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strategy of repetition and manipulation of the texts.
References
Burton, R. F. (1991). The Arabian Nights.
Vo. 1. New York: New American Library.
Burton, R. F. (1999). The Arabian Nights.
Vo. 2. New York: New American Library.
Chandler, G. J. (2010). Barcelona BC 569 and a Carolingian programme on the virtues.
Early Medieval Europe, 18/3, 265-291.
Cherewatuk, K. (1988-91). Speculum Matris:
Duoda’s Manual. Florilegium, 10: 49-64.
Claussen, M. A. (1996). Fathers of Power and Mothers of Authority: Dhuoda and the Liber manualis. French Historical Studies, 19/3 Spring, 785-809.
Dhuoda. (1999). Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman’s Counsel for Her Son.
(Carol Neel Trans.). Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.
Ferrante, J. (1988). Public Postures and Private Maneuvers: Roles Medieval Women Play. In M. Erler and M. Kowaleski (Eds.), Women and Power in the Middle Ages.
University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia: 213 – 229.
Irwin, R. (2004). The Arabian Nights: A Companion. New York: The Penguin Press.
Marzolph, U. (2006). Introduction. In U.
Marzolph (Ed.), The Arabian Nights: Reader.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Mauss, M. (1967). The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies.
(Ian Cunnison Trans.). New York: Norton and Co.
Olsen, G. W. (1992). One Heart and One Soul (Acts 4:32 and 34) in Dhuoda’s 'Manual'. Church History, 61/1, 23-33.
Stetkevych, S. (1993). The Mute Immortals Speak Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual (Myth and Poetics). New York:
Cornell University Press.
Stetkevych, S. (1994). Introduction. In S.
Stetkevych (Ed.), Reorientations: Arabic and Persian Poetry. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
Stetkevych, S. (2002). The Poetics of Islamic Legitimacy: Myth, Gender, and Ceremony in the Classical Arabic Ode. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Stetkevych, S. (2010). The Mantle Odes:
Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Mu ammad. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
became an advisor to the king, to go hand in hand with his service to God. However, if his service to his king reached a point of a conflict with his beliefs, he should always follow his faith, regardless of other authorities.
The striking similarities between the end of the two sets of brothers’ lives—
William and Bernard and the two brothers in the Nights, Shahryar and Shahzaman—
are worth noting. In both cases, the older brother takes care of the younger and influences his life drastically. William takes care of Bernard and teaches him, among other things, their mother’s handbook.
Bernard turns into a young version of William, who likewise challenged the authority.3 Shahzaman in the beginning of the Nights becomes unjust and starts killing young girls after having his way with them because of his older brother King Shahryar’s influence; at the end of the Nights he repents, also because of his brother’s influence, and becomes, like his older brother, a just king.
Dhuoda and Scheherazade's motives for telling stories or composing the handbook—giving gifts—are far from selfish. Certainly, they want to save their lives, but that is only one part of their bigger plans. They want to save other lives too, both by sparing them and by changing them for the better. Both Dhuoda and Scheherazade know how powerful their texts are as gifts, for "the thing given is not inert. It is alive and often personified, and strives to bring to its original clan and
3 Record indicates William's brother, Bernard, escaped and lived to have children, but some scholars differ, i.e., he died as a result of his rebellious action.
homeland some equivalent to take its place"
(Mauss, 1967, p. 10). Also, "in the things exchanged …there is a certain power which forces them to circulate, to be given away and repaid" (p. 41). Moreover, both Dhuoda and Scheherazade's thoughts, acts, and their storytelling and handbook, the giving of these gifts of theirs, proceed according to a coherent plan.
Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s hanbook function as exchange commodities in the redeeming of human lives, their lives and other people’s lives. Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s handbook, as gifts, are a part of their lives, feelings, thinking, and spiritual essences.
Conclusion:
By using the important findings of Marcel Mauss in his book The Gift about the functions of gift exchange, I have examined two different women’s discourses;
Scheherazade's stories in The Arabian Nights and Dhuoda’s writing in her Handbook, and I have posited a function for both texts as exchange commodities in redeeming their lives and the lives of others. I established the function of the stories and the handbook as a commodity in a ritual exchange, specifically, as a form of ransom payment; Scheherazade seeks secular salvation, while Dhuoda seeks a divine/spiritual salvation. I also discussed Scheherazade and Dhuoda's five-step-plan, which consists of five important didactic messages that are implied in the tales of the Nights and in the Handbook, which work to define and support the creation of social bonds initiated by the act of gift exchange—Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s handbook. I also discussed the two women’s strategies in convincing and conversing with their addressees. In Dhuoda’s case, it is her humility and protestations of unworthiness that she displays in her writing; in Scheherazade’s case it is the attitude of respect that she displays as she narrates. Moreover, in both cases, their texts rely on their indirect claim of authority over their addressees and a
enhancing this relationship, Scheherazade places a condition before she accepts Shahryar’s proposal of marrying his brother Shahzaman to her sister Dunazade; she wants Shahzman to live with his brother in the same kingdom:
Your majesty, we shall consent only on one condition, that he set up his residence here, for I cannot bear to be parted from my sister for more than an hour. We were raised together and cannot endure separation from one another. If he accepts this pact, she will be his wife. (p. 580)
In other words, living in the same society is the sine qua non of the strong relationship between the two kings and the two queens, and a great future for their subjects.
