Edmund Dulac's picture-book for the French Red Cross/The Lady Badoura
THE LADY BADOURA
A TALE FROM
THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
The Lady Badoura, Princess of China, the daughter of King Gaiour, Lord of all the Seas and of the Seven Palaces! O King! There was none like her in all the world! Her hair was as dark as the night of separation and exile; her face was like the dawn when lovers meet to embrace; her cheeks were like petals of the anemone filled with wine. When she spoke music was born again on earth; when she moved her feet seemed to faint with delight under the burden of grace and loveliness laid upon them. The seven palaces of the king, with gardens like the inmost courts of Paradise, were splendid and wonderful beyond the poet's art to describe, but, without the dazzling beauty of Badoura's presence, they were as a houri's eyes without their lovelight—an empty and lifeless shade. And this all who beheld her in that sphere were destined to discover.
For, O King of the Age, it was as it were but yesterday that the Lady Badoura reclined in a palace of gold, jewel-encrusted; her couch was of ivory, gold-inwrought; and on the air, fragrant with a thousand perfumes, floated the silvery voice of the slave-girl, singing of love. But to-day, O King, the Lady Badoura was a prisoner in a lonely tower, attended by ten old women long deaf to songs of love. And the cause of this I will relate to you.
For several years the king, through his tender regard for her slightest wish, had left her to bestow her heart and hand of her own free accord upon some worthy suitor; but she had clung tenaciously to her freedom, rejecting all suitors—even the most powerful princes in the land. The king was sorely troubled at this, for Badoura was
NAY, NAY; I WILL NOT MARRY HIM
his first and only child, and it was his greatest wish that she should marry, and raise up children for the continuance of his line. But greater trouble was yet in store. Came one day a monarch mightier than all others who had sought her hand in marriage. So powerful and dreaded was this potentate that the king dared not refuse him. He came with a splendid cortege bearing costly gifts such as are seldom found in the treasuries of kings, and he demanded of Gaiour his one and peerless daughter.
As soon as the ceremony of welcome was over, and the king had heard his guest's petition, he sought the Lady Badoura and made the matter known to her. But she, knowing what was toward, rose not to greet him, as was her wont, but remained reclining, answering every stronger and stronger persuasion of her parent with shakes of her head and 'Nay, nay; I will not marry him.' At length, finding her will obdurate, the king gave way to anger, and, finally taking refuge in the opinion that she had gone from her mind, lapsed into grief, wringing his hands and crying, 'Alas! alas! that thou, my only child, shouldst be in this plight. I see now by thy look and manner that thy mind is affected.' With this he ordered his eunuchs and slaves to take her and place her, carefully guarded, where she could do no injury either to herself or others.
'Since none can rouse her heart to love,' said he, 'she must needs be insane.' And, had the first part of his words been true, thou wouldst know, O King, that the second would be true also. But she was not in this case; and now, having shown how and why she, who but yesterday was sitting free in a golden palace, was to-day imprisoned in a lonely tower, I will relate the causes of that love for an unknown one, which now afflicted her.
Badoura had treasured to her heart a talisman,—a gem of wondrous beauty given to her by Dahnash the Efreet. Now, as you know, the Efreets are a powerful order of spirits, sometimes benign and friendly to mortals, sometimes malign and inimical. Dahnash, and another, of whom I shall presently speak, were of evil origin, but possessed enough of good in their nature to make them long for an immortal soul, and this they sought to obtain by labours of love for mankind. The talisman given to Badoura had the peculiar virtue of uniting lovers destined for each other. She had, by this virtue, dreamed of one far away; and all her heart longed for him unutterably, while she still knew that a golden hour of the future would bring him to her side.
Know, O King, that the potency in a talisman is linked with its origin in the world of Efreets. Now in the far country of Khaledan, ruled by King Shazaman, dwelt Meymooneh, a female Efreet of great wisdom. It was she who had endowed this talisman with its virtues and sent it by Dahnash, an Efreet of lower degree, to the Lady Badoura. After this she had, by magic spells, led Prince Camaralzaman, the king's only son, to defy his father's command to marry; and, by her subtle arts, his heart and mind were so entranced by dreams of one as lovely as she was far away, that his ever-growing resistance to his father's will was at last met by the sternest anger. So it happened that just as Badoura was imprisoned in the tower,—and for the same reason,—so was Camaralzaman cast into the dungeon beneath his father's palace. There in that self-same spot, in the depth of a well in a recess of the dungeon, dwelt Meymooneh the Efreet.
