeting her face and weeping and walling. Now
the Prince, her brother, Kamar al-Akmar, or the Moon of Moons hight,

was then newly returned from a journey and, hearing her weeping and
crying, came in to her (for he loved her with fond affection, more

than his other sisters) and asked her: "What aileth thee? What hath
befallen thee? Tell me, and concealnaught from me." So she smote

her breast and answered: "O my brother and my dear one, I have nothing
to hide. If the palace be straitened upon thy father, I will go out,

and if he be resolved upon a foul thing, I will separate myself from
him, though he consent not to make provision for me, and my Lord

will provide." Quoth he, "Tell me what meaneth this talk and what hath
straitened thy breast and troubled thy temper." "O my brother and my

dear one," answered the Princess, "know that my father hath promised
me in marriage to a wickedmagician who brought him as a gift a

horse of black wood, and hath bewitched him with his craft and his
egromancy. But as for me, I will none of him, and would, because of

him, I had never come into this world!"
Her brother soothed her and solaced her, then fared to his sire

and said: "What be this wizard to whom thou hast given my youngest
sister in marriage, and what is this present which he hast brought

thee, so that thou hast killed my sister with chagrin? It is not right
that this should be." Now the Persian was standing by, and when he

heard the Prince's words, he was mortified and filled with fury, and
the King said, "O my son, an thou sawest this horse, thy wit would

be confounded and thou wouldst be amated with amazement." Then he bade
the slaves bring the horse before him and they did so, and, when the

Prince saw it, it pleased him. So (being an accomplished cavalier)
he mounted it forthright and struck its sides with the shovelshaped

stirrup irons. But it stirred not, and the King said to the sage,
"Go show him its movement, that he also may help thee to win thy