The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night/The Barber’s Story
THE BARBER’S STORY.
I was living at Baghdad, in the time of the Khalif Mustensir Billah,[1] who loved the poor and needy and companied with the learned and the pious. One day, it befell that he was wroth with a band of highway robbers, ten in number, who infested the neighbourhood, and ordered the chief of the Baghdad police to bring them before him on the day of the Festival. So the prefect sallied out and capturing the robbers, embarked with them in a boat. I caught sight of them, as they were embarking, and said to myself, ‘These people are surely bound on some party of pleasure; methinks they mean to spend the day in eating and drinking, and none shall be their messmate but I.’ So, of the greatness of my courtesy and the gravity of my understanding, I embarked in the boat and mingled with them. They rowed across to the opposite bank, where they landed, and there came up soldiers and police-officers with chains, which they put round the necks of the robbers. They chained me with the rest, and, O company, is it not a proof of my courtesy and spareness of speech that I kept silence and did not choose to speak? Then they took us away in chains and next morning they carried us all before the Commander of the Faithful, who bade strike off the heads of the ten robbers. So the herdsman came forward and made us kneel before him on the carpet of blood;[2] then drawing his sword, struck off one head after another, till none was left but myself. The Khalif looked at me and said to the headsman, ‘What ails thee that thou struck off but nine heads?’ ‘God forbid,’ replied he, ‘that I should behead only nine, when thou didst order me to behead ten!’ Quoth the Khalif, ‘Meseems, thou hast beheaded but nine and he who is before thee is the tenth.’ ‘By thy munificence,’ replied the headsman, ‘I have beheaded ten!’ So they counted the dead men, and behold, they were ten. Then said the Khalif to me, ‘What made thee keep silence at such a time and how camest thou in company with these men of blood? Thou art a man of great age, but assuredly thy wit is but little.’ When I heard the Khalif’s words, I replied, ‘Know, O Commander of the Faithful, that I am the Silent Elder, and am thus called to distinguish me from my six brothers. I am a man of great learning, whilst, as for the gravity of my understanding, the excellence of my apprehension and the spareness of my speech, there is no end to them; and by craft I am a barber. I went out early yesterday morning and saw these ten men making for a boat, and thinking they were bound on a party of pleasure, joined myself to them and embarked with them. After awhile, there came up the officers, who put chains round their necks and round mine amongst the rest, but in the excess of my courtesy, I kept silence and did not speak, nor was this other than generosity on my part. Then they brought us before thee and thou didst order the ten robbers’ heads to be stricken off; yet did I not make myself known to thee, purely of my great generosity and courtesy, which led me to share with them in their death. But all my life have I dealt thus nobly with the folk, and they still requite me after the foulest fashion.’ When the Khalif heard what I said and knew that I was a man of exceeding generosity and few words and no meddler (as this young man would have it, whom I rescued from horrors and who has so scurvily repaid me), he laughed so immoderately that he fell backward. Then said he to me, ‘O silent man, are thy six brothers like thee distinguished for wisdom and knowledge and spareness of speech?’ ‘Never were they like me,’ answered I; ‘thou dost me injustice, O Commander of the Faithful, and it becomes thee not to even my brothers with me: for, of the abundance of their speech and their lack of conduct and courtesy, each one of them has gotten some bodily defect. One is blind of an eye, another paralysed, a third blind, a fourth cropped of the ears and nose, a fifth crop-lipped and a sixth hunchbacked and a cripple. Thou must not think, O Commander of the Faithful, that I am a man of many words; but I must needs explain to thee that I am a man of greater worth and of fewer words than they. By each one of my brothers hangs a tale of how he came by his defect,[3] and these I will relate to thee. Know then, O Commander of the Faithful that
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The Khalif laughed at my story and said, ‘Thou hast done well, O Silent One, O man of few words!’ and bade me take a present and go away. But I said, ‘I will take nothing except I tell thee what befell my other brothers: and do not think me a man of many words. Know, O Commander of the Faithful, that
[story resumed]
The Khalif laughed at my story and said, ‘Give him a present and let him go.’ ‘By Allah,’ rejoined I, ‘I will take nothing till I have made known to the Commander of the Faithful what happened to my other brothers, for I am a man of few words.’ Then I went on as follows:
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This then, O Commander of the Faithful, is the history of my brothers, and I was unwilling to go away without relating it to thee, that I might disabuse thee of thine error in confounding me with them. And now thou knowest that I have six brothers and support them all.’ When the Khalif heard my words, he laughed and said, ‘Thou sayst sooth, O Silent One! Thou art neither a man of many words nor an impertinent meddler; but now go out from this city and settle in another.’ And he banished me from the city; so I left Baghdad and travelled in foreign countries, till I heard of his death and the coming of another to the Khalifate. Then I returned to Baghdad, where I found my brothers dead and fell in with this young man, to whom I rendered the best of services, for without me he had been killed. Indeed he accuses me of what is foreign to my nature and what he relates of my impertinence is false; for verily I left Baghdad on his account and wandered in many countries, till I came to this city and happened on him with you; and was not this, O good people, of the generosity of my nature?”
Return to The Tailor’s Story.