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Sindbad the Sailor and the wretched old man

Posted: Oct 1, 2008 Wed 01:11 pm     Views: 240    Interacts: 9

a Poster can be seen here

As the story goes, Sindbad takes pity on a wretched old man and helps him out. The old man plants himself on Sindbad's shoulders...but becomes a goddamn leech. Read from wikipedia:

Sinbad is enslaved by the Old Man of the Sea, who rides on his shoulders with his legs twisted round Sinbad's neck and will not let go, riding him both day and night until Sinbad would welcome death. (Burton's footnote discusses possible origins for the old man - the orang-utan, the Greek triton - and favours the African custom of riding on slaves in this way).

Eventually, Sinbad makes wine and tricks the Old Man into drinking some, then Sinbad kills him after he has fallen off and escapes.

===================

Moral of the story: Do not blindly take pity on the nangay bhookay buddhay you see on your path, be they on chowk or elsewhere...for they may be starved for attention and ill of will

Here is a translation from the original

Then I lay down, well-nigh dead for travail and trouble and terror, and slept without surcease till morning, when I arose and walked about under the trees till I came to the channel of a draw well fed by a spring of running water, by which well sat an old man of venerable aspect, girt about with a waistcloth made of the fiber of palm fronds. Quoth I to myself. "Haply this Sheikh is of those who were wrecked in the ship and hath made his way to this island."

So I drew near to him and saluted him, and he returned my salaam by signs, but spoke not, and I said to him, "O nuncle mine, what causeth thee to sit here?" He shook his head and moaned and signed to me with his hand as who should say, "Take me on thy shoulders and carry me to the other side of the well channel." And quoth I in my mind: "I will deal kindly with him and do what he desireth. It may be I shall win me a reward in Heaven, for he may be a paralytic." So I took him on my back, and carrying him to the place whereat he pointed, said to him, "Dismount at thy leisure." But he would not get off my back, and wound his legs about my neck. I looked at them, and seeing that they were like a buffalo's hide for blackness and roughness, was affrighted and would have cast him off, but he clung to me and gripped my neck with his legs till I was well-nigh choked, the world grew black in my sight and I fell senseless to the ground like one dead.

But he still kept his seat and raising his legs, drummed with his heels and beat harder than palm rods my back and shoulders, till he forced me to rise for excess of pain. Then he signed to me with his hand to carry him hither and thither among the trees which bore the best fruits, and if ever I refused to do his bidding or loitered or took my leisure, he beat me with his feet more grievously than if I had been beaten with whips. He ceased not to signal with his hand wherever he was minded to go, so I carried him about the island, like a captive slave, and he dismounted not night or day. And whenas he wished to sleep, he wound his legs about my neck and leaned back and slept awhile, then arose and beat me, whereupon I sprang up in haste, unable to gainsay him because of the pain he inflicted on me. And indeed I blamed myself and sore repented me of having taken compassion on him, and continued in this condition, suffering fatigue not to be described, till I said to myself: "I wrought him a weal and he requited me with my ill. By Allah, never more will I do any man a service so long as I live!" And again and again I besought the Most High that I might die, for stress of weariness and misery.

And thus I abode a long while till one day I came with him to a place wherein was abundance of gourds, many of them dry. So I took a great dry gourd and cutting open the head, scooped out the inside and cleaned it, after which I gathered grapes from a vine which grew hard by and squeezed them into the gourd till it was full of the juice. Then I stopped up the mouth and set it in the sun, where I left it for some days until it became strong wine, and every day I used to drink of it, to comfort and sustain me under my fatigues with that froward and obstinate fiend. And as often as I drank myself drunk, I forgot my troubles and took new heart. One day he saw me and signed to me with his hand, as who should say, "What is that?" Quoth I, "It is an excellent cordial, which cheereth the heart and reviveth the spirits." Then, being heated with wine, I ran and danced with him among the trees, clapping my hands and singing and making merry, and I staggered under him by design.

When he saw this, he signed to me to give him the gourd that he might drink, and I feared him and gave it him. So he took it, and draining it to the dregs, cast it on the ground, whereupon he grew frolicsome and began to clap hands and jig to and fro on my shoulders, and he made water upon me so copiously that all my dress was drenched. But presently, the fumes of the wine rising to his head, he became helplessly drunk and his side muscles and limbs relaxed and he swayed to and fro on my back. When I saw that he had lost his senses for drunkenness, I put my hand to his legs and, loosing them from my neck, stooped down well-nigh to the ground and threw him at full length. Then I took up a great stone from among the trees and coming up to him, smote him therewith on the head with all my might and crushed in his skull as he lay dead-drunk. Thereupon his flesh and fat and blood being in a pulp, he died and went to his deserts, The Fire, no mercy of Allah be upon him!
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/arabian/bl-arabian-5sindbad.htm


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Latest comments
Posted by viqarm on Wednesday October 1, 2008 08:43 pm
LOL, "the left eye on my skull". I feel like the kaana dajjal already :-).
Posted by category7 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 05:15 pm
right back atcha MeiraJ08,

why would Meiraj worry about scurrying rodents and crawling insects? For flight knows no limits
Posted by MeiraJ08 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 05:11 pm
Anyway, highfive for you Category7, the cockroaches have started to work on their flight. Lets see how far it all goes. I got too much stuff to do man, I'll catch you later.
Posted by MeiraJ08 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 05:10 pm
No not bugs-bunny, let me think....for you it ought to be,

"The man who came in had no shoulder, and startlingly reached his left arm and produced the first word written by a pirate in arabesque, we all drew towards him and something told me the left eye on the skull he carried, was where the connossuier lurked."

Please don't trivilize what I'm saying.
Posted by category7 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 03:02 pm
Viqar bhai

"And I hate to tell you who perpetually gets to be wiley coyote and Yosemite Sam in their (American) eyes."

please do tell :)
Posted by viqarm on Wednesday October 1, 2008 03:00 pm
Yeah ... and then we also have characters like bugs-bunny and road runner whose exploits have shaped the modern American psyche.

And I hate to tell you who perpetually gets to be wiley coyote and Yosemite Sam in their (American) eyes.
Posted by category7 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 01:25 pm
we are most definitely interested in new stories...it's just the "Old man of the sea" that harassed Sindbad who's not interested :)

infact sindbad is an adventurer and seeks out new stories all the time
Posted by MeiraJ08 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 01:22 pm
THANK YOU.
Posted by MeiraJ08 on Wednesday October 1, 2008 01:22 pm
----which ofcourse, first of all tells us, the value of "STORIES" this is what folk-traditions are based on, this was how stories were carried on in the time of Chaucer. These stories, are often, full of color and imagination, as they tell us of an animated people, and wondrous times.

We will die without the stories. As it is, its all come down to Harry Potter now. The world is dying out, while the intellectuals think its not worth their time or hour to consider the value of all of this.

Lets all be our own versions of "modern" and "contemporary" and slowly die out as the horrible race that we are.

Only story-tellers deserve to live & write.

"Once upon a time...when Ilizabeth visited the dangerous road of my own cunning, I began to proceed on the only game of trial I had left, for i had been promised eternity...had I a lock of the maiden's golden hair......"

to be continued..

are we REALLY not interested in authentic stories as well anymore? and whats relevant to these times? Zia-ul-Haque?
Are you serious?

category7

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