Eminence through Toil

Nights 537-566

These are the nights of Sindbad, which I’ve compressed into a single week. It’s a longer week than normal; I’ll make up for it next week by limiting myself to just the nights of the City of Brass.

Sindbad is among the most famous characters from the Nights. I expected his stories to be outstanding. They were fine! But the Nights are generally pretty good; I didn’t think Sindbad’s stories were that much better than average. They are more magical than others, and I think they resemble some of the adventures from Greek myth, most specifically The Odyssey and to a lesser extent the story of Jason and the Argonauts. The Odyssey is especially close: there is a scene where Sindbad and friends need to blind a giant in order to escape from him, just like the cyclops Polyphemus.

The biggest surprise is the frame story: Sindbad the Sailor (more accurately Sindbad the Merchant) tells his story to another Sindbad, a porter. There is some comedy in the stories: Sindbad goes on his seven adventures, only surviving by some miracle, but each time he wants to go back out again. 

We see many Magic cards referenced in these stories. Sindbad himself, of course. We get an island that is a giant fish (perhaps Island Fish Jasconius?) (Night 538, p.457). Also, rukh eggs (we had seen one in Night 405 as well; we get two in separate sections of Sindbad’s stories; the first is “50 paces in circumference”). The Diamond Valley appears (Night 544, p. 466). In an alternative version of Sindbad’s last story, we get the Elephant Graveyard (Night 566, p. 516). We also get the memorable Old Man of the Sea (Night 557, p. 493 “he wrapped his legs around my neck . . . when I tried to disobey him, he used his legs to strike me more violently . . . We went through the trees to the centre of the island with him urinating and defecating on my shoulders . . .). We also hear the name of the island “Serendib” (the old name for “Sri Lanka” used on Serendib Efreet and Serendib Djinn) in Night 566 (p. 513). Finally, we sort of see “Flying Men” in Night 566 (p. 512), but they don’t match the art or themes of the card. Maybe we’ll get better flying men later.

It’s interesting that we hear that Sindbad lives in the era of an actual historic figure, Harun al-Rashid (Night 562, p. 504). That makes him much less legendary than Odysseus. We can pinpoint Sindbad’s lifetime to an actual historical figure.

I’ll end this section with Sindbad’s travel poem, which could be an epigram for the Nights as a whole: 

It is through toil that eminence is won;

Whoever seeks the heights must pass nights without sleep.

The pearl fisher must brave the depth of ocean

If he is to win power and wealth.

Whoever hopes to rise without effort

Will waste his life in search of the impossible.