Wearing the Captain's Skin

Nights 864-894

This was a long story that I rushed through so that I can finish ahead of schedule.

It has a strong start. The poetry in the Nights can sometimes fail in translation, but here it’s strong. It starts with a garden and a few poems for several plants found in the garden, like pomegranates, figs, and roses. It’s a cliche in the Nights to see breasts compared to pomegranates; here, we see pomegranates compared to breasts (p. 344, Night 864). I’ll have to remember the poems about roses (pp. 350-351, Night 866), since the only rose poem I seem to remember is Blake’s “O Rose, thou art sick.”

The story is pretty standard for the Nights. There are a few nice touches: the woman, a Frankish princess who has converted to Islam, is introduced as a picky slave who won’t allow herself to be sold to old men. She mocks them, sometimes specifically their incapable penises (pp. 365-366, Night 871), until she finally sets her eyes on our handsome hero. Through her eyes, we learn that this handsome irresistible specimen is, sigh, fourteen years old (p. 370, Night 872). This is apparently the most attractive age for both men and women at the time of the Nights (see last week’s reading).

Technically, our hero is another “Ali from Cairo” (the Magic card), but since he is usually referred to by Nur al-Din, I don’t think he’s the one from the card. After he falls in love with the princess, they are separated, captured by pirates, escape, captured and separated again, She is nearly forced into a bad marriage, they reunite, she murders a slave, she kills her Christian brothers, and Harun al-Rashid allows them to live together happily ever after (or rather, until they are visited by the destroyer of delights). This is all standard stuff. The princess is a little more violent than most characters; she kills a boat captain, skins off his beard, then wears the beard on her face as a disguise so she can kill everyone else on the boat. (p. 399, Night 884) 

The poems are really the standouts in this story. Beyond the introductory ones, there is some good comedy. Our hero says he won’t fight: “I only like to thrust in privacy, // when the vagina knows the penis’ might.” (p. 420, Night 891) For that matter, the scene where the lovers first get together is comic: “all this went on to the accompaniment of Cairene movements, Yemeni writhings, Abyssinian moans, Indian languor and Nubian passion, the pretended anger of peasant girls, Damiettan groans, the heat of Upper Egypt and Alexandrian coolness.” (p. 375, Night 874) One wonders what it is about the Abyssinians that make their moans noteworthy.

One last point about this story: it mentions “Pompey’s Pillar” in Alexandria twice (e.g., p. 401, Night 884). I looked this up; it’s a real thing that’s still standing in the city, even in its own location. We had the Pyramids earlier; I think this is one of the other few remaining monuments that are still standing.