Relief
Read Relief, a public-domain fantasy tale from Arabian or Persian storytelling tradition.
By Traditional / Anonymous

Source and rights: Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg. The story text is preserved from the source edition with layout whitespace normalized for web reading.
- Ja’afar Bin Yahya and Abd Al-Malik Bin Salih the Abbaside 7. Al-Rashid and the Barmecides 8. Ibn Al-Sammak and Al-Rashid 9. Al-Maamum and Zubaydah 10. Al-Nu’uman and the Arab of the Banu Tay 11. Firuz and His Wife 12. King Shah Bakht and his Wazir Al-Rahwan a. Tale of the Man of Khorasan, His Son and His Tutor b. Tale of the Singer and the Druggist c. Tale of the King Who Kenned the Quintessence of Things d. Tale of the Richard Who Married His Beautiful Daughter to the Poor Old Man e. Tale of the Sage and His Three Sons f. Tale of the Prince who Fell in Love With the Picture g. Tale of the Fuller and His Wife and the Trooper h. Tale of the Merchant, The Crone, and the King i. Tale of the Simpleton Husband j. Tale of the Unjust King and the Tither ja. Story of David and Solomon k. Tale of the Robber and the Woman l. Tale of the Three Men and Our Lord Isa la. The Disciple’s Story m. Tale of the Dethroned Ruler Whose Reign and Wealth Were Restored to Him n. Talk of the Man Whose Caution Slew Him o. Tale of the Man Who Was Lavish of His House and His Provision to One Whom He Knew Not p. Tale of the Melancholist and the Sharper q. Tale of Khalbas and his Wife and the Learned Man r. Tale of the Devotee Accused of Lewdness s. Tale of the Hireling and the Girl t. Tale of the Weaver Who Became a Leach by Order of His Wife u. Tale of the Two Sharpers Who Each Cozened His Compeer v. Tale of the Sharpers With the Shroff and the Ass w. Tale of the Chear and the Merchants wa. Story of the Falcon and the Locust x. Tale of the King and His Chamberlain’s Wife xa. Story of the Crone and the Draper’s Wife y. Tale of the Ugly Man and His Beautifule Wife z. Tale of the King Who Lost Kingdom and Wife and Wealth and Allah Restored Them to Him aa. Tale of Salim the Youth of Khorasan and Salma, His Sister bb. Tale of the King of Hind and His Wazir Shahrazad and Shahryar
The Translator’s Foreword.
After offering my cordial thanks to friends and subscribers who have honoured “The Thousand Nights and a Night” (Kama Shastra Society) with their patronage and approbation, I would inform them that my “Anthropological Notes” are by no means exhausted, and that I can produce a complete work only by means of a somewhat extensive Supplement. I therefore propose to print (not publish), for private circulation only, five volumes, bearing title—
Supplemental Nights to the book of The Thousand Nights and a Night
This volume and its successor (Nos. i. and ii.) contain Mr. John Payne’s Tales from the Arabic; his three tomes being included in my two. The stories are taken from the Breslau Edition where they are distributed among the volumes between Nos. iv and xii., and from the Calcutta fragment of 1814. I can say little for the style of the story-stuff contained in this Breslau text, which has been edited with phenomenal incuriousness. Many parts are hopelessly corrupted, whilst at present we have no means of amending the commissions and of supplying the omissions by comparison with other manuscripts. The Arabic is not only faulty, but dry and jejune, comparing badly with that of the “Thousand Nights and a Night,” as it appears in the Macnaghten and the abridged Bulak Texts. Sundry of the tales are futile; the majority has little to recommend it, and not a few require a diviner rather than a translator. Yet they are valuable to students as showing the different sources and the heterogeneous materials from and of which the great Saga-book has been compounded. Some are, moreover, striking and novel, especially parts of the series entitled King Shah Bakht and his Wazir Al- Rahwan (pp. 191-355). Interesting also is the Tale of the “Ten Wazirs” (pp. 55-155), marking the transition of the Persian Bakhtiyár-Námeh into Arabic. In this text also and in this only is found Galland’s popular tale “Abou-Hassan; or, the Sleeper Awakened,” which I have entitled "