Aladdin and the Magic Lamp

An old oil lamp, caked with black soot, looks like nothing more than junk picked up in a corner of the market. And yet, if the right person touches it and speaks, that lamp can raise a whole palace inlaid with gold in a single night.

The boy named Aladdin comes from the Thousand and One Nights, a treasury of old tales handed down from one generation to the next. His father, Mustapha, was a poor tailor whose only son was a sorrow to him. The boy cared only for play. He idled in the streets all day and would not learn a trade. The father fell ill and died before Aladdin was grown. From then on, Aladdin lived with his mother in hardship, in a great capital city in China. His mother spun cotton thread to keep the two of them fed from day to day, while Aladdin went on playing just as before.

One day, as Aladdin stood playing in the street, a stranger seized his hand and stared hard at his face, as if he had found a long-lost relative. The man was a magician from faraway Africa, richly dressed, with a honeyed voice. He claimed to be the younger brother of the late Mustapha, an uncle Aladdin had never met. "I knew you at once, by your face, so like your father," the magician said. He hugged Aladdin tightly and told him to go home and tell his mother that his uncle, just back from far away, would come to visit.

That evening, the magician came to the house with wine and choice fruit. He sat telling stories of the old days, so convincing that even the widowed mother believed them. He promised to set Aladdin up in a proper shop of his own. He took the boy to have a new suit of clothes made and showed him all over the busy streets of the city. Aladdin grew deeply fond of this newfound uncle, never guessing it was all an act.

A few days later, the magician invited Aladdin for a walk outside the city. They walked on and on, past the gardens and into wild, empty hills, far out of sight of the capital. At a patch of open ground between two hills, the magician stopped and told Aladdin to gather dry sticks for a fire. As soon as the fire caught, he threw a handful of strange powder into the flames, muttering words no one could understand. The ground trembled slightly, then split open right before Aladdin's eyes. It revealed a square slab of stone with a brass ring fixed to it.

"Beneath this stone lies a treasure," the magician said, his voice suddenly graver than Aladdin had ever heard it. "It is meant for you alone, and no one else can touch it." He took a ring from his own finger and put it on Aladdin's hand. Then he told the boy to grip the brass ring and pull the slab up. Below lay a staircase leading down to three wide halls. The magician warned him again and again. Walking through them, he must not touch anything at all, or he would never get out of that place again. Past the three halls lay a strange garden, where the fruit on the trees was not green but glittered like jewels of every color. In a niche in the wall at the end of the garden, an oil lamp was burning. The magician told Aladdin to pour all the oil out of the lamp and bring it up to him.

Aladdin did exactly as he was told. He crossed the three halls without touching a thing. He walked through that wondrous garden unable to take his eyes off the clusters of fruit shining like gems. He picked a few and filled his pockets. Then he found the lamp, poured out the oil, held it tight in his hand and made his way back.

At the mouth of the cave, the magician reached down, his voice urgent. "Give me the lamp first, and then I will pull you up." But Aladdin had both hands busy, holding the lamp and clinging to the rock wall. He asked to be let out of the cave first and to hand over the lamp after. The magician pleaded, then snarled, but Aladdin would not give up the lamp first. The magician's anger flared up fiercely. He threw the rest of his powder onto the fire nearby and spoke the old spell again. At once the stone slab slammed shut, sealing Aladdin in the darkness under the ground.

For two whole days, Aladdin sat in the dark, hungry and afraid, able only to clasp his hands and pray. As he rubbed his hands together, he happened to rub the ring the magician had put on his finger. At once the ground shook gently, and a giant genie appeared before him, so tall that he touched the roof of the cave. His voice rolled like thunder, yet it was not fierce at all. "I am the genie of the ring," he said. "Whatever the wearer of the ring commands, I will do." Aladdin trembled, more from wonder than from fear, and managed only one sentence. "Take me out of here." Before he had finished speaking, he found himself standing under the open sky, with sunshine all around him, far from that dark cave.

Aladdin dragged himself home, faint with hunger, and told his mother everything. Mother and son looked at the shabby old lamp lying on the table. They thought they would clean off the soot and take it to the market, to sell for a little money to live on. The moment the mother began to rub the lamp, a thick cloud of smoke rose up. In the middle of it appeared a huge genie, as majestic as a mountain rising up inside the small house. The mother stepped back, startled, her eyes wide with amazement. But Aladdin, who had already met the genie of the ring, stayed calmer. "I am the genie of the lamp," the genie said, "ready to do whatever the one who holds the lamp commands." Aladdin thought at once of his empty, aching stomach. "Bring me something to eat," he said. In the blink of an eye, the table was laid with silver trays and silver plates heaped with fine food, along with bottles of choice wine.

His mother urged him to sell the strange lamp and be done with it. But Aladdin was determined to keep it, both the lamp and the ring. He understood that he now held something a hundred times more precious than gold or silver.

Some time later, word of a royal order went around the city. Every household must close its doors so that the princess, the king's daughter, could go to the public bathhouse with no one seeing her face. But Aladdin longed to see her face just once. He hid behind the door of the bathhouse and peeped through a narrow crack. He glimpsed the princess's face as she lifted her veil to go in, and from that moment he could not forget it. He went to his mother and told her he was set on marrying the princess.

His mother gathered up all the glittering fruit he had brought up from the garden under the ground. She wrapped it carefully in a cloth and went to stand in the courtyard of the royal palace, asking to see the king. For a whole week she came every day and stood silently among the waiting crowd, and no one paid her any attention. Then one day the king happened to notice her and had her called in. When he saw the precious stones sparkling in the cloth, he agreed to the marriage at once. But the vizier, the king's chief minister, asked for three more months. He hoped his own son could offer an even more precious gift.