Towards midnight, when the Efreet goes forth, Meymooneh rose like a bubble from the bottom of the well and found the prince, beautiful in sleep, lying on a rough couch against the wall of his prison. Lost in wonder at his perfect loveliness, she gazed down upon him. For a while she stood thrilled with the thrill of the Efreet's love for a mortal, her outspread wings quivering above him; then at the call of her lifelong purpose she slowly folded her wings and drew back with a sigh. 'By Allah!' she murmured, 'I know now that He is good, or He could not have created a mortal so perfectly beautiful. I will fulfil my task and win my soul.' So saying she bent down and pressed a kiss between his eyes. He turned, dreaming that a rose-petal had fallen on his brow, but did not wake.
With glad heart and heel Meymooneh spurned the earth and soared aloft through the dungeon's roof, crying 'Dahnash! Dahnash!' Her summons was answered by a peal of thunder and a whirr of wings, as Dahnash appeared through a murky cloud. Torn from his demon abode he must needs come, for Meymooneh had power over him. By muttered spells she held him in mid-air, his eyes blazing, his tail lashing, and his wings vibrating feather against feather.
'Dahnash! sayest thou that she to whom I sent thee with the talisman is more perfect than any among mortals?'
'O Meymooneh!' replied he, fearing her glance, 'torture me as thou wilt if I have not told thee truly that there is none her equal: the Lady Badoura is fair above all beauty among mortals.'
'Thou liest! He for whose sake I wrought the talisman is fairer.'
Word gave word in heated dissension, and Dahnash only escaped Meymooneh's wrath by pleading for a fair comparison of the two seen side by side.
'Go, then!' cried Meymooneh, buffeting him with her wing. 'Off with you to China and bring hither your bird of beauty. We will compare them side by side, as thou sayest; and then we will further prove the matter by waking first one and then the other to see which accords the other the more fervent protestations of love. Go! Bring her to my abode!'
On this Dahnash sped with incredible swiftness to China, while Meymooneh repaired to the dungeon where the prince was still in slumber.
In a brief space Dahnash reappeared at her side bearing the Lady Badoura sleeping in his arms. He laid his lovely burden on the couch beside Camaralzaman, and the two Efreets, dumbfounded by the incomparable beauty of the pair, gazed upon them in speechless wonder.
'It is well we agreed that they themselves should decide,' said Meymooneh at length, 'for where both are perfect the decision is beyond our power.'
Then, transforming herself into a flea, she sprang forthwith upon the neck of the prince and bit him. Camaralzaman awoke, and, raising himself on one elbow, beheld the face and form of Badoura by his side. Giving himself up to a sudden ecstasy of love, and crying that all his life had been a dream of which this was the waking fulfilment, he strove to arouse her; but in vain: she was bound by the spell of the Efreets, who, having rendered themselves invisible, were watching intently. At last, his words of love falling exhausted on her unconscious spirit, he placed his arm beneath her raven tresses, and, raising her head, kissed her on the brow with the purest love of youth. Then, by a sudden inspiration, on seeing a ring upon her finger, he exchanged it for his own; and, having done this, sank to sleep in obedience to the Efreets' spell.
Meymooneh, now anxious to show the other aspect of the case, again assumed the form of a flea, and, springing upon Badoura, soon found a way to bite her hard in a soft place. Badoura sprang up wide awake and immediately beheld Camaralzaman sleeping by her side.
'Oh me!' she cried, 'what shame has come upon me? Yet, by Allah! he is so beautiful that I love him to distraction.' Then, after crying out the utmost words of love to his unheeding spirit, she fell to kissing his hands, whereupon she found to her amazement that her ring was upon his finger and a strange one upon her own. 'I know not,' cried she at last, 'but it seemeth we are married.' And with that she sighed with content, and, nestling to his side, fell under the Efreets' spell of sleep.
At a loss, even now, to decide which was the more beautiful, the Efreets agreed to waive their difference, and Dahnash, at the bidding of Meymooneh, raised Badoura in his arms and sped through space to China.
