The Barber’s Tale of Himself

“I was living in Baghdad,” the barber began, “in the days of the Caliph Al-Mustansir, a ruler who loved the poor and kept company with learned and holy men. One day the Caliph grew angry with ten highwaymen who had been robbing travellers on his roads, and he ordered the chief of police to bring them before him on the day of the Great Festival.”

“The chief of police caught them and took them down to a boat. I happened to see them climbing in, and I said to myself, ‘These men must be off to a wedding feast. I expect they will spend the whole day in that boat eating and drinking, and nobody shall share their party but me.’ So, out of my great politeness and good sense, I climbed in with them and started chatting.”

“They rowed across to the far bank. There the watchmen were waiting with chains, which they put round the robbers’ necks, and they chained me up along with the rest. Now, my friends, does it not prove my courtesy and how few words I use that I kept quiet and did not say a thing?”

“The next morning they took us all before the Caliph, who ordered the ten robbers to be put to death. The executioner did his work on one man after another until he had finished the tenth, and only I was left. The Caliph looked at me and asked the executioner, ‘Why have you dealt with only nine?’ ‘Heaven forbid that I should stop at nine when you ordered ten!’ said the executioner. ‘But this man in front of me is the tenth,’ said the Caliph. They counted, and sure enough, there had been ten robbers. I had simply been one extra.”

“The Caliph looked at me and said, ‘Why did you keep silent at a time like this, and how did you come to be with these men of blood? Tell me, for though you are an old man, your wits must be weak.’”

“I jumped up and said, ‘Know, Commander of the Faithful, that I am called the Silent One, to tell me apart from my six brothers. I am a man of enormous learning, and there is no end to my good sense, my sharp wits and how few words I use. I am a barber by trade. Yesterday I saw these men heading for a boat. I thought they were going to a wedding, so I joined them. When the watchmen chained us, my courtesy kept me silent. When you ordered ten men to die, I still did not speak up, purely out of generosity, so that I could share their fate. All my life I have treated people this nobly, and all I ever get in return is the worst of thanks!’”

“When the Caliph heard this and understood what a generous man of very few words I was, he laughed until he fell over backwards. Then he asked, ‘Silent One, are your six brothers as wise and as quiet as you?’ ‘Never!’ I answered. ‘It would be an insult to compare them with me. Because they talk too much and have no manners, every one of them has met with some misfortune. And do not imagine that I talk too much myself. I must just explain that I am worth more, and use fewer words, than any of them. Each of my brothers has a story, and I will tell you all six.’”

Where this story comes from

This comic tale comes from the Hunchback cycle of the Arabian Nights. The text followed here is Richard F. Burton’s translation, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 (1885), “The Barber’s Tale of Himself.” The barber tells it to a wedding party to prove he is a man of few words, and then, without pausing, goes on to tell the tales of his six brothers.

This retelling abbreviates Burton’s description of the executions but retains their place in the plot.

Read the original: Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Vol. 1 (Project Gutenberg)

Best for older readers with an adult — ten prisoners are executed and an innocent man nearly dies; the barber’s account treats this danger as comedy.

Reading the story closely

The barber supplies the facts that contradict his own praise. He calls boarding an unknown boat good sense and calls his failure to explain the mistake courtesy. Readers need not accept his labels merely because he controls the telling. Even the Caliph’s laughter is described by a narrator determined to make himself look admirable.

Underline three claims the barber makes about himself and pair each with an action. Then retell the boat episode from the executioner’s viewpoint in three sentences. The surviving extra prisoner exposes the danger of assuming that everyone in a group shares the same guilt.

Talk about it

• Why does the barber climb into the boat?
• What is funny about the barber calling himself “the Silent One”?
• Why does the Caliph laugh so hard?

Related stories

• The Fisherman and the Genie — another famous Arabian Nights story
• Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp — the best-known tale linked to the Nights