The Arabian Nights- Sinbad The Sailor
The 5th story that Sherizade tells is of Sinbad the Sailor
A man named Sinbad the Hammal who is a head for hire is invited into the palace of Sinbad the Sailor
Hammal says he is a poor man full of toil and strife
Sailor tells him he once was like that but through fortune came to be the lord of the palace
He begins telling his story with the First Voyage
FIRST VOYAGE
Sinbad inherited great fortune after his father died who was a merchant
He sold all his property and possessions and set sail for Basra, a port city in Iraq
They land on an island called Paradise which is actually a fish. The captain warns them to get back on the ship after he feels it move when they make camp on it lest they die
Sinbad doesn’t make it to the ship and is sucked underwater when the fish plunges
He luckily clings onto a wooden tub and tries to swim and follow the ship but it’s too fast
He is washed ashore on an island where he eats the fruit and drinks water from its springs
He meets another man who has a mare and who takes him in and feeds him in an underground dwelling
This man is under the service of King Mihrjan and makes money by tying up his mares after which sea stallions mate with them and produce colts which are sold
The king makes Sinbad an agent of the port and registrar of all ports in the harbour
A ship from Sinbad’s hometown Basra makes port and he tells them he is the owner of the possessions they were going to sell
He gives a gift to Mihrjan from his possessions and takes leave and makes it to Basra
With his newfound wealth, Sinbad buys servants , concubines, and slaves
Sinbad proceeds to tell of his second voyage
SECOND VOYAGE
Sinbad sails to another island where he is accidentally left behind by the crew
Sinbad comes across a huge white rock which is actually a Rukh’s egg- a gigantic bird which feeds its young on elephants
Sinbad is unnoticed by the giant bird when it returns to the nest and ties his turban around its leg at night and waits until morning
Sinbad is lifted by the giant bird until it touches down to take a giant snake and unties himself and finds himself in a valley surrounded by mountains
The valley is full of giant snakes which come out at night lest the Rukhs takes them so in the day Sinbad finds a cave to hide and sleep in which has a huge snake and her eggs
A butchered beast falls from the sky but Sinbad remembers a story that traders and merchants throw them from the mountaintops so that the gems that fill the valley stick onto them
The vultures and eagles then carry them to the top where the merchants take the gems off the carcasses
Sinbad hides himself under a carcass and is lifted to the top by an eagle
Up there he meets a merchant who he gives some of his gems to and they meet with other merchants who he travels with out of the valley
Sinbad sells some of his gems for produce and travels out of the land until he makes it to Basra and from there continues to Baghdad and gives gifts to his family and friends
THIRD VOYAGE
While on a third voyage, Sinbad and the crewmen he’s with are blown by the wind to the Mountain of Zughb where hairy ape-like creatures dwell and no man has ever returned from
The ape creatures which are covered with black fur, smell, have yellow eyes, and are four feet high, surround the crew and put them on the island and then take off with the ship and its goods
They find a castle to stay in when a huge monstrous-like man-thing with claws, black skin, tusks, and a giant mouth comes down and begins picking up and feeling the crew to see how much meat they have
He picks up Sinbad but puts him down again because of his leanness but picks the captain because of his fatness, breaks his neck and skewers him up the rearhole up to the crown of his head like a kabob
The monster eats the captain and then sleeps
He does this one more time after which Sinbad make a plan to kill the creature
At night they stab his eyes with spits and blind him and he flees and returns with two more even more fearsome than itself
Sinbad and the men flee on a raft they made earlier in the day to escape if they failed to kill the creature
Some of the men are slain by rocks thrown by the monsters before they make it ashore
One by one more men die on the raft and are cast off until 3 remain
They make it onto an island where one is snatched up by a dragon-serpent and swallowed at night
Another one is swallowed
Sinbad encloses himself in a bier made of wood so the serpent cannot get him
The next day Sinbad signals a ship which takes him onboard and they set sail to another island
The captain offers to give him the goods and possession of a man they lost at sea who happens to be Sinbad and he tells them this
They don’t believe him at first but one of the crew confirms it was him who he met in the Valley of the Diamonds
FOURTH VOYAGE
Sinbad embarks on yet another venture and is stranded on yet another isle.
