The Arabian Nights' Entertainments - nuovo livro

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Commencing ith part of the Third Night, and ending with part of the Ninth. THE STORY OF THE FISHERMAN. There was a certain fisherman, advanced in age, who had a wife and three children; and though he was in indigent circumstances, it was his custom to cast his net, every day, no more than fuur times. One day he went forth, at the hour of noon, to the shore of the sea, and pat down his basket, and cast his net, and waited until it was motionless in the water, when he drew together its strings, and found it to be heavy: he pulled, but could not draw it up: so he took the end of the cord, and knocked a stake into the shore, and tied the cord to it. He then stripped himself, and dived round the net, and continued to pull until he drew it out: whereupon he rejoiced, and put on his clothes; but when he came to examine the net, he found in it the carcass of an ass. At the sight of this he mourned, and exclaimed, There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! This is a strange piece of fortune! And he repeated the following verse: ? 0 thou who oceupieft thyself in the darkness of night, and in peril! Spare tbv trouble; for the support of Providence is not obtained by toil' He then disencumbered the net of the dead ass, and wrung it out; after which he spread it, and descended into the sea, and, ?exclaiming, In the name of God!?cast it again, and waited till it had sunk and was still, when he pulled it, and found it more heavy and more difficult to raise than on the former occasion. He therefore concluded that it was full of fish: so he tied it and stripped, and plunged and dived, and pulled until he raised it, and drew it upon the shore; when he found in it only it large jar, full of sand and mud; on seeing which, he was troubled in his heart, ...