The First Voyage of Sinbad

If you were to stand in the great city of Baghdad on a midsummer afternoon, you would find that the world had slowed to an absolute crawl. The sun, a white-hot shield in a sky of pale brass, pours down a heat so heavy, it feels almost physical, pressing the dust flat against the clay brick walls. [000:26] On such afternoons, the sensible people of the city are asleep behind thick stone walls, where water trickles over screens of fragrant reeds to cool the air. But the poor cannot always afford to be sensible. On one such afternoon, a porter named Sinbad was dragging himself through the narrow winding lanes. He was a man who made his living by the strength of his back, carrying great crates of spices, heavy bolts of wool, and barrels of oil from the docks of the river Tigris to the markets and mansions of the wealthy. Today, his load was a massive wooden chest, bound with iron, which seemed to grow heavier with every step he took. The rough wood bit into his shoulder through his thin sweat-soaked tunic. His sandals, worn thin as autumn leaves, offered no protection against the cobblestones, which baked like griddles beneath his feet. At last, exhausted and gasping for breath, the porter reached a wide, quiet street in a quarter of the city where the houses did not crowd together, but stood apart like palaces. He stopped outside a magnificent gate of carved cedarwood, studded with bronze bosses. Beside the gate was a wide stone bench, shaded by the overhanging branches of a bitter orange tree. With a low groan of relief, the porter slid the heavy chest from his shoulder, letting it rest against the wall, and sank onto the cool stone bench. From behind the high walls of the estate came the most exquisite sounds and scents. He could hear the soft, rhythmic splash of a marble fountain, the sweet, liquid notes of a loot being plucked by a skilled hand, and the low, murmuring laughter of people at their ease. Even more torturous for a hungry man was the breeze that drifted over the wall, carrying the aroma of roasted meats, seasoned with cumin and coriander, of freshly baked flatbread, and the sweet, clean scent of rosewater. The porter looked down at his calloused hands, blistered and stained with wood ash and rope burn. He looked at his ragged clothes. Then he looked up at the blue sky above, his heart swelling with a sudden sharp ache of unfairness. He did not speak in anger, but in a soft, sorrowful sigh, letting his voice rise in a simple verse of poetry, as people of his land so often did when their hearts were full. Why, master of my land, have you given youth to the world youth, and labor, and loss, and difficulty to me, who am your slave? Oh, creator of all things, look down upon our lives. One man wakes to a garden of roses, while another wakes to the heavy yoke. One sits in the cool shade, dining on delicate fowl, while another eats the dust of the road and drinks his own sweat. Yet, we were made from the same clay, and the same sky bends over us both. Why is the divide so wide, and the road so steep for the weary? The porter finished his verse, let his head fall into his hands, and prepared to rest for just a few moments more before lifting his heavy burden. But he had barely closed his eyes when the great cedarwood gate creaked open. A servant, dressed in a tunic of fine white linen with a sash of blue silk, stepped out onto the street. He looked at the porter, then at the heavy chest resting against the wall. "Come inside," the servant said, his voice polite but firm. "My master wishes to speak with you." The porter felt a sudden flutter of fear in his chest. Had he offended some great lord with his complaining? Had his poetry been taken as an insult? "My Lord," the porter stammered, rising quickly to his feet. "I am only a poor porter. I…

Continue with the full plain-text transcript.