For Part B of the Sindbad reading, I found the "Seventh and Last Voyage" story to be the most interesting. After six previous voyages, Sindbad has finally reached the conclusion that he does not want to voyage again, after all the trouble he's had on previous trips. However, the Caliph summons him and asks Sindbad to go to the King of Serendib again with a message and gifts. Although Sindbad is wary to leave home again (he had vowed to not travel again, after all), the Caliph convinces him. The voyage to Serendib is uneventful, and Sindbad is able to deliver the gifts safely to the King. Five days into the voyage back to Bagdad, pirates attack Sindbad's ship, take him prisoner, and sell him to a rich merchant as a slave. The merchant tasks Sindbad with daily climbing a tree and killing an elephant as the herd passes (the merchant wants to harvest the elephant tusks). For a couple months, Sindbad continues with this task, until one day one of the elephants tears down his tree and takes him hostage. The elephants take Sindbad to an elephant graveyard, where many skeletons have exposed the leftover tusks that Sindbad can harvest, this time without killing an elephant. Sindbad returns to his master and tells him about the elephant graveyard. After several trips to the elephant graveyard, Sindbad's master becomes quite rich, and out of gratitude for Sindbad's discovery, his master frees him. As a result, Sindbad is able to return to Bagdad safely and update the Caliph about all that had happened. Finally, Sindbad is able to settle down into a quiet life without further voyages or troubles.
As with the other story from Part A of Sindbad's voyages, I think this story would be fun to rewrite as a space story instead, with Sindbad traveling on a sci-fi space ship and getting marooned on an alien island. The elephants were especially interesting to me, because I took pity on how they were being killed daily just for their tusks. It was fascinating to me how sentient they were portrayed in this story. It would be fun to invent an alien species for them to be in a sci-fi retelling, or else just retell the story from their perspective instead of Sindbad's.
Bibliography: "Seventh and Last Voyage," Voyages of Sindbad, The Arabian Nights.
Comments
Post a Comment