In Dhuoda’s case, we do not see the happy ending that we saw in Scheherazade’s case. Dhuoda advises her son, saying: “Go out in the name of the highest God to do the earthly service that awaits you, or whatever your lord and father Bernard or your lord Charles commands you to do, as God permits”
(Dhuoda, 1999, p. 20). “As God permits” is a strong statement from Dhuoda. So if William thought that what he has been commanded is not what God would permit then he would not do it. Instead, he would act against it. Clausen says: “Both of Willaim’s earthly superiors, his dominus Bernard and his senior Charles, have a claim on his services, as a fighter or a counselor. But William’s service to them is limited, he can only do what is permitted”
(Claussen, 1996, p. 802), and Dhuoda:
believes that William owed different levels of allegiance to different people. To God, however, William owes his full and complete obedience, Bernard he must serve only if it does not conflict with his duty to God, and Charles is, in a fashion, his tertiary lord. [Therefore,] the earthly service that Dhuoda so wishes William to distinguish himself in can only be completed if it falls into the category of what is permissible. (p. 803)
In 848, and at the age of 23, William became “involved in the struggles of his lord, Pippin II of Aquitaine, against Charles the Bald” (Chandler, 2010, p. 265), but William did not have success and was put to death in Barcelona. I assume that William was caught between loyalty to God through his mother, the representative of both the maternal and spiritual/divine authority, and the loyalty to his king, Charles the Bald, the representative of secular authority. Perhaps William’s rebellious act against his king, which caused his death, was a reaction brought about by his understanding of the concept,
“to God [he] owes his full and complete obedience.” Thus, his action is considered to be an counter gift that establishes both earthly and religious social bonds. Did William break his allegiance to Charles the Bald because the latter was responsible for executing William’s father? Or did he break that allegiance because he understood his mother’s Handbook differently? Is Dhuoda responsible for her son’s death? In other words, did she encourage her son to become a rebel? Before answering these questions, I would like to clarify a crucial point regarding the primacy of obedience that Dhuoda repeated consistently in her handbook. Dhuoda wanted William to obey God first, then his earthly lord. Therefore, one could ask whether William learned that his duty toward God forced him to break his allegiance to the king for reasons he held at that time, which was a time of war. In this case, one can argue that William actually followed his mother’s advice; i.e., he returned the gift. In other words, if the religious sense in William’s heart was so strong, and Charles’ reign was unjust, in William’s opinion, we can argue that his rebellious act might have been the result of his own interpretations of his mother’s handbook. In other words, Dhuoda wanted her son to put God’s order above all othrers.
Therefore, if it happens that his king’s order conflicted with God’s, she expected him to follow God’s order without a blink. In other words, Dhuoda wanted the secular advantage that William might gain, if he
Dhuoad’s case, this gift not only gives peace of mind in this world but also a greater peace, which is salvation in the hereafter, for "the thing given brings return in this life…. It may automatically bring the donor an equivalent return—it is not lost to him, but reproductive; or else the donor finds the thing itself again, but with increase" (p. 55).
The endings in both cases share many similarities: they show how the fact that the giver and recipient are related by family ties changes the dynamic of gift exchange, how the stories and the handbook work to define and support the creation of social bonds initiated by the act of gift exchange; they show how the two sets of brothers, Shahryar and Shahzaman on the one hand and William and Bernard on the other, are alike. However, while in Scheherazade’s case the ending was happy, in Dhuoda’s it was sad.
The happy ending of the main frame story of the Nights in which the two kings, Shahryar and Shahzaman, marry the two queens, Scheherazade and Dunazade, makes important points. First, it shows how the fact that the giver, Scheherazade, and recipient, Shahryar, are related through stable family ties, which changes the dynamic of gift exchange. Second, it shows how the stories of Scheherazade work to define and support the creation of social bonds initiated by the act of gift exchange.
Third, it shows that both Dunazade and Shahzaman are younger versions of Scheherazade and Shahryar. They both do what their older brother and sister ask or suggest they do. They even live with them at the end of the story. “I’d be glad to have her younger sister as my wife so we two
may become brothers-german to sisters- german, and they would be sisters to us in the same way” (Burton, 1999, p. 579).
Dunazade and Shahzaman are a delightful future for the kingdom; both are the logical and natural extension of Scheherazade and Shahryar. Dunazade does exactly what Scheherazade says or suggests to her. Moreover, Scheherazade not only makes Dunazade participate in her plan but also teaches her everything she knows, sensually, when she observes her sister’s private life in the king’s private chamber;
and intellectually-spiritually, when she listens to her sisters’ stories and absorbs them. Shahzaman also does exactly what Shahryar says or suggests; he first wanders with Shahryar and then like him kills virgins. Subsequently, he repents and stays with him in his kingdom. Even though it takes Scheherazade three years to change Shahryar’s personality, it only takes Shahryar one conversation to change his younger brother’s life:
After hearing this, my brother, I’d be glad to have her younger sister as my wife….
Like you I lay with a woman every night during the past three years and put her to death the next morning. But now I desire to marry your wife’s sister, Dunazade.
(Burton, 1999, p. 579)
Both brothers do everything together after their wives’ betrayals. Even at the end, they live in the same kingdom to support each other.
All four characters need each other, for they all are connected. To keep this connection strong, the two kings and the two queens must live together.
Scheherazade helps to support this relationship and make it even stronger. And to achieve this end, supporting and
the character’s role in the Nights when Shahryar becomes to his younger brother, Shahzaman, what Scheherazade was to him:
the spiritual parent and the trustworthy teacher, whose concern for his brother and other subjects in his kingdom is so great.
Moreover:
the pain [Dhuoda] feels in separation from her infant is obvious, as is the seriousness of the task she places on her elder son.
Dhuoda passes on to William a charge the church fathers placed on woman in her role as mother, the teaching of reading and moral instruction of the child. Dhuoda’s manual testifies eloquently to one woman’s willingness to embrace that role.
(Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 58)
Therefore, by giving William the role of a mother, maternal authority, she actually gives herself, and of course William as well, the role of a church father too, a divine/spiritual authority.
Dhuoda also charges William with the care of the handbook, “which is Dhuoda’s only bridge to her children” (p. 58).
William reads his mother’s handbook and keeps it close to him. It was “probably in [his] possession when he was executed in Barcelona” (Chandler, 2010, p. 266). Also, William helped spread the ideas of the handbook by keeping it safe in his library—
a collection of texts which Dhuoda wanted him to keep in one place. “Pierre Riche proposed that the Dhuodan text in the manuscript derives ultimately from her son William’s own copy. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the other texts in the manuscript do as well, and that the entire codex in its present form probably descends from the library of William” (p. 266).
