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Group 9: “The Tale of the Third Brother, Faqfaq the Blind,” “The Tale of the Fourth Brother, the One-Eyed Butcher,” “The Tale of the Fifth Brother, the Cropped of Ears,” & “The Tale of the Sixth Brother, the Cropped of Lips”

Summary: “The Tale of the Third Brother, Faqfaq the Blind” 

The third brother knocks on a door, asking for a handout, but the man who answers the door brings him upstairs and gives him nothing. On his way back downstairs, the blind brother falls and cuts his head. The owner of the house follows the blind man home and hides inside. When the blind man and his blind friends discover the intruder, they call the police. The house-owner lies to the police, saying that all the men pretend to be blind to rob houses. The police believe the intruder and beat all the blind men. 

Summary: “The Tale of the Fourth Brother, the One-Eyed Butcher”

The butcher sells meat to an old man who pays with fake money. When he accuses the old man of stealing, the old man accuses the butcher of selling human flesh. A human body hangs inside the shop instead of the ram he has just slaughtered. The police flog and banish the butcher. 

He goes to a new city and becomes a cobbler. One day, the king has him flogged because he cannot tolerate anyone with one eye. So, he goes to another city where men accuse him of being a robber. Again, the police flog him. The barber brings his unfortunate brother home and cares for him. 

Summary: “The Tale of the Fifth Brother, the Cropped of Ears” 

The fifth brother dreams of becoming so rich by selling glass that he can buy houses, slaves, and even the vizier’s daughter. While kicking his wife in his daydream, he kicks his basket of glass instead. 

Later, an old woman takes him to a beautiful woman’s house. There, slaves beat him, pour salt in his wounds, and toss him in the cellar with other bodies. Somehow, he escapes.

Disguised as a Persian, he finds the old woman, who again takes him to the house. There, he beheads both slaves and the old woman. The beautiful woman appears and leaves with all the money. When he tells his story to the police, they banish him from the city. 

Summary: “The Tale of the Sixth Brother, the Cropped of Lips” 

A rich man invites the sixth brother to dine. At the feast, the rich man pretends to eat invisible food. The brother follows suit. Suddenly, the sixth brother hits the man. When the man asks why, the brother replies that he is drunk. The rich man laughs. The brother stays with the rich man until the man dies.  

The sixth brother soon falls prey to some Bedouins, who cut off his lips and penis for trying to seduce their wives. 

The king calls for the barber, who looks at the hunchback and revives him by pulling the fishbone from his throat. The king of China bestows robes of honor on the storytellers but keeps the barber as his companion for life. 

Analysis: “The Tale of the Third Brother, Faqfaq the Blind,” “The Tale of the Fourth Brother, the One-Eyed Butcher,” “The Tale of the Fifth Brother, the Cropped of Ears,” & “The Tale of the Sixth Brother, the Cropped of Lips”

These four stories round out the cycle told by the talkative barber about his six deformed brothers and continue the motifs of trickery, public shaming, bad fortune, and surprising twists of fate. Each brother is somehow reduced to a penniless beggar, usually beaten or flogged, often by mistake, and each one ends up in their brother the barber’s care. For these unlucky brothers, their physical deformities are the least of their problems. Perhaps the most outlandish story is the one of the second brother, who falls through some kind of portal, naked, while chasing a woman he believed to be interested in him. Each story seems to outdo the previous in terms of its unbelievable and imaginative events, in the spirit of classic fairy tales. Anything can happen in The Arabian Nights. Nothing is off-limits. Even the dead and near-dead do not stay dead. Beaten men recover from terrible wounds, and even the hunchback, whose “dead” body initiates all the action in this cycle of stories, resurrects at the end when the old barber plucks the bone from his throat and revives him.

There is a good amount of laughter in these stories, as well, not only among the characters but also from the king of China and the caliph, both characters and listeners embedded in the interwoven stories told by the true storyteller, Shahrazad. Although there is much tragedy, there is also comic relief as identities are revealed, secrets are exposed, and forbidden sexuality is discovered and punished. Perhaps the funniest moment is when the sixth brother outsmarts the trickster who pretends that they are drinking and feasting on invisible food. Even the man who has been tricked laughs, showing that not all tricksters in the tales have bad intentions. At first, things turn out well for the brother, but after the trickster man dies, he finds himself in deep trouble again and loses both his lips and his penis to Bedouins. The detail about how he lost his penis serves once again as a warning for listeners to be careful who they try to seduce. Having sex with a married woman will only lead to trouble, a theme that appears time and time again in the collection. The details are outlandish and sometimes violent in these stories, but they serve to keep all the layers of audience entertained. In the process, Shahrayar remains engaged, and Shahrazad stays alive.

Many of the barber’s brothers are beggars. In much of modern Islamic society, begging is considered a crime, but in the ancient Middle Eastern world, beggars were simply the lowest class of people in a society, and it was an act of generosity to share one’s wealth and fortune with them. The beggars in these stories were often once rich. Characters bounce between social classes quickly, often because they foolishly squander their inheritances or fortunes. Again, these are cautionary anecdotes, warning listeners and readers to watch their monies carefully and spend their fortunes wisely. Some of the beggars meet generous people, but others meet even more misfortune. The sixth brother, for example, meets both.

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