When the three months had passed, the mother returned to ask the king to keep his promise. On the vizier's advice, the king then set a condition that no one, it seemed, could ever meet. Her son must present 40 golden basins filled with jewels, carried with great ceremony to the royal palace by a procession of 80 servants. Aladdin rubbed the lamp and gave his orders to the genie. Within moments, 80 servants filled the little house, carrying the 40 golden basins. They walked to the palace two by two, with Aladdin's mother behind them. Every jewel sparkled, and the watching crowd stood gaping in wonder. Seeing such a sight, the king had no more doubts and ordered Aladdin brought to the palace at once.

Before going to meet the king, Aladdin asked the genie for a scented bath, a splendid suit of brocade, a horse finer than the king's own, and a train of servants to follow him. He rode through the streets scattering gold to the people on both sides, and not one of his old friends recognized the idle boy of the past. The king was delighted and offered to let him marry the princess that very day. But Aladdin asked for a little time. He wished first to build a palace truly worthy of receiving her.

The same lamp that mother and son had once meant to sell for a few small coins now raised, in a single night, a palace beyond any king's dreams. The next morning, people all around woke and stood rooted to the spot. A great palace loomed before them, as if it had always been there. The early sun struck its golden walls and lit up a whole corner of the sky. It was a palace of marble, with a great domed hall whose four walls were inlaid with gold and silver. Its 24 windows were set with diamonds and rubies, except for a single window left unfinished. A velvet carpet stretched all the way from the gate of Aladdin's palace to the gate of the royal palace. The princess was escorted there by Aladdin's mother and a hundred servants. The young couple were married to music and song that rang through the great hall until late at night.

On the day the king came to visit the new palace, he noticed the unfinished window and asked whether it was for want of jewels. "I left that part on purpose," Aladdin replied, "hoping Your Majesty would lend a hand to finish it, so the palace would be the work of us both." The king was moved and sent his best jewelers to do the work. But they struggled for a whole month and still did not have enough precious stones. So Aladdin called the genie, and the window was finished in an instant. All the jewels the king had provided were given back to him, every last one.

News that Aladdin had escaped death in the cave and grown rich reached the magician, and he flew into a rage. Tracing it through his magic, he learned that the palace was the genie's work. He made the long journey back to the capital and waited for his chance. Aladdin went away hunting for eight days. The magician bought a load of new oil lamps and walked all over the streets crying out, "Who will trade old lamps for new?" A maidservant heard him and told the princess about it, laughing at how strange it sounded. Another servant, hearing this, pointed up at the shabby old lamp that still sat in the niche in the great hall and suggested trading it too. The princess had no idea it was the magic lamp. She saw only that it was old and worthless, and she had a servant trade it for a new one, just for fun.

With the lamp in his hands, the magician rubbed it at once. He ordered the genie to carry the whole palace, princess and all, straight to a lonely place far away in Africa. The next morning, the king stepped outside and found his daughter's palace gone without a trace. In a towering rage, he had Aladdin seized, bound and brought to court, threatening him with severe punishment. Luckily, the people came in crowds to plead for Aladdin, and the king's anger cooled. The king pardoned him. Aladdin begged for 40 days to find the princess and the palace, promising to come back and bear the penalty if he failed, and the king granted it.

Aladdin wandered day after day. For three days he could not bring himself to eat or drink. At last he sank down beside a river, hands clasped in prayer, in despair. Without meaning to, he rubbed the ring on his hand once more. The genie of the ring appeared and listened as Aladdin told him everything. "Bringing back the palace is beyond my power," the genie answered calmly. "Only the genie of the lamp can do that. But I can take you right beneath the window of the princess's room." The words were barely spoken when Aladdin found himself in a strange land, looking up at his wife's familiar window.

The princess recognized her husband and opened the window, laughing and crying at once. "It is all my fault," she said, her voice choking. "I never knew how precious that shabby old lamp was, and I traded it away." She told him all that had happened. The magician, she added, always kept the lamp hidden in the breast of his robe and never let it out of reach. He often spoke ill of Aladdin in front of her.

Aladdin swapped clothes with a stranger in the street so that no one would know him. Then he went to buy a powder that could put a person into a deep sleep. He told the princess to dress in her finest and to greet the magician warmly, as she never had before. She was to invite him to stay for supper and ask him to bring out the fine wine of Africa to share. While the magician left the table to fetch the wine, the princess slipped the powder into her own cup. When he came back, she handed him that cup in exchange for his, as a sign that she had made peace with him. Raising her cup, she said, "Let us drink first, and then you may say whatever you wish." The magician was delighted and drained his cup in one gulp. Before long he swayed, slumped over and sank into a sleep so deep that nothing could wake him.

Aladdin searched the breast of the magician's robe and found his magic lamp again. The servants carried the magician, still fast asleep, out of the palace and left him behind in that faraway lonely land. From that day on, no one ever saw him come back to the city again. Aladdin rubbed the lamp and ordered the genie to take the whole palace back to its old place beside the royal palace, with husband, wife and everyone inside.

That morning, the king was sitting sadly in his own rooms when he looked out. There stood his daughter's palace again, just as if it had never vanished. He hurried over and hugged the princess, his eyes brimming with tears of joy. The whole capital held a feast of celebration for ten days. Drums and music rang through every street. They spilled from the gates of the royal palace all the way to the little alleys where Aladdin once idled away his days, a poor boy nobody cared to notice.

In the great hall, in the light from 24 windows set with diamonds and rubies, Aladdin stood beside the princess and his mother. He looked across at the window once left unfinished. The king's best jewelers had worked on it for a whole month in vain, and the genie had finished it in an instant. Now it sparkled whole like all the others, and the lamp that mother and son had once meant to sell for a few small coins rested in his hands once more.