Dhuoda also instructs William to arrange for her burial. She “insists that William place on her tomb the epitaph she has composed for herself. In this poem she exhorts all who go by her grave to pray for her” (Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 59).
You, men or women, old or young, who walk back and forth
In this place, I ask you, say this:
Holy one, great one, release her chains (Dhuoda, 1999, p. 101).
Dhuoda shows her need for prayers from all people and she wants William to help her to achieve that aim:
Then those who see this epitaph on my burial place may pour out worthy prayers to God for my unworthy self. And as for any other who may someday read the handbook you now peruse, may he too ponder the words that follow here so that he may commend me to God’s salvation as if I were buried beneath these words. (p. 101)
After spending so much time telling stories and composing the handbook, giving their gifts, and putting so much effort into these relationships, Scheherazade and Dhuoda expect to see results and receive their gifts, for "the producer-exchanger feels now as [she] has always felt—but this time [she] feels it more acutely—that [she]
is giving something of [herself], [her] time and [her] life. Thus [she] wants recompense, however modest, for [her] gift.
And to refuse [her] this recompense [is to end her life]" (Mauss, 1967, p. 75).
Moreover, this gift of stories in Scheherazade’s case, not only gives a life, a regular one, but also a greater one as the king’s wife, i.e., the queen; and in
are enclosed within the stories and the handbook.
Shahryar is a king, and kings know that, even if they are oppressors, they have to live by certain rules and maintain their high status among their subjects by acting according to specific etiquette. William is a nobleman and he too is aware that he must live by certain rules and maintain his high status in his society by acting according to certain etiquette. This etiquette includes the rituals of exchanging gifts. Both Shahrayar and William cannot afford not to reciprocate Scheherazade and Dhuoda's gifts because they know that "failure to give or receive, like failure to make return gifts, means a loss of dignity" (p. 40), and "the obligation of worthy return is imperative.
Face is lost forever if it is not made" (p.
41). Furthermore, Shahryar and William know that "the gift not yet repaid debases the man who accepted it, particularly if he did so without thought of return" (p. 63).
Both men, Shahryar and William, have to return the gift, for "in the distinctive sphere of our social life we can never remain at rest. We must always return more than we receive; the return is always bigger and more costly" (p. 63). Therefore, they have to give a greater one, for they are receivers who happened to be noblemen.
Shahryar spares Scheherazade’s life and makes her queen, acts that occur side by side with her stories. William’s counter gift is the performance of four connected deeds.
Throughout the Handbook, especially near the opening and toward the close of it, Dhuoda charges William with the care of his younger brother as a part of his fulfilling her words from the Handbook. First, she advises him, “Read the words I address to
you, understand them and fulfill them in action” (Dhuoda, 1999, p. 13). Then, she advises him how to take care of his little brother, Bernard: “Do not hesitate to teach him, to educate him, to love him, and to call him to progress from good to better. When the time has come that he has learned to speak and to read, show him this little volume gathered together into a handbook by me and written down in your name.
Urge him to read it….” (p. 13). This is one of the great tasks that Dhuoda has prepared William for, and this is what she sees as one of William’s obligations to her. "This, of course, involves something of a radical role reversal for William, because he will become the equivalent of Dhuoda—he will play the young Bernard’s mother. He will be to Bernard, in fact, what Dhuoda … was to him; [a] spiritual parent” (Claussen, 1996, p. 809). This role of William’s, as Dhuoda’s voice and messenger, does not stop at this point. Instead, it carries further responsibilities. William takes this role to the next level, which is also his mother’s wish, to educate the people around him and provide them with the didactic messages that his mother leaves him in her Handbook. A part of William’s counter gift is what he will do for his younger brother and other readers as well; he will teach them and take care of them spiritually since he is taking his mother’s place, who presumed that he would share the handbook with other people when she said to him:
“and to those to whom you may offer this little book for perusal” (Dhuoda, 1999, p.
7). Moreover, this change in William’s role from a receiver to a giver establishes the chain of the gift-exchange process, which will not end. We find the same change in
father—in this case, to Bernard. But Dhuoda captures this role for herself, and she accomplishes this capture through her use of biblical and monastic texts” (p. 798).
Dhuoda says, “Hear me as I direct you, my son William, and listen carefully, follow the instructions . . . of a father. Heed the words of the holy fathers” (Dhuoda, 1999, p. 22).
Commenting on the last phrase, Claussen (1996) says:
It is clear that at this moment Dhuoda has claimed herself as William’s father. She is the one to whom William should listen, it is to her teachings that he must give ear….
The only teachings that William could possibly listen to and observe are those of his mother. Here we see on the part of Dhuoda not an assertion of patriarchal power and privilege, but rather a claim on filial piety. Dhuoda has constructed herself as William’s father, because she has been the one who has acted honorably, who has acted in his best interests. It’s a startling claim of mother as abbot, of mother as father. (p. 804)
Scheherazade also takes the roles of mother and teacher. In wanting to confirm her value to Shahryar, she shows him that she is the one who acts honorably, the one who has been teaching him valuable lessons through her stories, the one who will accompany him every day for three years without being disloyal, invaluable, replaceable or boring. Thus, in her he should place his trust, and with her he should share love and respect. At the end of the Nights we see how Scheherazade fights for her legitimacy as a worthy wife and a dependable mother.
Another strategy which both women employ is that of repetition and manipulation of the texts which they use consistently to influence their addressees.
Dhuoda “is a very liberal reader, who uses the Bible to come to her own conclusions”
(p. 794). She applies an exegetical stance in her use of the religious texts, and she “has little concern with maintaining the integrity of her original source, thus she not only rearranges it better to suit her needs, but she even adds to it” (p. 790). “This hermeneutic…. allows Dhuoda to use other texts to build her own arguments regarding her role in William’s life” (p. 794).
