The translation of “The Arabian Nights” by Haddawy is sophisticated yet comprehensible, which is specifically useful when one has to discuss the motives that imbue the storyline. The collection itself is rich with subtexts and themes: it can be analyzed in terms of fictional elements, narrative within narrative, poetry and poetics, and moral. Particularly the latter serves as a baseline for the present paper. The imperative to do good can be traced throughout the text, as well as the motive of punishment that logically follows a crime.
The reward for virtue as well as the punishment for misconduct are within the domain of God who is worthy and who is not. Considering the importance of religion and its postulates in “The Arabian Nights,” it is possible to say that the text moralizes the imperative of good-doing from the religious perspective. “The Second Old Man’s Tale,” “The Tale of the Enchanted King,” and “The Tale of the First Lady, the Mistress of the House” particularly can provide the evidence for such statement.
The pretext of “The Second Old Man’s Tale” is a question of life and death: the demon determined to kill a man would spare his life for three amazing stories. Among the three, the story of the old man with two black dogs stands out. The dogs turn out to be the old man’s enchanted brothers. After the man had taken mercy on them in their poverty and agreed to travel to trade, they envied his success and, possibly, his wife; they attempted to murder both. The old man’s wife turned out to be a demon, saved him from death and turned his brothers into dogs for ten years (“The Second Old Man’s Tale” 26-30).
Apart from other motives that are present in this story, one can single out the imperative of doing good as the refrain. In turn, the concept of every crime being punished is also pressed in the text. The first imperative is realized through the line of the old man and his wife: he takes pity on her when she appears in disguise of a poverty-stricken woman and comes to love her. For his kindness, she saves him from drowning.
The man’s brothers, on the other hand, abuse his indiscriminate forgiveness and get punished for their wrongdoing. An important moment here is that despite the brothers’ betrayal, the man does not wish their destruction, “for I will not behave like them” (29). The character that gets saved and rewarded for his deeds is presented as the ultimate virtue. A virtuous person gets protected by godly superpowers, as represented by the wife: a demon who abides with God (29). The mischievous, in turn, are punished by the same omnipotent powers, as is the brothers’ case.
“The Tale of the First Lady, the Mistress of the House” has a plot that, by and large, resembles the previous story discussed. The lady relating her story comes with two black dogs that, incidentally, turn out to be her sisters. The lady is a successful businesswoman who has helped her older sisters in need after they were impoverished by unlucky marriages. On their travel, they find a city devastated for the sins of its inhabitants; a faithful young man is the only one worshiping God.
The lady takes him with her to be her husband and lord. In spite of her kindness, the sisters betray her, throwing her lover and herself into the sea. After the lady finds herself on an island, she helps a serpent that takes revenge for her, turning her mischievous sisters into dogs (“The Tale of the First Lady” 133-140). In this story, the motive of betrayal plays a significant part. What is more important, the imperative to do good is yet again underlined through a naturally virtuous character. The lady has mercy over her sisters, the young man, and the serpent; she is, thus, depicted as the one that possesses absolute virtue.
She does good things and, despite all her hardships, she manages to stay alive with the help of godly powers – in this case, the magical serpent. These godly powers have more significance in this story: they not only punish the malignant sisters but also chasten a whole city for worshiping the wrong god (137). The motive of crime and punishment, therefore, is depicted not only through the sisters but through the unlucky Zoroastrian priests. Any crime is witnessed by the God, as well as virtue – which, in its turn, is rewarded by fortune, e.g., escaping death, getting money back, and having the rivals punished.
“The Tale of the Enchanted King” is yet another example of crime-punishment motive and good-doing imperative. The plot is concerned with a prince whose wife commits adultery with a slave. The prince strikes the slave with a sword but only half-kills him. Turned into half-stone – half-person, he is forced to stand near the half-dead slave whom his wife laments daily. In the end, the prince is rescued by the king who tricks his wife into releasing the city from under the charm (“The Tale of the Enchanted King” 56-65).
Interestingly, the prince’s feelings and conduct can be interpreted as being insecure and unsure about anything (Marzolph, van Leeuwen, and Wassouf 48). From the perspective of good-doing imperative, the prince’s misfortunes are the direct result of his indecisiveness. He fails to act firm in relation to his wife who cheats on him and turns out to be a witch, he does not thoroughly kill the evil (as represented by the slave), and ends up only a half-person.
The king who rescued the prince and the city, on the other hand, is a decisive good-doer. His wit and his bravery defeats the evil and saves the prince. In return for his good deeds, “God granted them safe passage” as they journeyed (65). Furthermore, the king ends up quite successful in his reign and personal life, marrying a fisherman’s daughter. The fisherman, who also committed a good deed resulting in the city’s salvation, has fortune bestowed upon him as well: both his daughters marry into royalty and his son gets a high position at court. The evil-doers, thus, have their punishment. At the same time, the moral subsumes that one has to be decisive in their righteous conduct to get a just reward in the end.
To conclude, the motive of good fortune accompanying good deeds is presented in the “Arabian Nights” as well as bad luck following any misconduct. The reward and punishment are bestowed primarily by omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent godly powers who judge the righteous and the mischievous by their deeds and give them their due accordingly.
Works Cited
Heller-Roazen, Daniel. “The Second Old Man’s Tale.” The Arabian Nights (Norton Critical Editions). 1st ed. Ed. Mushin Mahdi and Husain Haddawy. Trans. Husain Haddawy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 26-30. Print.
—. “The Tale of the Enchanted King.” The Arabian Nights (Norton Critical Editions). 1st ed. Ed. Mushin Mahdi and Husain Haddawy. Trans. Husain Haddawy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 56-65. Print.
—. “The Tale of the First Lady, the Mistress of the House.” The Arabian Nights (Norton Critical Editions). 1st ed. Ed. Mushin Mahdi and Husain Haddawy. Trans. Husain Haddawy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 133-140. Print.
Marzolph, Ulrich, Richard van Leeuwen, and Hassan Wassouf. The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, Volume 1. Santa-Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Print.