RICHARD F. BURTON

United Service Club, August 1st, 1888.

Supplemental Nights

To The Book Of The

Thousand Nights And A Night

The Say of Haykar the Sage.[FN#6]

In the name of Allah, the Compassionating, the Compassionate, the Eternal One, the Termless, the Timeless, and of Him aidance we await.  And here we begin (with the assistance of Allah Almighty and his fair furtherance) to invite the Story of Haykar the Sage, the Philosopher, the Wazir of Sankharib[FN#7] the Sovran, and of the son of the wise man’s sister Nadan[FN#8] the Fool.

They relate that during the days of Sankharib the King, lord of Asur[FN#9] and Naynawah,[FN#10] there was a Sage, Haykar hight, Grand Wazir of that Sovran and his chief secretary, and he was a grandee of abundant opulence and ampliest livelihood:  ware was he and wise, a philosopher, and endowed with lore and rede and experience.  Now he had interwedded with threescore wives, for each and every of which he had builded in his palace her own bower; natheless he had not a boy to tend, and was he sore of sorrow therefor.  So one day he gathered together the experts, astrologers and wizards, and related to them his case and complained of the condition caused by his barrenness.  They made answer to him, “Get thee within and do sacrifice to the Godheads and enquire of them and implore their favour when haply shall they vouchsafe unto thee boon of babe.”  He did whatso they bade and set corbans and victims before the images and craved their assistance, humbling himself with prayer and petition; withal they vouchsafed to him never a word of reply.  So he fared forth in distress and disappointment and went his ways all disheartened.  Then he returned in his humiliation to Almighty Allah[FN#11] and confided his secret unto Him and called for succour in the burning of his heart, and cried with a loud voice saying, “O God of Heaven and Earth, O Creator of all creatures, I beg Thee to vouchsafe unto me a son wherewith I may console my old age and who may become my heir, after being present at my death and closing my eyes and burying my body.”  Hereat came a Voice from Heaven which said, “Inasmuch as at first thou trustedst in graven images and offeredst to them victims, so shalt thou remain childless, lacking sons and daughters.  However, get thee up and take to thee Nadan, thy sister’s child; and, after taking this nephew to son, do thou inform him with thy learning and thy good breeding and thy sagesse, and demise to him that he inherit of thee after thy decease.”  Hereupon the Sage adopted his nephew Nadan, who was then young in years and a suckling, that he might teach him and train him; so he entrusted him to eight wet-nurses and dry-nurses for feeding and rearing, and they brought him up on diet the choicest with delicatest nurture and clothed him with sendal and escarlate[FN#12] and dresses dyed with Alkermes,[FN#13] and his sitting