However, “Dhuoda’s use of this text exemplifies just how deeply the Bible, and especially the psalms, has structured her thought and the way she expressed herself”
(p. 790). This liberty in using other texts to build one’s argument is similar, to some extent, to what Scheherazade does when she chooses particular stories from various ancient cultures to narrate. Scheherazade, like Dhuoda, takes the liberty of narrating them in order to come to her own conclusions and to use them to build her own arguments regarding her role in King Shahryar’s life. Scheherazade also, like Dhuoda, repeats her lessons over and over again, explaining them ever more thoroughly by varying them.
Both Dhuoda and Scheherazade are aware that their addressee’s exchanged gifts will not come immediately. Instead "[t]ime has to pass before a counter-presentation can be made" (Mauss, 1967, p. 34), and that time they will use wisely to build a new better perspective on life in their addressees’ souls by sending their clear and hidden didactic or therapeutic messages that
strategy is called acting with respect. This act usually is performed before a high authority, such as a king or emir, as we notice in Scheherazade’s case.
Scheherazade begins the process of ransoming her life and that of the others by acting with respect. “I’d be most happy and willing to do this,” answered Scheherazade,
“if this pious and auspicious king will permit me.” “Permission granted,” said the king.” (Burton, 1991, p. 22). Acting with respect is a crucial step in the art of negotiation, for it gives the powerful party the feeling of control over the negotiation.
As a result, the challenge created by the process of gift exchange, is reduced.
Accordingly, the weaker party finds a way to persuade the more powerful party to do whatever it wants, as the more powerful party becomes satisfied with its higher status.
The other strategy which both women bring to bear is their indirect claim of authority over their addressees: While Dhuoda endows herself with both a “quasi- scriptural and a quasi-sacerdotal authority”
(Claussen, 1996, p. 800), Scheherazade endows herself with the authority of the narrator. I will show how these two different authorities help both women in realizing their plans.
Dhuoda is very clear and direct when it comes to her authority; she claims both spiritual and maternal authority over William. She “reveals something about herself, as woman, as mother, and as authority figure for her son and other readers” (Chandler, 2010, p. 269).
According to Dhuoda, the handbook is like the Bible. Like Scripture, it has everything necessary for salvation and success, and
like Scripture, it can be completely understood only with divine assistance (Claussen, 1996, p. 798). Dhuoda claims
“an authority over William’s life through a dialogue with normative texts drawn from the Christian past such as the Bible and the Rule of St Benedict, and she constructs an argument regarding power, authority and society that turns traditional medieval notions on their head" (pp. 787-788).
Throughout the text, Dhuoda gives herself increasingly greater authority. She:
endows herself with both a quasi-scriptural and a quasi-sacerdotal authority- an authority given to her by God and an authority she exercises because of her love of William. Her authority comes not only from her natural rights as mother, not only from the divine intervention she has discerned in her life, it also comes from the monastic ideal of correctio -the duty of an individual to rectify the behavior of another. (p. 800)
Scheherazade’s narrational authority, as opposed to Dhuoda’s, is not direct. As a part of her plan, Scheherazade does not reveal her authority over King Shahrayar directly because if she does, her authority might intimidate the king, and as a result he would not only reject her hidden didactic messages but also end her life. She endows herself with the authority of the narrator:
Her narration is her only means to exercise her authority.
Dhuoda “has taken the role of abbot in William’s life and education . . . . She sees herself responsible for William’s salvation and uses her authority to that end” (p. 801).
"In the monastic model of family, the role of the abbot should obviously belong to the
process. Scheherazade illustrates this theme in many stories in the Nights, such as in
“The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinee,”
as discussed above, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp,”
“The Tale of Judar and His Brothers,” and others. Dhuoda also employs this theme in different places in her handbook, but the most obvious one is her example of the society of harts that crosses water. In the image of the harts, Dhuoda demonstrates that:
for the wise and discrete harts, power and leadership are not ends in themselves. In fact, leadership is an onerous burden, so difficult that it has to be shared through the entire community. But even more striking, the whole of hart society is based on mutual support - all, weak and strong, powerful and poor, work to serve some end. (Claussen, 1996, p. 809)
Moreover, “Dhuoda stresses the organic, complementary or reciprocal nature of human society, in which each rank serves the others” (Olsen, 1992, p 28).
Also, she shows the importance of the family members and the mutual role they all play to everyone’s secular and spiritual advantage. Moreover, both women take their didactic messages a step farther when they both advise the male member in their families (William and Shahryar) that not only do members of a family need each other, but also every member of society needs the others to build a harmonious and cooperative community.
Dhuoda and Scheherazade employ effective strategies in convincing and conversing with their addressees. In Dhuoda’s case, it is her strategy to plead
weakness, ignorance, humility and protestation of unworthiness in her writing, while in Scheherazade’s case it is an attitude of respect that she displays as she narrates. Joan Ferrante has shown that several medieval women writers, both secular and religious, “adopt a posture of helplessness and ignorance when speaking of themselves, and at the same time use their writings...to influence their societies”
(Ferrante, 1988, p. 219). Dhuoda “displays remarkable humility in her approach to writing and is startlingly honest in her use of personal voice” (Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 49). However, Dhuoda’s “prose belies her protestations of unworthiness”
(Claussen, 1996, p. 799). In other words, she “in words proclaims her weakness while in fact she simply does what she claims is impossible. Thus while [Dhuoda]
stresses both her personal incapacity and the incommensurability of God and concludes therefore that she should be able to say nothing, nevertheless she will end up saying quite a lot” (p. 799). Moreover, Dhuoda’s protestations of unworthiness are a crucial part of her practice of her religious beliefs, for it does not conflict with her claim of maternal and religious authority.
Instead, it is actually, in addition to its religious value, a perfect strategy in her dialogue with her son. This humility throughout the text brings William closer to his mother and to her didactic messages.
