Reading Notes: Arabian Nights, Part A

Story: Scheherazade

Story Source: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

Source: Rimsky-Korsakov's magical "Scheherazade" 

Plot Summary:

The Sultan Schahriar was betrayed by his wife, whom he loved very much. It affected him so much that he thought all of the women were as bad as his former wife. He then decided to start killing women. Every day, he would marry a new wife and then have her killed the following morning.

The Sultan's actions caused terror throughout the town. Everyone was afraid for their daughters. Scheherazade, a very beautiful and well-learned maiden, daughter of the grand-vizir, was determined to put a stop to the sultan. She devised a plan to stop him and asked his father to offer her to the sultan as his bride. 

The grand-vizir reluctantly offered his daughter to marry the Sultan. Scheherazade then asked the Sultan if she could bring her sister, Dinarzade, to stay in her bed for her last night. The Sultan agreed. Dinarzade woke up an hour before dawn and asked Scheherazade to tell her one of her stories, as was their plan. The Sultan agreed to let her finish her story before she was killed.

Scheherazade told them the story of the Merchant and the Genius. She told the story until the morning but did not finish. She asked the Sultan if he would permit her to live one more day, so that she may finish the story the next night. The Sultan, who found the story very interesting, agreed.

The next morning, once again, Dinarzade woke Scheherazade an hour before dawn to tell her story. And this went on, day after day, Scheherazade told one story after another for 1001 nights. After all of those nights and 1000 stories, she no more tales to tell him. By this time, the Sultan had fallen in love with her, spared her life, and made her queen. 

My thoughts:

First of all, the beginning of the story is pretty dark. The Sultan was mad and just started killing women. Not OK. I really liked the character of Scheherazade. She was beautiful and very smart, and she was trying to help the town. I really liked the stories mentioned in the readings. I did have to look up what happened to her when she ran out of stories. 

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