They come upon an isolated, inhabited house where dwell naked men who take Sinbad and the other merchants to the king
They are given food and cocoa-nut oil and become greedily entranced except for Sinbad who does not eat
The hosts are actuall Magian cannibals and the king is Ghul
Once the men are fattened enough they are cooked and eaten by the king and the men eat them raw
Sinbad manages to sneak away after being forgotten and wanders for a week
He runs into a group of men who take him with them to an island where he meets their king
He makes the king a saddle for better comfort which the king had never tried before
This pleases the king who charges Sinbad to continue making saddles and also marries him to one of his daughters
Sinbad finds out that it is custom there for a spouse to be buried alive with their departed one so that the living one may not continue to enjoy life without their mate
Even though he is a foreigner, the king tells him he awaits the same fate
Sinbad’s wife dies and he is forced down into the cave where the corpses are dumped and is given food but his rations run out eventually. It is dark and smelly in the cave
The cave opens again and a deceased man and his wife are put in. Sinbad kills the woman by bashing her on the head with a limb and takes her provisions
Sinbad follows an animal out of the cave
For a time he goes back in and out killing and taking from the people put in the cave
Sinbad sees a ship and signals the crew and is picked up
He gives the captain some treasures he found in the cave
Luckily, they’re not pirates and give him provisions and they sail from island to island until Sinbad arrives to Bassorah then goes to Baghdad
FIFTH VOYAGE
Sinbad sets sail with his own ship and crew
His crew run afoul of two Rukhs when they break an egg and attack the crew as they flee on a ship when they drop a giant rock onto the ship
The ship breaks and Sinbad is washed ashore onto an island
He meets a stranger who gestures to Sinbad to help him by carrying him on his shoulders
The man does not get off and starts choking Sinbad with his legs and tires him out
This continues for days until Sinbad gets him drunk with fruit juice and smites him on the head with the fruit
Free, he finds yet another crew and ship who tell him the stranger who kept him prisoner was named the Old Man of the Sea who ate his prisoner once they died
His new crew takes him to a place called the City of Apes where apes come down at night and slay the inhabitants.
The inhabitants get onto boats and spend the nights out in the water until dusk
One of the inhabitants tells Sinbad to collect a bag of pebbles which he does
With this he goes up to the mountain and throws the pebbles to make the apes retaliate by throwing nuts back at him
Sinbad collects the nuts and is told to keep them to barter them for goods which he does because of convenience sake of course and of course gets onto another ship and trades his nuts for the goods
On this ship he makes it back to Bassorah then Baghdad
SIXTH VOYAGE
On Sinbad’s sixth venture, he and the crew he’s with get stranded on an island after a storm
He ends up alone after everyone else dies
Sinbad makes a makeshift raft and rows on the river to the end
His raft finally makes shore onto an island with Indian and Abyssinian people who tell him they’v never been or seen beyond the mountains which he flowed down from
They give him food and take him to the king
He tells him about his own king in Bassorah and has a gift to give to him and provides Sinbad passage and gives him treasures
Sinbad goes back home and gives the king his gift
SEVENTH VOYAGE
On yet another ship and another voyage, Sinbad and the crew are surrounded by three large fish during a storm
They are almost swallowed by one with a mouth as big as a city but the ship is marooned on the island by a wave
Sinbad tells himself he deserves his fate for always renouncing sailing but never doing it
He’s taken in by a Shaykh after being found on a raft and roped in. Sinbad receives a lucky amount of charity on his travels
He offers gold for the raft which was been broken into smaller wood pieces and sold for sandal-wood
He marries the Shaykh’s daughter and becomes Shaykh and Chief after his passing
He sees that the people transform at the start of every month and change into bird-like creature and implores one of them to take him up with them
He’s taken up and into the sky and all of a sudden a great fire comes from the sky causing the people to flee
In anger they curse him and desert him upon a mountain
He meets two youth who give him staffs of red gold to get back down the mountain
He meets a man who he saves from the mouth of a serpent by whacking it on the head and then meets the person again who left him on the mountain
Sinbad promises not to praise the Tasbih which is how he was cursed and is flown back to the city and to his wife
His wife tells him she wants to leave the island
They sail to Bassorah where his wife stays and leaves his goods to her while he continues to Baghdad to see his families and friends
He promises to never sail again and throws caution to Sinbad the Landsman
Sherizade concluded the tale of Sinbad