Moreover, by proclaiming her sinfulness and inability to talk about God, she actually compares herself with the Prophets, as she, like them, is forced to talk about God for the good of her people; i.e., her sons. In Scheherazade’s dialogue with Shahryar, we notice a similar strategy as well. This
300
bad deeds out of reverence, love and absolute obedience that is due to God. In this tale, one can also notice that the foundation of all three sheikhs’ behavior is reverence, love and absolute obedience that is due to God. Accordingly, all the above themes are messages that Scheherazade presents to Shahryar as valuable gifts.
In her time, “Dhuoda was in all likelihood severely disappointed in [her husband] Bernard’s actions, and hurt by rumors of his adultery with the empress Judith” (Chandler, 2010, p. 270). Bernard:
dishonored Louis when he seduced his wife, Charles when he consistently betrayed him, Dhuoda herself by his adultery, William by his shameful use of him as a political chit, and through and because of all of this he dishonored his God as well.
(Claussen, 1996, p. 807)
Therefore, Dhuoda assumed Bernard’s role as father. Furthermore, in spite of her disappointment in him, she forgave him and encouraged William to forgive him and to pray for him as well. However, in 844 Charles the Bald had Bernard, William’s father, beheaded for treason (p. 806).
The theme of reciprocity runs throughout both the Nights and the Handbook. In the Handbook, William is told to “Cherish and show respect to whatever one or many persons you wish to respect you. Love, revere, stand by, and honor all, so that you may be found worthy to receive appropriately honorable recompense in all the changeable situations of the world” (Dhuoda, 1999, pp. 35-36).
Dhuoda also advised her son to “Love all so that you may be loved by all, and cherish them that you may be cherished. If you love
all, all will love you” (p. 35). Love in Dhuoda’s Handbook is “a reciprocal love which builds up society and human relations, and brings or returns love and honor to the person who first loves” (Olsen, 1992, p 29). This concept of love and cooperation among the members of the society is shown by Dhuoda and Scheherazade's own life stories throughout their texts. As an example of this is an important story Dhuoda that narrates about the manner in which harts cross the water.
“They rest their horned heads on the backs of those in front, and when the first tires, positions are reversed” (p 26). Dhuoda creates the image of the harts and what one can take from it as a lesson: “In the harts’
mutual support—in their changing places in line—they show that human beings too must have the brotherly fellowship of love for greater and lesser men alike, in all ways and in all circumstances” (Dhuoda, 1999, p.
36). When Dhuoda writes and Scheherazade narrates, they actually do so out of love for the people they address, William and Shahryar, and they both expect this same kind of reciprocal love in return.
This reciprocal love is one of the crucial aspects of the social bond that has been established by their gifts—the stories and the handbook. This reciprocal love generates another essential theme in both texts: namely, the solidarity and social cooperation that comes out of love among members of the same society, particularly between parent and child (Dhuoda and William in the Handbook) and husband and wife (Scheherazade and Shahryar in the Nights). This theme is one of the most significant aspects of the social bond that has been established by the gift exchange
to Scheherazade’s situation with Shahryar, for the Jinni in the story is analogous to the king himself because they both not only are seeking revenge but also have the power to punish and forgive at the same time.
Scheherazade is analogous to the merchant who kills the Jinni's son: both are victims of accidental circumstances which bring them very close to death. Scheherazade, also, is analogous to the three sheikhs, the storytellers, in that they all work as an embodiment of the power of persuasion. In other words, the three sheikhs and Scheherazade are storytellers who tell fantastical stories to persuade the Jinni and Shahryar to change their minds.
Furthermore, they also act as mediators who have been given a chance to intercede on behalf of someone unjustly condemned.
More to the point, “The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinni” serves as Scheherazade’s five-step-plan consisting of all the five important didactic messages.
Scheherazade introduces the value of forgiveness in this Tale twice—once, when the Jinni forgives the merchant and spares his life; and again, when the three sheikhs forgive their family members. The family members, i.e., brothers and wives, betray each one of the sheikhs through infidelity and murder or perhaps attempted murder, as the case may be. In return, the sheikhs forgive those who have made them suffer.
The three sheikhs not only forgive but also stay loyal to their families after all that happens by keeping them close, taking care of them and refusing to abandon them. The reader will also notice that family loyalty is the heart of fidelity. Furthermore, the merchant is about to lose his family, including his sons. The first sheikh loses his
son for the second time after he has long awaited a child. The second sheikh loses his two brothers whom he has been taking care of as if they were his own sons, and the Jinni loses his own son as well. Family loyalty brings the characters together in a way that they all feel each other's pain.
Such loss makes them spiritually and mentally related. Moreover, in the three sheikhs’ stories, women, either human or jinn, cause a dilemma but also solve it.
Each woman in these stories, as in other stories in the Nights, lacks the same power that the man has, such as political, monetary, or physical power. Instead, she possesses a power, malice or magic, which is equal to the man's power. The women in these stories use either malice, magic or both to achieve their wishes but not necessarily in a bad way, for they use it to do something good, as we see in the stories in which the women, either human or Jinn, save the men's lives and release them from the spell. Also, the good women in the stories who save the men are all young and educated, traits that remind us of Scheherazade.
The theme of solidarity and social cooperation that comes out of love among members of the same society is found in this tale as well. Each one of the three sheikhs has helped the merchant and rescued his life, and their aid comes out of love and admiration for the merchant’s fidelity. The theme of reverence, love, and absolute obedience due to God is always present in the Nights, for almost every one of the protagonists is, somehow, connected to Allah the Almighty. Throughout the Nights, you can notice that the protagonists either praise God, do something or avoid
both Scherazade and Dhuoda criticize the royal authority in their societies strategically. Dhuoda indirectly criticizes the Carolingian patriarchy when she assumes the role of both abbot and father and then urges her son William to accept her authority willingly, as a religious father and a mother, who assumed the role of biological father as well. She also indirectly criticizes the royal authority when she advises William throughout her Handbook to put God’s authority above any other.
