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Updated: June 13, 2025
Still this does not go far enough, seeing that, as we said before, he made his translation very largely a paraphrase of Payne's. Let us now take Mr. Payne's rendering and Burton's rendering of two short tales and put them in juxtaposition. The Blacksmith who could handle Fire without Hurt and Abu Al Hasan and Abu Ja'afar the Leper will suit our purpose admirably.
Quoth he, 'Thou wouldst do well to abide with us this day, that we may see what Allah Almighty will decree. So I sat with him awhile, when lo! up came my servant, who said to me, 'O my lord, there are at our door many laden mules and with them a man, who says he is the agent of Al-Fazl and Ja'afar bin Yahya. Quoth Abdallah, 'I trust that relief is come to thee: rise up and go see what is the matter. So I left him and, hastening to my house, found at the door a man who gave me a note wherein was written the following: 'After thou hadst been with us and we heard thy case, we betook ourselves to the Caliph and informed him that ill condition had reduced thee to the humiliation of begging; where upon he ordered us to supply thee with a thousand thousand dirhams from the Treasury.
Then said the Caliph, "Woe to thee, O Ja'afar, tell her who we are lest we be slain by mistake; and speak her fair be fore some horror befal us." "'Tis part of thy deserts,"replied he; whereupon the Caliph cried out at him saying, "There is a time for witty words and there is a time for serious work."
The Commander of the Faithful, Harun al-Rashid, was exceedingly restless one night; so he said to his Wazir Ja'afar, "I am sleepless to-night and my breast is straitened and I know not what to do." Now his castrato Masrur was standing before him, and he laughed: whereupon the Caliph said "At whom laughest thou? Is it to make mock of me or hath madness seized thee?"
Then Ja'afar came close to the Caliph and, looking towards the garden, saw the palace blazing with illumination that rayed through the gloom of the night; and, thinking that this might have been permitted by the keeper for some reason of his own, he wished to make an excuse for him; so quoth he, "O Commander of the Faithful, Shaykh Ibrahim said to me last week, 'O my lord Ja'afar, I much wish to circumcise my sons during the life of the Commander of the Faithful and thy life. I asked, 'What dost thou want?; and he answered, 'Get me leave from the Caliph to hold the festival in the Garden Palace. So said I to him, 'Go circumcise them and I will see the Caliph and tell him. Thereupon he went away and I forgot to let thee know."
Quoth he, "O Wazir, I have a mind to go down and see him hanging;" and the Wazir answered, "Do what thou wilt, O Commander of the Faithful." So the Caliph, accompanied by Ja'afar, went down to the place of execution and, raising his eyes, saw the hanged man to be other than Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat, surnamed the Trusty, and said, "O Wazir, this is not Ala al-Din!"
Quoth Ja'afar, "This is not my rede." Then words ran high and talk answered talk, and they disputed as to who should first put the question, but at last all fixed upon the Porter. And as the jingle increased the house mistress could not but notice it and asked them, "O ye folk! on what matter are ye talking so loudly?"
Ja'afar, hearing the words of the Commander of the Faithful and being confounded by them, climbed to the tree- top and looking in, saw Nur al-Din and the damsel, and Shaykh Ibrahim holding in his hand a brimming bowl. But aught like the beauty of this youth and this damsel my eyes never yet saw!"
But when day ended and all the folk had dispersed and wended each his own way, the Caliph said to his Wazir, "Rise, O Ja'afar, let us go and amuse ourselves by looking on the second Caliph."
Then the Caliph took up the basket of fish and, strewing a little green grass over it, carried it to Ja'afar and stood before him. Ja'afar thinking him to be Karim the fisherman feared for him and said, "O Karim, what brought thee hither? Flee for thy life, for the Caliph is in the garden to-night and, if he see thee, thy neck is gone."
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