When waking came with morning light the case with Badoura was like that with Camaralzaman, save that the former, having quitted her couch, forgot it, whereas the latter was clearly certain he had not quitted his. Each discovered the other's ring bestowed in exchange. Each thrilled at the meaning of this pledge, which proved their meeting to have been no baseless dream. Each swore by Allah that a fiendish trick had been played at dead of night,—not in the wedding of them in their sleep, but in the snatching of them asunder before waking. Badoura wailed for her husband; Camaralzaman rose in wrath and demanded his stolen wife. There was trouble in China and in Khaledan that day, and in each kingdom a sorrowful king wept for the madness of his first-born.
For three long years the pair nursed their love in separation and confinement. Camaralzaman was sent in splendid exile to a palace by the sea, but the wide expanse of waters only afforded him the greater space for the longing which consumed him. He could not know that, far across the ocean, the one he longed for was sitting, chained by the neck with a golden chain, there at the window of her palace tower—chained and guarded lest in her supposed madness she should hurl her body in the wake of her soul which rushed to meet him from afar. He could not know that her father, the king, had invited the astrologers and wise men to cure his daughter of her malady, the reward of success being her hand and half his kingdom, the punishment of failure the forfeiture of life; nay, he might even have rejoiced to know that already forty heads, relieved of wisdom, decked the walls of Gaiour's palace. Yet, O King of the Age, through the virtues of the talisman he was led thither to see and know.
One day Badoura's old nurse arose from sleep bewildered, and, summoning her son Marzavan, she dispatched him on the track of the footprints of a dream. One in the wide world afar seemed to have come and gone, leaving nothing but a trail of the perfume of Paradise—a trail which Marzavan must follow. He set forth, and over land and sea he travelled on his quest. Now upon some fragrant gale he fancied he heard the voice of the one he sought; now in the sunset glow of the western hills he caught the echo of his horse's hoofs. Many he met who had heard of a prince afar who was mad for the love of one unknown, but none could pilot him to that prince's dwelling-place. At last it was the wing of chance—the certainty of talismans—that brought him to the feet of Camaralzaman. Through perilous adventure, ending in shipwreck, he found him and told him all. How they contrived their sudden flight and passage across land and sea I leave to your own thoughts, O King of the Age, for thou knowest in thy wisdom that, where none can find a way. Love will find a way.
So it transpired one day that the forty heads relieved of wisdom looked down approvingly upon a youthful astrologer beating with his staff upon the palace gates.
'By Allah!' cried the janitor on opening to him. 'Thou art in a mighty hurry to quit this life so soon.'
'Nay, I come to heal the Lady Badoura of her malady. Let me in, and that quickly!'
He had his will. Then, step by step, each step an age, he followed up and up to the lonely tower. His hair seemed turning grey before he was admitted; but no sooner had he crossed the threshold than Badoura, with a cry of joy, rose and broke her golden chain, and sped to his arms, where she lay in bliss, pouring out her soul in sobs and kisses.
The cure was immediate. The king came in haste and saw in a moment that she was healed beyond the wildest hope of the forty bleached heads.
'Allah be praised!' he cried on seeing her face aglow and her eyes a-dancing with delight. 'There is indeed no god but Allah! For I perceive that He hath restored my daughter's reason.'
'Nay, my father,' returned she, 'Allah hath restored thy daughter's husband: her reason was never lacking.' And when, in proof of her words, she had shown the astonished king her own ring upon the finger of Camaralzaman, and his upon hers, she clung to her husband in an ecstasy of joy, returning his ardent kisses again and again and again.
When the whole story of Camaralzaman's perils and adventures by land and sea was told, the king marvelled greatly at the power of love that had drawn two sundered hearts together in so wonderful a fashion.
'Of a surety,' he said, 'the souls of these two have stood together in the Magic Isle of Love, where the woven moonbeams trap the hearts of lovers in one net. And, by Allah though those silvery threads may stretch to the brink of the earth and the opposite sides of heaven, they must, at Allah's will, tighten again, drawing heart close to heart. Great is the will of Allah!'
*****
The Lady Badoura, with her husband. Prince Camaralzaman, dwelt in the land of China in a state of the utmost delight and happiness for many, many days, beloved of the king and all the people. And Badoura treasured the talisman that had brought such great joy: she wore it always,—sewn in her robe against the beating of her heart.