Furthermore, she gives women, especially mothers, the authority of a spiritual parent who plays a double role; whereas many authorities separated the role of father and mother, according to Dhuoda'a argument, mothers may take control over the education and formation of their children’s lives. Scheherazade also does the same; she criticizes the royal authority—King Shahryar’s unjust reign—and invokes women’s value and their unique ability to raise and teach not only their children, but also all of society, men and women.
Moreover, both women illustrate the importance of forgiveness and how it can be a sign of power rather than of weakness.
Taking all of this into consideration, I will discuss five important didactic messages, which are not only a gift from both Dhuoda to William and from Scheherazade to Shahryar, but also parts of themselves. Both Dhuoda and Scheherazade follow a coherent plan to achieve their goals. In both cases, it is a five-step-plan that consists of five important didactic messages: the value of forgiveness; the goodness in people especially women, who are responsible, loyal, and trustworthy; the importance of
family; the solidarity and social cooperation that comes out of love among members of the same society; and finally the reverence, love, and absolute obedience due to God.
Moreover, these didactic messages work to define and support the creation of social bonds initiated by the act of gift exchange.
These five didactic messages can be found throughout the Handbook and in many tales in the Nights. However, when it comes to the Nights, I have chosen “The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinni” as a typical example of a story that combines all of the above-mentioned didactic messages.
“The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinee” is about a wealthy merchant who kills a Jinni’s son by throwing date pits randomly on the ground. It is at this point that the Jinni decides to kill the merchant.
The merchant accepts his fate, but he has to ask the Jinni for his permission to go home and take care of all his claims, promising the Jinni that he will return after that. The Jinni accepts his promise and gives him a year to take care of his claims. When the merchant returns to the same spot a year after, three very old and honorable sheikhs approach, one after another, and decide to stay with the merchant and intercede with the Jinni for the merchant by telling their stories in hopes of persuading the Jinni to spare the merchant’s life.
“The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinni”
is the first story after the frame story of the Nights, i.e., “The Story of King Shahryar and his Brother.” Scheherazade chooses to start her stories—her gift giving—by telling this particular tale, for many reasons. “The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinni” is appropriate for this prominent position because it is a successful story that alludes
Since Dhuoda could not be with William in person, she sought to fulfill her duties as a mother by writing her Handbook as an example both of theological and spiritual teaching and of moral guidance, with immediacy and emotion (Claussen, 1996, pp. 787-788). In it she offers advice, worldly and spiritual, to her elder child William to achieve both spiritual and temporal success, and to offer moral instruction for him (Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 49). She not only provides examples from biblical stories and religious figures such as king David and Joseph, but she also includes edifying examples from nature such as the imagery harts that show fraternal compassion in their cooperative quest of a single goal. Among the subjects that Dhuoda’s handbook discusses are “the reverence due to God, king, and father, the importance of prayer and pious behavior, and the necessity of loyalty and good counsel” (Chandler, 2010, p. 266). She also instructs her son William to love justice so that he will be known as a just man when he presides over legal cases, and she wants him to be good to the poor, by which she means to do justice to them as well as help them materially, to share what God has given him (p. 279). Moreover, Dhuoda’s handbook was for her “not only an expression of hope in her children's future …. but a source of consolation in the dismal circumstances in which it was written” (Olsen, 1992, p 26).
After the death of Louis the Pious, the empire was fragmented and confusion broke out as his sons vied for territory and ascendancy. Dhuoda “was able to understand these wars in a way that gave them more significance than simply the
manifestation of royal and aristocratic ambition” (Claussen, 1996, p. 793).
Moreover, “Dhuoda proves the reliability of the scriptural narrative by indicating over and over again that the same events that unfolded in ancient days are happening again” (p. 792). From this it is clear that
"Dhuoda’s use of Scripture … informs and structures both her language and her understanding of the political events of the day” (p. 794). That is also what Scheherazade does when she narrates stories from ancient cultures. She tries, like Dhuoda, to link those incidents to the status quo in Shahryar’s kingdom in order to convey her didactic messages to the king.
The political scene in the societies that both Dhuoda and Scheherazade lived in was nowhere near peace or harmony.
Killing, fear and separation from loved ones were the distinguishing features of their societies. Some scholars have argued that Dhuoda criticizes the social structure, among whom is Martin Claussen who
“argues that [Dhuoda’s] advice to William arose not only out of Christian ethics, but as a critique of the intrigue and civil wars of the 830s and 840s” (Chandler, 2010, p.
269). Dhuoda “knew that William’s path to success would depend on the skilful exercise of his role as adviser to Charles the Bald” (p. 271), and she also “urges that William should not only dutifully serve his earthly lord out of piety, but also for secular advantage” (p. 271). Clearly, she wanted to educate her son politically. Scheherazade also is aware of her role in politics and knows that society as a whole, not only women, depends on her effort to persuade Shahryar and her ability to change him into the best ruler a society can have. Moreover,
particular things. And she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred. (p. 13)
Scheherazade recognizes that
“narrative equals life; absence of narrative, death. If [she] finds no more tales to tell, she will be beheaded” (Marzolph, 2006, p.
233). Besides, she knows that “the imperfect narrative also equals, in circumstances, death” (p. 234). In “The Hunchback’s Tale,” the Christian broker, the Steward, and the Jewish doctor do not tell great stories that persuade the king of China to spare their lives. As a result, the king says after each one of their stories:
“Your story,” said the king, “is in no way more delightful or wondrous than that of the hunchback. In fact, it is even less so.
Nothing will help you now. The whole lot of you must hang” (Burton, 1991, p. 358).
From this, Scheherazade recognizes that telling stories, a gift that acts as a ransom payment, must be both well narrated and well chosen, for any mistake will spell certain death to the storyteller.
On the other hand, Dhuoda (c. 803–
843) was a Frankish noblewoman, the wife of the Carolingian nobleman duke Bernard of Septimania who had two sons: William and another possibly named Bernard:
Most of her married life was spent in isolation in the south of France, left by her husband at the family castle in Uzès, near Nîmes2, to manage the family properties while [her husband] pursued an active life in the service first of Louis the Pious, for whom he was the imperial chamberlain.
