Note 309 — JUDAR[257] AND HIS BRETHREN. (continued 2)

I have noted that as a rule in The Nights poetical justice is administered with much rigour and exactitude. Here, however, the tale-teller allows the good brother to be slain by the two wicked brothers as he permitted the adulterous queens to escape the sword of Kamar al-Zaman. Dr. Steingass brings to my notice that I have failed to do justice to the story of Sharrkán (vol. ii., p. 172), where I note that the interest is injured by the gratuitous incest. But this has a deeper meaning and a grander artistic effect. Sharrkán begins with most unbrotherly feelings towards his father’s children by a second wife. But Allah’s decree forces him to love his half-sister despite himself, and awe and repentance convert the savage, who joys at the news of his brother’s reported death, to a loyal and devoted subject of the same brother. But Judar with all his goodness proved himself an arrant softy and was no match for two atrocious villains. And there may be overmuch of forgiveness as of every other good thing.