Betrayal is perhaps the hardest wound to heal. Once it is inflicted, it can stay with a person forever. Time, patience, caring and understanding are the best medicines to treat the wound. But until the medicines are applied, the patient could become angry and hostile and begin to take their emotions out on the innocent. This is exactly what happened to King Shahrayar in The Thousand and One Nights.
When King Shahrayar learned of his wife's and slave-girls' betrayals he was driven mad and came up with a plan to avoid ever being humiliated again. He married a new young woman every night and murdered her before dawn broke the next day. "His chief vizier had been unable to think of a way to dissuade his monarch from this mad, self-destructive policy, but the vizier's elder daughter, Shahrazad, a young woman of exceptional learning and courage, had a plan" (924).
In time, Shahrazad convinced her father to allow her to wed King Shahrayar. On their wedding night, Shahrazad began to cry and asked the king if she might be allowed to see her sister, Dinarzad, one last time to say goodbye before daybreak. The king allowed the visit and while at the palace, Dinarzad asked Shahrazad to tell a story. The king gave his permission and thus the first tale of The Thousand and One Nights began.
Each night, Shahrazad stopped in the middle of a story so that only prolonging her life would allow the story to be concluded the next night. Once she finished the previous night's story she began a new one and ended it abruptly before daybreak. This ongoing storytelling prolonged Shahrazad's life night after night.
The stories Shahrazad told had one other purpose other than saving her life. Each of the stories involved a woman helping a man rather than betraying him. Shahrazad hoped that in hearing these stories King Shahrayar would change his opinion of women and learn to trust and possibly love them again. In telling the stories, Shahrazad applied the much-needed balm to King Shahrayar's wound.
When King Shahrayar learned of his wife's and slave-girls' betrayals he was driven mad and came up with a plan to avoid ever being humiliated again. He married a new young woman every night and murdered her before dawn broke the next day. "His chief vizier had been unable to think of a way to dissuade his monarch from this mad, self-destructive policy, but the vizier's elder daughter, Shahrazad, a young woman of exceptional learning and courage, had a plan" (924).
In time, Shahrazad convinced her father to allow her to wed King Shahrayar. On their wedding night, Shahrazad began to cry and asked the king if she might be allowed to see her sister, Dinarzad, one last time to say goodbye before daybreak. The king allowed the visit and while at the palace, Dinarzad asked Shahrazad to tell a story. The king gave his permission and thus the first tale of The Thousand and One Nights began.
Each night, Shahrazad stopped in the middle of a story so that only prolonging her life would allow the story to be concluded the next night. Once she finished the previous night's story she began a new one and ended it abruptly before daybreak. This ongoing storytelling prolonged Shahrazad's life night after night.
The stories Shahrazad told had one other purpose other than saving her life. Each of the stories involved a woman helping a man rather than betraying him. Shahrazad hoped that in hearing these stories King Shahrayar would change his opinion of women and learn to trust and possibly love them again. In telling the stories, Shahrazad applied the much-needed balm to King Shahrayar's wound.
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