THE STORY OF THE VIZIER NOUREDINE, HIS BROTHER THE VIZIER CHAMSEDDINE, AND HASSAN BADREDDINE
Harun al-Rashid
Source
The vizier persuades Noureddine to stay in Basra in his house. He really likes Noureddine and after a while he decides to marry Noureddine with his daughter, then he will retire.
ON THE SECOND NIGHT
Sheherazade continued the story:
Noureddine told the vizier the story from beginning to end. And he added: “But I have taken the firm resolution never to return to Egypt again until I have first traveled everywhere and visited all the cities and all the countries! »
At the words of Noureddine, the vizier said: “My child, do not follow these fatal ideas of the continual journey, for they would lead you to your ruin. Travel, do you know, in foreign countries, is ruin and the end of ends! Listen to my advice, my child, for I greatly fear the accidents of life and time for you!"
Then the vizier ordered the slaves to unsaddle the mule and loosen the carpets and the silks; and he took Noureddine home with him, gave him a room, and left him to rest, after giving him everything he could need.
Noureddine thus remained for some time with the vizier, and the vizier saw him every day and showered him with consideration and favors. And he ends up loving Noureddine enormously, and so much that one day he says to him: “My child, I am getting very old, and I have not had a male child. But Allah has granted me a daughter who, in truth, equals you in beauty and perfection; and, until now, I have refused all those who asked me to marry her. But now, you, I love you with such a great love of heart, that I come to ask you if you will consent to accept my daughter in your home as a slave in your service! Because I really want you to become the husband of my daughter. If you are willing to accept, I will go up to the sultan at once, and I will tell him that you are my nephew, newly arrived from Egypt, and that you have come to Basra expressly to ask me for my daughter in marriage. And the sultan, because of me, will take you in my place as vizier. For I am getting very old, and rest has become necessary for me. And it will be with great pleasure that I will return to my home, never to leave it again."
At this proposal from the vizier, Noureddine fell silent and lowered his eyes; then he says: “I listen and I obey!” »
Then the vizier was overjoyed, and immediately he ordered the slaves to prepare the feast, to adorn and illuminate the reception hall, the largest, the one reserved especially for the greatest among the emirs.
Then he gathered all his friends and invited all the great of the kingdom and all the great merchants of Basra, and all came to present themselves into his hands. Then the vizier, to explain to them the choice he had made of Noureddine by preferring him to all the others, said to them: "I had a brother who was vizier at the court of Egypt, and Allah had favored him with two sons as he, you know, favored me with a daughter. Now, my brother, before his death, had recommended me to marry my daughter to one of his children, and I had promised it to him. Now, precisely, here before you is this young man who is one of the two sons of my brother the vizier. And he came here for that purpose. And me, I really want to write his contract with my daughter, and that he comes to live with her at my house."
Then all answered: “Yes, certainly! What you do is on our heads!"
And then all the guests took part in the great feast, drank all kinds of wine, and ate a prodigious amount of pastries and jams; then, after having sprinkled the rooms with rose water, according to custom, they took leave of the vizier and of Noureddine.
Then the vizier ordered his young slaves to take Noureddine to the hammam and give him an excellent bath. And the vizier gave him one of his finest robes; then he sent him the towels, the copper basins for the bath, the incense burners, and all the other necessary things. And Noureddine took the bath, and left the hammam after having put on the beautiful new robe, and he became as beautiful as the full moon in the most beautiful of nights. Then Noureddine got on his starling-colored mule, and went to the palace of the vizier, passing through the streets where all the population admired him and exclaimed about his beauty and the work of Allah. He alighted from his mule and entered the vizier's room, and kissed his hand. So the vizier...
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.*