Translated by Husain Haddawy
“This translation is of the complete text of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a 14th century Syrian manuscript, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and considered to be the most authentic.”
Shahrazad marries the King Shahrayar who typically puts his wives to death after one night since his 1st wife cheated on him. She asks if she can tell him a story. He says yes, and so each night she tells him a story or a part of a story and he never puts her to death because he’s excited to hear the rest of the story the next night.
My favorite was “the Third Dervish’s Tale.” He was a prince who gets shipwrecked and ends up in a palace with 40 beautiful women. He lives in paradise with them for 1 year. When they have to leave for 40 days they tell him there are 100 rooms in the palace and he can explore 99 of them but cannot go in the 100th or they will lose him. After 39 days he has explored 99 rooms – all beautiful and delightful and Satan tempts him to open the door plated with gold – he does and that is his undoing – he rides a black horse who flies away with him and dumps him on a roof and kicks him and tears out his eye.
This is a common sentence throughout the stories: “There is no power and no strength save in God, the Almighty, the Magnificent.”
I also liked the last story, “Jullanar of the Sea.” About a ‘mermaid’ who becomes the wife of the king of Persia – a good and benevolent king, and bears him a son who is as beautiful and wonderful as she is. He (Badr) grows up and they try to find a wife for him. He eventually marries the Princess Jauhara and, “Then King Badr and his wife and mother and relatives continued to enjoy life until they were overtaken by the breaker of ties and destroyer of delights. And this is the completion and the end of their story.”
“Translator’s Postscript”
“Tradition has it that in the course of time Shahrazad bore Shahrayer three children, and that, having learned to trust and love her, he spared her life and kept her as his queen.”
Most of the stories were full of beautiful palaces with rooms, gardens, birds, fountains, beautiful princes and princesses, slave girls, music and singing, and fantastic events–supernatural events, some demons, magic.