2Both Uzès (small town) and Nîmes (city) are located in southern France.
After the death of Louis, Dhuoda's eldest son [William] was sent by Bernard to the court of Charles the Bald, presumably as a hostage, and in similar fashion her second son was whisked away before baptism, not even having received a name. (Olsen, 1992, p 26).
Dhuoda wrote the handbook in Uzès between 841 and 843 and addressed it to her teenage son William, who had been given over to King Charles the Bald as a pledge of his father’s continuing loyalty to him (Claussen, 1996, p. 787). Dhuoda’s handbook is the means to her goal, and “it is also a mirror reflecting images of the mother and child whom distance has separated” (Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 53).
“Dhuoda wrote [her handbook] in a time of political uncertainty and in a state of alienation from her husband and the son"
(Chandler, 2010, p. 287). Moreover, Dhuoda was an educated noblewoman and
“her work is evidence enough of her learning in its use of language and sources”
(p. 272). “She infused her own advice with moral wisdom picked up from the earlier generation of teachers” (p. 289), and “she quotes the scriptures and church fathers not quite literally but familiarly" (Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 51). Also, Dhuoda’s handbook is a rare early medieval work composed by a lay person who is also a 9th cent.
Carolingian woman, a work that is the only text that belongs to the speculum/mirror genre (Claussen, 1996, pp. 787-788).
Moreover, “Dhuoda’s little book may well be the earliest medieval example of a parental advice book” (Chandler, 2010, p.
278).
from the [people] who exchange them; the communion and alliance they establish are well-nigh indissoluble" (p. 31). Also, an obligation is attached to the handbook and stories, for "the obligation attached to a gift itself is not inert. Even when abandoned by the giver, it still forms a part of him.
Through it he has a hold over the recipient"
(p. 9). Therefore, the handbook and stories—both gifts—establish a relationship between Scheherazade and Shahryar on the one hand and Dhuoda and William on the other, for “the exchange of gifts serves a moral purpose” (p. 18). "The object of the exchange was to produce a friendly feeling between the two persons concerned, and unless it did this it failed of its purpose" (p.
18). Moreover, these relationships between Scheherazade and Shahryar and Dhuoda and William are a "pattern of symmetrical and reciprocal rights" (p. 11); "it is first and foremost a pattern of spiritual bonds between things which are to some extent parts of persons" (p. 11).
Scheherazade's Stories and Dhuoda's Handbook as Gifts that Act as Ransom Payment for Salvation:
King Shahryar “was an especially superb horseman, and he became the successor to the empire and ruled the kingdom with such justice that he was beloved by all the people of his realm” (Burton, 1991, p. 1). He discovers that his wife is cheating on him.
He sets out on a journey, in which he finds a Jinee, a more powerful creature, who has suffered the same kind of betrayal that he has. After he returns to his kingdom, Shahryar decides that he will only sleep with virgins and that each virgin will be slain after he has spent a night with her. He continues in this way until there are almost
no virgins left in the kingdom except the daughter of Shahryar's favorite vizier, whose job it is to slay the virgins every morning, Scheherazade:
During the next three years the king continued to act accordingly: he married a maiden every night and had her killed the next morning, until his people raised a great outcry against him. Indeed, they cursed him and prayed to Allah that he be utterly destroyed and dethroned. Women began protesting, mothers wept, and parents fled with their daughters until there was not one virgin left in the city. (Burton, 1991, p. 12) Scheherazade, who represents the ultimate power of persuasion in the frame story of the Nights, decides to intercede and persuade king Shahryar to spare her life and the lives of the other women. Scheherazade starts her path of ransoming her life, and the other women's lives, by telling stories.
These stories, as gifts, act as a ransom payment for the condemned women.
Scheherazade tells stories every night not only to delay her death and spare her life, but also to spare the lives of the others: her sister, her father, women in the kingdom, and Shahryar too.
Scheherazade’s actions are far from random: She follows a definite plan, for her personality is strong with traits that qualify her to become a mediator:
Scheherazade had read the books, annals, and legends of former kings, and the stories, lessons, and adventures of famous men….she had collected a thousand history books about ancient people and rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart. She had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts, and
If all characters incessantly tell stories, it is because this action has received a supreme consecration: narrating equals living. The most obvious example is that of Scheherazade herself, who lives exclusively to the degree that she can continue to tell stories; but this situation is ceaselessly repeated within the tale. (p. 233)
The ransom motif appears in many stories in the Nights such as “The Tale of the Merchant and the Jinee,” “The Tailor’s Tale” from the “The Hunchback’s Tale,”
“The Three Calenders’ Tales” from the
“The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” and “The Craft and Malice of Women.” In other words, from the frame story through the internal tales of the Nights and up to its end, one can notice the ransom motif. Moreover, this motif—the act of giving gifts as ransom payment—of the framing stories in the Nights is a key feature in Shahryar and Scheherazade’s story in introducing the theme of forgiveness and its importance, and showing that forgiveness, which is the exchanged gift, comes as an exchange of stories: the initial gift.
The ransom motif also appears in Dhuoda’s Handbook constantly. Dhuoda needs William for her salvation and wants him to pray for her and fulfill her words
“for the remedy of [her] soul” (Dhuoda, 1999, p. 99). She says to him: “your frequent prayer and that of others is necessary to me now” (p. 99), and “I leave no other such as you to survive me, noble boy, to struggle on my behalf as you do and as many may do for me because of you, so that I may finally come to salvation” (p.
99). Here Dhuoda’s handbook shows “that familial love, and in particular maternal
love, can be a means to salvation”
(Cherewatuk, 1988-91, p. 59).
