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Group 1: “The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter,” “The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey,” & “The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife”

Summary: “The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter” 

Two brothers, Shahrayar and Shahzaman, rule over two lands. One day, before Shahzaman heads out to visit Shahrayar, he discovers his wife lying in the arms of a cook. Furious, Shahzaman kills them both, and then visits his brother. While visiting Shahrayar, Shahzaman observes Shahrayar’s wife making love to some slaves. Shahrayar is devastated to learns of his wife’s disloyalty. Together, the brothers journey to find a man more unfortunate than they.

Shahrayar and Shahzaman see a water demon carrying a locked glass chest. When the demon unlocks the chest, a beautiful woman steps out. After the demon falls asleep, the woman orders Shahrayar and Shahzaman to make love to her or she will have her demon husband kill them. The brothers reluctantly agree. The demon’s wife takes a ring from each of them and adds it to her collection of ninety-eight, one for each man she has slept with to spite her husband. The brothers agree that this demon has a worse plight then they, so they return to Shahrayar’s palace. 

Summary: “The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey”

Shahrayar orders his vizier kill his wife and slave-girls. He then swears to marry a woman each night, take her virginity, and then kill her in the morning as revenge against all women. The vizier kills many women, until his elder daughter, Shahrazad, insists that she be next. The vizier begs Shahrazad to not marry Shahrayar. 

To get her to see reason, he tells her a tale which features a merchant who can understand animals’ speech. However, if the merchant discloses his secret, he’ll die. An ox on his farm works all day and is mistreated at night. A donkey tells the ox to pretend to be sick. The trick works except now the donkey must replace the ox and work while the ox rests all day. The donkey’s miscalculation caused him harm, the same way, cautions the vizier, Shahrazad’s mistake may cause her death.

Summary: “The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife”

The vizier tells Shahrazad another story of warning. 

The donkey warns an ox that if he doesn’t go back to work, the merchant will slaughter him. The merchant overhears this and laughs. When the merchant’s wife demand he explain his laughter, he knows he can’t tell her or he’ll die. She warns him that she’ll kill him if he doesn’t explain, so the merchant prepares for death. In the meantime, he overhears the rooster tell the dog that the merchant should beat his wife into submission. The merchant takes the rooster’s advice and lives to see another day. The vizier warns Shahrazad that if she will not listen, he’ll beat her, too.

However, the unafraid Shahrazad insists marrying King Shahrayar, but she has a plan. She arranges for her younger sister, Dinarzad, to be in the wedding room. After Shahrayar and Shahrazad make love, Dinarzad asks her sister to tell a story. Each night, Shahrazad will tell a story but stop mid-tale, a move aimed to keep the king in suspense and herself alive. 

Analysis: “The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter,” “The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey,” & “The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife”

The frame story of The Arabian Nights highlights how intelligent, resourceful, and cunning women can be. The water demon’s wife shows Shahrayar and Shahzaman that when a woman truly desires something, nothing can prevent it from happening, an idea that Shahrazad embodies. Shahrazad’s stories will have a dual purpose. Not only will they be entertaining and instructive, but they will also save Shahrazad’s life and, hopefully, convince the king to stop his cruel practice of killing woman after woman to enact revenge. This focus on the storyteller Shahrazad and the tales she spins is at the heart of The Arabian Nights. Telling stories is an art aimed at entertaining the listener the frame suggests, but storytelling is also what keeps us alive. Shahrazad is well read in history, philosophy, literature, poetry, and even medicine. She draws from a wealth of information and knowledge, so she can tell story after story, for a thousand nights if she must. Shahrazad desires not only her own survival but that of scores of other women who might follow her and perhaps die at the hands of Shahrayar. These stories are her and their collective salvation.

Other than Shahrazad, the women in the ancient world of The Arabian Nights have little to say about their own fates. They sleep with servants to give themselves an illusion of power and autonomy, but it backfires on them when they are cruelly murdered for their transgressions. At the suggestion of a rooster, the wife of the merchant is beaten into submission by her husband, and she becomes penitent as a result. As far as the women presented in the text, Shahrazad is the exception. She defies her father, who tries his hardest to talk her out of being Shahrayar’s next wife. Then Shahrazad outwits Shahrayar with her cunning and her education, exhibiting both courage and altruism, in contrast to the other women who fall victim without choice.

In contrast, the two brother kings, Shahrayar and Shahzaman, are weaklings despite the power conferred by their inherited positions. For example, they flee their homes the moment they feel disrespected and then compare themselves to others to determine their own worth. The betrayed Shahzaman is comforted only when he discovers that his own brother is worse off than he. The brothers are comforted enough to return home only when they discover a water demon who has been unknowingly betrayed by his wife one hundred times. Shahrayar and Shahzaman are self-centered, naive, and cruel men, spoiled by wealth and power yet cuckolded by their wives. Neither appears strong or resourceful in this opening frame, and readers are left to wonder if they can or will change.

Several themes and motifs that will continue throughout the collection are planted in the frame: wealth, community, luck, greed, punishment, sexuality, home and travel, family, and clever scheming. The motif of talking animals will appear throughout the text, as will the trope of betrayal. The water demon and his wife foreshadow many examples of magic and the supernatural. Shahrazad hopes to change Shahrayar from vengeful to compassionate by keeping him engrossed night after night after night. Readers and listeners are invited along for the ride.

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