Through half-closed eyes heavy with heat and shadow, Sinbad watches the brilliant column of the sundial in its hexagon of red sand. Dim cries sound from the river beyond the date grove. Murmur of insects, sweet smell of rotting orange blossoms. Dark blue shadows of leaves on the white rim of the fountain. Slowly a great bird descends. It settles on the sundial and folds its dark blue wings. Its long tail touches the sand. Sinbad has never seen such a bird before and rising from the divan he steps over to touch its shimmering, warm side. The bird lifts a wing, sweeping Sinbad onto its back, and at once rises into the air. Sinbad clutches the thick oily feathers as the bird flies over the city. Far below he can see the brown river with its boats and barges, the shadow of the bridges on the water, the palm trees the size of date stones, the slender white towers, the gilded onion domes like scattered gold dinars, the little green gardens, the little dromedaries in the little streets. Slowly the bird descends, the garden rises, Sinbad slides from the back of the bird and watches as it lifts its wings and soars into the fierce blue sky. In the warm shade of the orange tree he watches the brilliant column of the sundial in its hexagon of red sand. The mysterious, the magical, the unexpected do not happen in his garden, and after deep thought he concludes that the bird was a dream or illusion, summoned by the heat, the flicker of leafshade, an old man’s weariness.
The frontispiece of Burton’s Volume VI (Illustrated Benares Edition) shows an engraving of two rocs attacking a ship. These are not the rocs of the second voyage, who nest above the Valley of Diamonds, but the two rocs of the fifth voyage, who drop great boulders on Sinbad’s ship. The female roc is shown grasping a boulder in her claws. One of her wings is as long as the two-masted ship below, and the boulder is as thick as the height of the men cowering on deck. The roc resembles a great eagle, but with a long neck; at the top of the hooked beak, between the eyes, is a disturbing hump. The male roc, at the top of the engraving, is closer to the viewer and is visible only as a pair of immense talons and some half-dozen feathers. The talons resemble the feet of roosters and have sharp, curved nails on each long toe. They have just released their boulder, as indicated by a splash beside the ship’s bow in the lower left-hand corner of the engraving. We know from the story that the second boulder will strike the ship. One little man holds up his arms as if to ward off a blow; another lies face down on the deck; a third is diving over the side. The water about the ship is mostly white, with several curving lines indicating agitation; in the background the water is darker, drawn with many lines, and appears thick.
Now when I drew close to those creatures in the grass, suddenly they rose up and flew a little distance away, whereat I followed; and in this manner I drew farther and farther from the town, till looking about me I saw I had lost my way. I was among steep hills, which rose up on all sides; and I was as a dead man for weariness, and knew not what to do. So looking about, I saw those creatures rise from the grass, and I followed them into a nearby valley, where I beheld a marvelous sight. The valley was filled with flying creatures, which made a noise as of many winds. Then I saw that one lay in the grass not far from where I stood, and when I descended a small way to see what it was, all unknowing I stumbled on one hidden in the grass, and fell upon it fearfully, and lo! it rose in the air bearing me on its back. And I saw that it was a carpet, that flew like a bird; and I was in a valley of flying carpets, that flew to and fro. So lying on my stomach and quaking in great fear, for I knew not whether I would plunge to destruction, I gripped the sides of my carpet and flew down into the valley. And the valley was so thick with those flying creatures that I felt them brush against my cheeks and fingers; and I held tight with one hand, and covered my face with the other. At the bottom of the valley there was an opening in the hillside, and thither my carpet carried me; and I entered a great dark cavern. Now at the bottom of the cavern sat three men with beards who worked at three looms. And one, seeing me, cried out as if in anger; and that old man picked up a stone and threw it at me, striking the underside of the carpet, so that I felt a blow in my ribs. Then another called up to me coaxingly, saying, “Come down, and we will reward you” but I trusted them not.
Old man’s hour: heat and shade of late afternoon. Green hands, blue shadows, a slight oppression in the chest. Behind the eyelids rings of light, red-yellow, dancing. Bone-weariness and a dull drumming in the ears. The voyages are rings of red light dancing. There are no voyages, only the worm-thick veins on the back of the hand. Only the heavy body, the laboring heart, blossoms rotting under the sun. Dead hour: his hands green corpses. The stench of corpses, the groans of the dying in the cavern under the mountain. His dead wife beside him, rotting in her jewels. A pitcher of water and seven cakes of bread. He swings the leg bone and crushes the skull. He lifts the stone and crushes the skull of the old man with buffalo-hide legs. A shrill cry cuts him like a blade. Bright blue sky, the cry of the blackbird. Heat, shade: old man’s hour.
Sinbad addresses his tales to a double audience: a company of lords and nobles, who are his friends, and a poor porter, also named Sinbad, who is a stranger and whose melancholy verses recited outside the gate have incited Sinbad the merchant to narrate his seven voyages. Sinbad’s immediate purpose is to persuade the poor porter that he became wealthy only after hardship and misfortune, as represented by the voyages; that is, to persuade the poor man that the merchant’s immense wealth is deserved. To put it another way, Sinbad is attempting to justify his life. His purpose in narrating the voyages to the lords and nobles is less clear. We know that Sinbad has been struck by the identity of his name and that of the poor porter, because he asserts it for all to hear; a moment later he greets the porter as “brother.” Perhaps, then, in the presence of the poor man Sinbad feels a need to set himself apart from his wealthy friends, to insist on his difference. It is evident that he has never spoken to them of his voyages before; they are his secret. In this sense the narration of the voyages to the lords and nobles is a form of confession. It is difficult to state precisely the nature of this confession, but surely it has to do with Sinbad’s restlessness, his craving for violent adventure, his inner wildness and boredom — everything, in short, that separates him from the sober and respectable, everything that secretly undermines his shrewd merchant’s nature. In any case, Sinbad requires for the recital of his story the presence of both the wealthy company and the poor porter; each morning the porter arrives early at Sinbad’s house and is made to wait for the rest of the company before the story of the next voyage begins. We may imagine Sinbad now directing a sharp glance at Sinbad the porter as he relates the details of a shipwreck or a fit of despair, now lowering his eyes modestly as he describes a cunning stratagem, now casting a broad gaze over the company of lordly friends as he recounts the story of his marriage to a beautiful and wealthy woman of noble lineage, the ruby cup, the audience with the caliph.