HIKAYAT ABU NAWAS. 19. 



alive. She dies. Abu Nawas returns and sits in silence before the 

 Sultan. Harun asks, " Is she dead or alive ? " Says Abu Nawas, 

 " Your Highness has uttered the words, not I." 



The original of this story would seem to be that of the Persian 

 king Khusraw Parwiz and the poet Bahlabad (or Barbae!) retold 

 a century later by the Arab poet Khalid bin Fayyad (Browne's " A 

 Literary History of Persia," vol. I, p. 17). 



VI. Tales 15 and 16 of the Singapore recension. 



VII. A coarse indecent tale of how Siti Zubaidah orders the 

 defiling of the house of Abu Xawas who stipulates that the defile- 

 ment shall be only the one kind ordered. 



This tale occurs in the Arabic N afliatu'l-Y aman (" J. and P., 

 A. S. Bengal," vol. Ill, No. 7, July 1907 where the editors suggest 

 it is an oriental version of the story of the pound of flesh.) 



VIII. A merchant vows to sacrifice a goat with horns 1 jengJcal 

 wide, if his wife bears him an heir. She bears a child, but the 

 merchant cannot find a goat with horns of the requisite width. 

 The priests tell him that no other kind of goat will serve. He 

 presents himself before Harun a'r-Kashid who consults Abu Nawas. 

 Abu Xawas bids the merchant bring the biggest goat he has got. 

 together with the new-born infant. The goat horns are found to 

 measure 1 span (jengJcal) of the infant's hand! 



IX. A wealthy man offers 10 derJiam to any one who can 

 endure to remain in the chill water of his pond one whole night. 

 A poor old man with the help of Allah endures but the wealthy 

 man refuses to pay, because the poor man's son had lit a fire on 

 the edge of the tank and so, he declares, kept his. father warm. 

 Abu Nawas invites the Sultan, the unjust judge who had refused 

 the poor man redress, and the wealthy man to his house where he 

 lights a fire under a tree above which he had hung a pot. Harun 

 points out that he'll never cook his rice because the fire is so far 

 away from the pot. Abu Xawas pleads that the same remark ap- 

 plies to the fire lit on the bank of the pond when the poor man 

 stood in the water. Harun sentences the rich man to pay the poor 

 fellow 100 derham and imprisons him and the unjust judge. 



X. Abu Xawas is bidden to teach a cow (sampi) to recite 

 the Koran. He tries to beat her to death to escape an impossible 

 task. 



XI. Abu Nawas undertakes to remove a mosque on his back. 



XII. Xakhiebah is an unjust and libertine manteri. Abu 

 Nawas embroils a young man with him over the sale of a cow; 

 persuades the youth to get admission into the manteri s house dis- 

 guised as a girl, and there beat him to death. Nakhiebah is not quite 

 killed. 'So Abu Nawas disguises the youth as a doctor (duJcun) and 

 tells him really to kill the manteri this time on pretence of treating- 

 him. The youth again fails. The manteri tells his wife to pretend 

 he is dead and bury a banana stem in his stead. He will be hidden 



R. A. Soc, No. 81, 1920. 



