The Tale of Happy-Handsome
and Happy-Fair
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night
Characters
His Happy-Handsome is called Ni'amah
Allah by Burton and Ni'ma Allah by Lyons,
while Happy-Fair is called Naomi by Burton
and Nu’m by Lyons.
Happy-handsome - son of A rich merchant
of Kūfah in Iraq - When the latter was ten,
he took Happy-Fair as his wife. He can cast
a spell, he is related to Allah that he is all-
wise and all-knowing that rich and one of
the respected merchants of Kufah.
Happy-fair - a daughter of a slave who
bought a rich merchant of Kūfah - she is a
gifting beauty.
Plot (Exposition)
A rich merchant of Kūfah in Iraq bought a
slave-woman and her baby daughter,
renamed Happy-Fair, mostly so that the girl,
whose beauty was promising, could be
brought up with his own baby son Happy-
Handsome. When the latter was ten[4], he
took Happy-Fair as his wife, but after five
blissful years together, the governor, Al-Hajjaj,
came to hear of Happy-Fair’s beauty and
accomp-lishments and abducted her as a
present for the caliph, Abd al-Malik ibn
Marwān, to whom he pretended he had
bought her.
Plot (Conflict)
After letting them alone for an hour, she returned
and, moved by their love, asked them to sing a love-
song to her, which they did in alternate stanzas. The
King was astonished and, sending for the Persian
sage, named him his own physician and loaded him
with honours. He kept HappyHandsome and Happy-
Fair for seven days and seven nights of festivityand
rejoicing in the palace, and then sent them back to
Kufah with many presents. He debased the governor
of that city and named in his stead the merchant
Spring, father of Happy-Handsome. All concerned in
this tale lived at the height of happiness throughout
long and fortunate lives
Translated by
Powys Mathers
Criteria:
Coherence of the Data (40%)
Visually aesthetic (colors, fonts, design) (40%)
Well-used space (20%)
Setting
This is one of the stories told by Shahrazād to
entertain King Shahryār in the medieval Arabic.
The Thousand Nights and One Night is not a tale
of Greek love, but has interesting allusions to it
that are informative about medieval Near
Eastern attitudes. All but the beginning of the
story is set between AD 694, when Al-Hajjaj
became governor of Kūfah and AD 705, when
the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān died. The
text presented here is from Powys Mathers’
celebrated translation of Mardrus’s translation
into French. However, significant discrepancies
between that and the more scholarly
translations by Sir Richard Burton and Malcolm
Lyons have been noted.
Plot (Rising action)
Taken to the caliph’s palace in Damascus, she fell ill with grief,
but the patient caliph allowed his kind sister Dahīa to look
after her. Meanwhile Happy-Handsome also fell ill with despair
in Kūfah, but was relieved by a Persian doctor peculiarly
capable of identifying ailments, who promised to get him
back his girl.Soon the doctor’s fame reached Dahīa, who sent
an old woman to procure medicine for Happy-Fair. She told
them who the medicine was for, so Happy-Handsome put a
note in the box of medicine for Happy-Fair, who promptly
recovered. The Persian then told the truth to the old woman,
who promised both boy and girl to risk her life to reunite
them.Thus disguised, Happy-Handsome was brought into the
caliph’s harem as one of Dahīa’s slave-girls by the old woman,
but he got lost and was found by Dahīa herself. When she
started to uncover him, he confessed the truth. She proved
sympathetic and brought Happy-Fair to him.
Plot (Resolution)
Soon the doctor’s fame reached Dahīa,
who sent an old woman to procure
medicine for Happy-Fair. She told them
who the medicine was for, so Happy-
Handsome put a note in the box of
medicine for Happy-Fair, who promptly
recovered. The Persian then told the truth
to the old woman, who promised both boy
and girl to risk her life to reunite them.
Prepared by:
Charmae G. Falculan
Glenn A. Lector
Score: