THE CONCLUSION OF THE ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
And the two brothers were thus married to the two sisters.
And it was then that the rejoicings and illuminations were at their height, and for forty days and forty nights the whole city ate and drank and amused itself at the expense of the treasury.
As for the two brothers and two sisters, they entered the hammam, and bathed in rose water and flower water and fragrant willow water and musk-scented water, and they burned at their feet agarwood and aloe.
And Sheherazade combed and plaited her younger sister's hair, and sprinkled it with pearls. Then she dressed her in a dress of ancient fabric, from the time of the Khosroes, brocaded with red gold, and embellished, directly on the fabric, with embroideries depicting, in their natural colors, drunken animals and swooning birds. And she put a fairy necklace around her neck. And Doniazade thus became, under the fingers of her sister, more beautiful than the wife of Iskandar of the Two Horns ever was.
Also, when the two kings had left the hammam, and had sat down on their respective thrones, the procession of the bride, composed of the wives of the emirs and the dignitaries, formed in two motionless rows, one on the right and the other to the left of the two thrones. And the two sisters came in, supporting each other, like two moons on a moonlit night.
Then advanced towards them the noblest of the ladies present. And they took Doniazade by the hand and, after removing the clothes she was wearing, they dressed her in a dress of blue satin, of an ultramarine hue, which took away her reason. And she was like the description the poet made of her, in these lines:
She comes forward dressed in an ultra-marine blue dress,
As one would think she was a piece detached from the azure of the skies.
Her eyes are famous sabers, and his eyelids have looks full of sorcery.
Her lips are a beehive of honey, her cheeks a bed of roses and her body a corolla of jasmine.
To see the slenderness of its size and its charming rounded butt in security,
One would confuse it with the bamboo stalk embedded in the mound of quicksand.
And King Schahzaman, her husband, got up and went down to look at her. And when he had admired her, thus dressed, he ascended his throne. And that was the signal for the change of dress. And Sheherazade, aided by the ladies of the procession, dressed her sister in an apricot silk dress. Then she kissed her, and made her pass in front of the bridegroom's throne. And, thus, more charming than in her first dress, she was in every way what the poet described:
The summer moon in the middle of a winter night
Is not more beautiful than your coming, o maiden!
The dark braids of your hair, which hinder your heels,
And the bands of darkness which encircle your forehead, make me say to you:
“You darken the dawn with the wing of night!" But you answer me:
“No! no! a simple cloud that hides the moon."
And King Schahzaman came down to look at Doniazade, the new bride, and admired her on all sides. And, having thus been the first to enjoy the sight of her beauty, he went back up and sat down beside his brother Schahriar. And Sheherazade, after having kissed her younger sister, took off her apricot dress and dressed her in a tunic of garnet velvet, and thus made her resemble what the poet says of her, in these two stanzas:
You swing, O full of grace, in your garnet tunic, light as a gazelle;
And your eyelids, with each of your movements, launch deadly arrows at us.
Star of beauty, your appearance fills the heavens and the earth with glory,*
And your disappearance would spread darkness over the face of the universe.
And again Sheherazade and the ladies-in-waiting led the bride slowly and cautiously around the room. And when Schahzaman had looked at her and marveled at her, the older sister dressed her in a lemon-yellow silk dress, striped with designs all along. And she kissed her and hugged her to her chest. And Doniazade was exactly the one of which the poet had said:
She appears like the full moon in the serenity of the nights,
And her sorcerer's eyes light our way.
But if I approach to warm myself in the fire of her eyes,
I am repulsed by two sentinels, her two breasts hard as stone.
And Sheherazade led her, with slow steps, in front of the two kings and in front of all the guests. And the newlywed came to look at her closely and remounted his throne, charmed. And Sheherazade kissed her for a long time, changed her clothes and put her in a dress of green satin brocaded with gold, strewn with pearls. And she arranged his folds symmetrically, and girded his forehead with a light diadem over which ran emeralds. And Doniazade went around the room, supported by her dear sister. And she was a delight. And the poet did not lie when he said of her:
The green leaves, O young girl, do not veil the red flower of the pomegranate
More charmingly than your green tunic veils you.
And I said to her: “This garment, O maiden, what is its name?"
She said to me: "It has no name, it's my shirt."
And I exclaimed: “O your marvelous shirt, which pierces our livers!
I will call it from now on: the heart-breaking shirt!"
Then Sheherazade took her sister by the waist, and walked slowly with her, through the two rows of guests and in front of the two kings, towards the interior apartments.
(To be continued)