The last tale in the Nights, and perhaps the finest of all, is that of “Ma’aruf the Cobbler."[FN#455] Ma’aruf, who lived at Cairo, had a shrewish wife named Fatimah who beat him, and hauled him before the Kazi because he had not been able to bring her “kunafah sweetened with bees’ honey.”  So he fled from her, and a good-natured Marid transported him to a distant city.  Here he encounters an old playfellow who lends him money and recommends him to play the wealthy merchant, by declaring that his baggage is on the road.  This he does with a thoroughness that alarms his friend.  He borrows money right and left and lavishes it upon beggars.  He promises to pay his creditors twice over when his baggage comes.  By and by the king—­a very covetous man—­hears of Ma’aruf’s amazing generosity, and desirous himself of getting a share of the baggage, places his treasury at Ma’aruf’s disposal, and weds him to his daughter Dunya.  Ma’arfu soon empties the treasury, and the Wazir, who dislikes Ma’aruf, suspects the truth.  Ma’aruf, however, confesses everything to Dunya.  She comes to his rescue, and her clairvoyance enables her to see his future prosperity.  Having fled from the king, Ma’aruf discovers a magic “souterrain” and a talismanic seal ring, by the aid of which he attains incalculable wealth.  Exclaims his friend the merchant when Ma’aruf returns as a magnifico, “Thou hast played off this trick and it hath prospered to thy hand, O Shaykh of Imposters!  But thou deservest it.”  Ma’aruf ultimately succeeds to the throne.  Then occurs the death of the beautiful and tender Dunya—­an event that is recorded with simplicity and infinite pathos.  The old harridan Fatimah next obtrudes, and, exhibiting again her devilish propensities, receives her quietus by being very properly “smitten on the neck.”  So ends this fine story, and then comes the conclusion of the whole work.  This is very touching, especially where the story-telling queen, who assumes that death is to be her portion, wants to bid adieu to the children whom she had borne to the king.  But, as the dullest reader must have divined, the king had long before “pardoned” her in his heart, and all ends pleasantly with the marriage of her sister Dunyazad to the king’s brother.

What an array of figures—­beautiful, revolting, sly, fatuous, witty, brave, pusillanimous, mean, generous—­meets the eye as we recall one by one these famous stories; beautiful and amorous, but mercurial ladies with henna scented feet and black eyes—­often with a suspicion of kohl and more than a suspicion of Abu Murreh[FN#456] in them—­peeping cautiously through the close jalousies of some lattice; love sick princes overcoming all obstacles; executioners with blood-dripping scimitars; princesses of blinding beauty and pensive tenderness, who playfully knock out the “jaw-teeth” of their eunuchs while “the thousand-voiced bird in the coppice sings clear;"[FN#457] hideous genii, whether of the amiable or the vindictive sort, making their appearance in