# Scheherazade



## Guest (Oct 10, 2015)

I love the conductor. He throws himself into his work and is literally soaking in sweat at the end, his suit drenched.

Scheherazade was a character from the Arabian Nights. The story went that a king named Shahryar, who ruled India and China, had an unfaithful wife and had her executed. After that, he slept with a different virgin every night and, at dawn, would have the night's previous virgin beheaded fearing that she might otherwise cheat on him. He had gone through 1,000 virgins in this manner. Shahryar's vizier had to procure young women for the king but ran out of virigin and so the king took the vizier's daughter named Scheherazade, a well read and studied young woman.

To prevent being decapitated, Scheherazade relied on her wit and knowledge and told the king a wonderful story but stopped halfway through. When the king, rapt in awe, bade her to finish, she said that dawn was approaching and that she must go to her death as the other young women before her. The king granted her a reprieve for another night. That night, she finished the story but began an even more intriguing one than the last and again stopped halfway through as dawn approached. Again, the king spared her life for another night and this went on for 1,001 nights during which she told 1,000 stories. Finally, Scheherazade told Shahryar that she had no more stories to tell. But, by then, he had fallen in love with her and made her his queen.

This collection of stories came from the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa and were compiled during what is known as the Islamic Golden Age (8th-13th centuries). During this time, the Muslims were an advanced culture and among the world's leaders in science and mathematics and as well as great artistic innovations. While we tend to think of all this as tragically extinct, this is not true of all Muslim countries. When I was in the Middle East and South Asia, I saw a flourishing of culture taking place. Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Qatar are quite modernized and still express an amazing flair for architecture. The stories were compiled over centuries and drawn from Arabic, Persian, Indian and African influences. Some stories have been traced back to ancient Mesopotamia. This collection is collectively known as _1,001 Nights_ but was translated into English by Sir Richard Burton in 1706 as _The Arabian Nights_.

Although the Nights contain famous stories a Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad and Aladdin, these were actually later stories added in by various European translators although the three stories are known to have Middle Eastern pedigrees. Since the stories were added over centuries by various translators of various countries, the addition of these last three should not be regarded as illegitimate but just another addition and a good way to preserve three wonderful stories that might otherwise have been lost.

Here is a wonderful story of Rimsky-Korsakov's immortal piece:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10120287


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## Guest (Oct 10, 2015)

The symbolism here is that at 1,000 virgins, the vizier tells the king he is out of virgins and at the end of 1,000 stories, the vizier's daughter tells the kind she is out of stories. So this ending of 1,000, a new cycle begins, something more real. In the case of the virgins, instead of fleeting sexual relations with young women, the king finds his true queen. At the end of the 1,000 stories, the true story of the marriage of the Shahryar and Scheherazade begins. Since 1,000 years constitutes a millennium, Scheherazade represents a new millennium. In the early Christian church, 1,000 signified "the totality of the generations and the perfection of the life". In Hebrew gematria, *QTz* "the end" and *ThM* "completion" or "perfection" each have a value of 1,000.

So 1,001 would represent a passing over into a new era or realm, a rebirth.


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## Guest (Oct 10, 2015)

Disney's version of Aladdin uses Tom Cruise as the model for Aladdin which is ridiculous since the story makes clear that Aladdin was Chinese. The story of the magic lamp takes place in China. A storybook that has been in my family since the mid-50s when my family first came to the United States did an adaptation of Aladdin exactly as it was written and this is a much more faithful version of what Aladdin would have looked like for his time period. These are beautiful illustrations and is the way I grew up regarding Aladdin. Because of these illustrations, I've always known he was Chinese and thought Disney's version was incorrect.









Here, the evil magician first spots Aladdin and realizes this is the boy who must procure the lamp for him. The magician is apparently Moroccan but tells Aladdin he is his uncle. Wiki feels that the storytellers used China to represent the eastern region and Morocco to represent the west.









The magician takes Aladdin to this mountainous area and does some magic to make a underground cavern appear.









Aladdin grabs a brass ring and opens the door to the cavern. The magician tells Aladdin what he must and must not do while he is down there. His goal is to get the magic lamp. Of course, the magician doesn't tell Aladdin it's magic but only that he is to bring it back. He gives Aladdin a magic ring that will aid him. He tells Aladdin to take nothing but the lamp but while in the cavern Aladdin sees huge, beautiful gems and stones piled high on china plates and he fills his pockets with them. When he grabs the lamp, the magician can't get Aladdin out of the cavern because he is weighted down with the stones so in frustration, he slams the door to the cavern and leaves Aladdin to die. But Aladdin's ring has a genie or slave that helps him escape.


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## Guest (Oct 10, 2015)

when Aladdin returns to his mother, he shows her the lamp and when he polishes it up--poof!--the genie of slave of the lamp comes out and gives Aladdin anything he wants so he wishes for good food as he and his mother were poor. The genie presents them with delicious, gourmet food. When Aladdin spies the sultan's daughter on her way to bath, he is smitten with her beauty and resolves to marry her. His mother tells him he is mad to think the sultan would allow his daughter to marry a common boy. But Aladdin gives his mother the stones he had taken from the cavern and tells her to present them to the sultan and ask him to allow his daughter to marry her son.









The sultan is astonished at the incredible beauty of the stones and says that if her son presents him with great riches carried by black slaves and led by white slaves that he will give him his daughter's hand. When the mother relays this message to Aladdin, he has the genie materialize the riches and slaves and they go to the palace and present them to the sultan who is so impressed he grants the marriage. But where will the live? Aladdin has the genie materialize a beautiful palace not far from the sultan's palace and the sultan is very impressed and the wedding takes place. Meanwhile, the magician gets wind of what's going on and goes to Aladdin's city disguised as a lamp-seller. "New lamps for old!" he cries and the princess, unaware of the source of Aladdin's power gives the magician the old lamp. Promptly the magician has the genie move the palace with the princess in it to his home country where he now lives in splendor. When the sultan sees Aladdin's palace and his daughter are gone, he angrily tells Aladdin he'd better find the girl or he'd suffer the fate. Frantically, Aladdin searches but to no avail. Ready to give up hope, Aladdin remembers the genie of the ring and calls him forth. He tells the genie to bring back his palace and wife but the genie says he cannot. "You must get the genie of the lamp to do that," he says. So Aladdin tells the genie to take him to where the palace now is and the genie does so. Aladdin enters and finds his wife who is overjoyed to see him.









They hatch a plot to kill the magician by poison which is successful and then they take back the lamp. Aladdin calls the genie forth and tells him to put the palace back where it was and it is so. when the sultan suddenly sees Aladdin's palace back in place, he is overjoyed and Aladdin is heir-apparent and rules when the sultan dies.


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## Guest (Oct 10, 2015)

Whoops! I forgot to include the picture of Aladdin calling the genie of the lamp. Look how beautiful that is! The look of astonishment on Aladdin's face and the hugeness of the genie. Beautifully done.


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