Having established this function of the stories in the Nights and the Dhuoda’s handbook as a gift that acts as a ransom payment, I will now introduce the important findings of Marcel Mauss in his book The Gift describing the functions of gift exchange. According to Mauss (1967), "to give something is to give a part of oneself"
(p. 10).1 When Scheherazade was telling her stories and Dhuoda was composing her handbook as a gift to Shahryar and William, they were actually giving a part of themselves, their lives, feelings, thoughts, spirits, etc., in hopes that when Shahryar and William received them they would give an even greater gift in return, i.e., for Scheherazade, her and the other women's lives, and for Dhuoda, a chain of four connected deeds to be carried out by her son William. Also, while Shahryar is listening to Scheherazade's stories and William is reading Dhuoda’s handbook, they both receive a part of these two women as well: "One gives away what is in reality a part of one's nature and substance, while to receive something is to receive a part of someone's spiritual essence" (p. 10). It seems that both Dhuoda and Scheherazade separate themselves from their gifts when they give them to their male addressees, but there is still an obligation that "takes the form of interest in the objects exchanged;
the objects are never completely separated
1. Suzanne Stetkevych is considered to be the first critic who applied Marcel Mauss’s theories of ritual exchange to the classical Arabic qa īdah as they apply to the exchange of the Arabic panegyric qa īdah/ode for the mamdū 's/patron’s prize. For more about her leading theoretical standpoint, see (Stetkevych, 1993, 2002, and 2010).
something of value in return"
(Stetkevych,1994, p. 5). Second, I will argue that Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s handbook, as gifts, are a part of their lives, feelings, thinking, and spiritual essences. Scheherazade tells her stories to teach Shahryar in the hope of revealing his good nature, while Dhuoda composes her handbook in the hope of helping her teenage son William achieve both spiritual and temporal success and to provide him with moral instruction. Both the handbook and stories consist of many themes that act as didactic or therapeutic messages;
however, many of the messages in the Nights are hidden, while many in the Handbook are all too clear and direct.
Furthermore, I will show that some of these didactic messages are not only gifts but parts of the gift-givers themselves.
Moreover, the didactic messages in these two works function to define and support the creation of social bonds by the gift exchanges that are initiated with Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s handbook.
In both texts, ransom is an important leitmotif. Moreover, this leitmotif—the act of giving gifts as ransom payment—is a key feature in the framing stories of the Nights for it introduces the theme of forgiveness and its importance and reveals that forgiveness is the gift given in exchange for the stories. Ransom is also a key feature in the Handbook in which William’s counter gift consists of four related deeds that he must perform: First, he must educate his brother—and probably other people too—
and take care of him; second, he must keep his mother’s Handbook safe and help spread its ideas; third, he has to carry out
his mother’s burial and place the epitaph she has composed for herself on her tomb, an epitaph in which she exhorts all who pass by her grave to pray for her; and fourth, he must break his allegiance to any authority that opposes the authority of God.
This chain of deeds acts as the gift given in exchange for Dhuoda’s Handbook.
I will also discuss the two women’s strategies in convincing and conversing with their addressees. In Dhuoda’s case, one strategy is her humility and protestations of unworthiness that she shows in her writing; in Scheherazade’s case, it is her display of respect as she narrates. Moreover, in both cases, there is, first, an indirect claim of authority over their addressees: while Dhuoda endows herself with both a “quasi-scriptural and a quasi-sacerdotal authority” (Claussen, 1996, p. 800), Scheherazade endows herself with the authority of the narrator. I will also show how these two different kinds of authority help both women fulfill their plans. In addition, I will discuss the differences between the two texts regarding the motives and mechanisms of gift exchange and the fact that the authority of the giver alters, to some extent, the gift exchange dynamic. The second strategy in both texts that I will discuss is that of repetition in, and manipulation of, the texts.
Commenting on the Nights, Todorov notes that “The characters of this book are obsessed by stories; the cry of the Arabian Nights is not 'Your money or your life!' but “Your story or your life”
(Marzolph, 2006, p. 235)! Scheherazade, and other characters in the Nights, must tell stories as gifts that serve as ransom payment:
291
From Persuasion to Salvation: The Power of Women’s Discourse in The Arabian Nights and Handbook for William
Abdal Moein Bin Hassan Balfas
Abstract In political situations, negotiation is a key process that must be built on strategies to convince when conversing with addressees. To obtain power and influence, women's discourse, too, must follow a coherent plan, particularly in circumstances related to an imperial court, in order to achieve the greatest success in attempting to persuade. Relying primarily on Marcel Mauss's formulation of ritual exchange in The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, this paper will discuss the function of Scheherazade's stories in The Arabian Nights, which she narrates to her husband Shahryar, and Dhuoda’s advice in her Handbook, which she composes for her son William, as a commodity in gift exchange, which will serve as a model of successful women's discourse as ransom in payment for salvation. Both the Handbook and the Nights have a five-step plan that consists of many themes acting as didactic or therapeutic messages that are implied in the two books to define and support the creation of social bonds initiated by the act of gift exchange.
Keywords: The Arabian Nights, Handbook for William, Dhuoda, Ritual exchange, Marcel Mauss
Introduction
In this paper, I will examine two different women’s discourses: one is fictional, i.e., The Arabian Nights; and the other is non- fictional, i.e., Dhuoda’s Handbook for William. In the latter text, we read, “It is said about words that a good speech is better than the best gift” (Dhuoda, 1999, p.
35). Here, I posit that the function of Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s handbook is that of a commodity in a gift exchange. In conducting my analysis, I will rely primarily on the important findings of Marcel Mauss in The Gift, which is about
the functions of gift exchange. A crucial point in my argument is that Scheherazade's stories and Dhuoda’s handbook both function as exchange commodities in redeeming their lives and the lives of others, both secularly and spiritually. First, I will establish the function of the stories and the handbook as commodities in ritual exchange, specifically, as ransom payment.
Although Scheherazade seeks secular salvation, while Dhuoda seeks divine, spiritual salvation, both present their addressees “with a valuable commodity [stories and a handbook] and expect
