The Arabian Nights- The Tale of Scheherazade
King Shahryar wishes to see his younger brother Shah Zaman
While Shah Zaman was on his way to see brother , he returns for his queen to find her cheating on him with a Black cook. Zaman cuts them both in half
At Shahryar’s palace he looks out the window and witnesses his wife engage in infidelity with a Black slave as well
Zaman tells Shahryar about his own wife after the latter presses him on why he seems depressed
Zam tells Shah about his (Shah’s wife) also cheating who doesn’t believe until he sees it for himself so Zaman tells Shah to proclaim a hunt again and then hide and wait to see what his queen does
Sure enough they both witness her having sexual relations with a Black slave
While spying they climb up a tree after witnessing a genie and a woman approach closer. The maiden sees them and asks them to come down lest her husband the genie will smite them to death
The genie kidnapped the woman on her wedding night and placed her in a coffin with seven locks so that he may have her all to himself and keeps her at the bottom of the sea. He lets her free when he chooses
The two kings return to their own kingdoms and Shah has his chief minister sentence the queen to death for unfaithfulness as well as the concubines and Mamelukes (slave soldiers)
Shah decrees that he shall lie with a woman and take her virginity every night and then afterwards have them executed because there is not one chaste woman on Earth
The people turn against him and wish for his death. Many people move away as the king does this for 3 years
One of the wazirs (minister’s) daughters who is educated asks her father to give her to the king and he is outraged she’d ask such a thing
He uses a parable called the Tale of the Bull and the Ass
There was once a merchant who was able to speak to animals, this gift endowed upon by Allah and if he divulged the secret to anyone he would die
The bull complains to the ass that he the bull works all day while the ass gets to relax. The ass tells him to lie down when the master tells him to work. The master hears all of this and works the bull. The bull does not relent
The bull does not eat and the masters servant reports to him that the bull is sickly for not eating but master knows what is going on and sends his ass to work and the ass is laboriously beaten while the bull eats his food, relaxes and regains strength
Ass tells bull to get back to work because he heard the master say he’ll send bull to the butcher for meat if he does not work again
Master laughs when he sees bull next day and his wife asks him what is so funny and he tells her that he knows what the animals are saying but cannot tell her
She thinks he’s lying but he tells her she knows that he can’t and she threatens to leave him but he tells her to stop crying
A dog tells the rooster that the master is about to die and rooster is unconcerned because master has no common sense and if he did he’d put his wife in her place and beat her so she’d stop asking
The wazir tells Sherizade that he;ll beat her as well if she doesn’t stop insisting to be married to the king
She threatens to tell the king that her father is denying her to lie with him
He explains to King Shah that at her insistence she’s giving herself to him despite the king was not going to choose her out of respect for the wazir but if he does give she will have to be beheaded by her own father
She is given to the king but tells her sister before that when she comes to visit to ask Sherizade to tell a story
Once the sister is there after the king allows Sherizade to see her because of acting sad, the sister asks Sherizade to tell a story and the king allows her
The first story she tells is the Tale of the Trader and the Jinni