Personal Blogs

The Prime Minister is in Strasbourg tonight as determined to keep her narrative alive as if a modern Scheherazade.

She began by releasing the Genie from the bottle when she triggered Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union.

“Tell on,” quoth the King who chanced to be sleepless and restless and therefore was pleased with the prospect of hearing her story. So Shahrazad rejoiced; and thus, on the first night of the Thousand Nights and a Night, she began with the Tale of the Trader and the Jinni.”

The mood in the House of Commons tonight has been as sepulchral as the House of Lamentations as vexed and angry as the wife of the Lord of the Black Islands in the Tale of the Enscorcelled Prince.

The Fisherman became the richest man of his age in that tale but it turned out that that tale was not more wondrous than the story of The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad... and so on and on went Scheherazade's seemingly endless tales as she vied to keep a grim fate a dawn's length away.

Eventually Schehrazade had no more words to offer.

“At the end of 1001 nights, and 1000 stories, Scheherazade told the king that she had no more tales to tell him. During these 1001 nights, the king had fallen in love with Scheherazade. He spared her life, and made her his queen”.

 Nearing the end of the 1001 nights the relationship looked warm but was there love?

“Shahrázád” (Persian) = City-freer, in the older version Scheherazade (probably both from Shirzád = lion-born). 

Will the Modern Scheherazade be a 'freer' of cities or has she 'walled the horizon' as the camels' dust cloudes do in Richard F. Burton's translation in The Second Kalandar's Tale?