Third Voyage of Sindbad
The "Third Voyage of Sindbad" is one of the tales from the celebrated collection known as "The Thousand and One Nights," which originates from the Islamic golden age. This narrative follows Sindbad the Sailor, a legendary adventurer from Baghdad, who embarks on a perilous journey after becoming restless with his newfound wealth. His third voyage quickly becomes fraught with danger as his ship is stranded on an island home to a cannibalistic giant. Sindbad and his crew must devise a plan to escape the giant's clutches, leading to a series of harrowing encounters with both the giant and a deadly snake on a subsequent island.
Throughout his adventures, Sindbad demonstrates bravery and ingenuity, ultimately managing to return to Baghdad with even greater riches. The tale not only showcases themes of adventure and survival but also reflects a complex narrative where Sindbad's character oscillates between heroism and folly. This story illustrates the rich tapestry of myths shaped by diverse cultural traditions, making it a fascinating example of how folklore evolves and adapts over time. The enduring popularity of Sindbad's adventures has inspired various adaptations across literature and media, continuing to resonate with audiences worldwide.
Third Voyage of Sindbad
Author: Traditional
Time Period: 501 CE–1000 CE
Country or Culture: Arabia; Persia
Genre: Myth
Overview
The Thousand and One Nights—originally translated as The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, from the fifteenth-century Alf layla wa-layla, and also known as Arabian Nights—has become a classic of world literature, a collection of stories from the Islamic golden age that centuries later found popularity in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Beginning in the eighth century, the Islamic golden age was a period of incredible learning and artistic production, bringing together knowledge and traditions from North Africa to India. The stories of The Thousand and One Nights are sourced primarily from oral literary traditions throughout the Middle East and South Asia, and they reflect the diversity of style, literary content, and culture of the region. Among the many stories, one of the most enduring myths is that of Sindbad (Sinbad) the Sailor, the heroic adventurer of an epic story cycle.
Sindbad’s third voyage takes place in the middle of his larger narrative. When it begins, he has already completed two dangerous quests, bringing untold riches back to his home in Baghdad. Unable to retire into a life of luxury, however, he is drawn again to the sea to seek more wealth and more adventure. On the third voyage, he finds his ship stranded on an island inhabited by a cannibalistic giant, whom Sindbad stabs through the eye in order to make a panicked retreat with his companions. One of only a few to survive, he faces violent storms and giant pythons, eventually being rescued by a friendly captain. The last surviving member of his original crew, he manages to return to Baghdad, richer than ever before, boasting of his incredible strength and wit.
The story of Sindbad overcoming monsters and facing great odds has become a classic of adventure literature and films. His narrative is familiar to children all around the world, and depictions of his great accomplishments are regularly made into popular films, video games, and comic books. However, as the myth of Sindbad left its original Persian context in the Islamic golden age and entered the literary canon of the Western world, the great sailor changed considerably. The original myth is a complicated layering of stories, with Sindbad coming across hardheaded and foolish as often as heroic and adventurous. His quest for wealth comes at the expense of hundreds of lives, and his relationship to the city of Baghdad is much tenser than modern versions of the story typically present it. The story is also inextricably linked in its various forms to the larger narrative of The Thousand and One Nights and to the specifics of Persian literary traditions. While the disparity between the Sindbad of the eighth century and the Sindbad of the modern day seems great at times, taken as a whole, the history of his third voyage offers an opportunity to study mythology not as a fixed art with permanent meanings but as a dynamic force, its influence too powerful for any one culture to contain.
Summary
Although Sindbad the Sailor is young, he has already acquired great wealth through two long voyages, and he lives in Baghdad at the beginning of the story. While he remembers the many dangers of those voyages, he is not one to rest idly and decides after a short time that he should set sail again. At first, this new expedition goes well, and he gathers a great number of goods from distant ports. After some time, however, a large storm upsets the route of his ship, bringing him to an island inhabited by monstrous creatures.
Beastly men, most only two feet high, swim out to Sindbad’s ship. The captain warns everyone that, although the men are small, they are so many in number that they could easily overpower the sailors. Because of this, the men of the ship watch helplessly as the creatures lower their sail, swim the boat to an island, and abandon the men there, departing with their ship and their wealth. Sindbad and his men know that this island is dangerous, but resigned to their situation, they spend the afternoon searching for fruit and herbs. In this search, the men come to a large palace with gorgeous gates. Walking into the courtyard, they immediately see a pile of human bones scattered beside roasting spits. This gruesome sight, along with the men’s fatigue, causes them all to collapse where they stand, lying motionless before the palace as night sets in.
That evening, a horrible giant emerges from the palace. He towers above the men, his one eye glowing red and his terrible talons hanging above their heads. The men all play dead, and while they do, the giant looks among them, inspecting each one. At last, he picks up the fattest man, the captain, and devours him. Satiated, he returns to his porch and falls asleep. The men spend the evening listening to his monstrous snoring.
When the day comes and the monster leaves, the men try to devise a plan, but they realize there is no way they can overcome the monster. They spend the day searching for food, and when night comes, surely enough, the giant once more devours one of the men. The next morning, they are so distraught that several are ready to throw themselves into the sea. However, Sindbad persuades them that it is better to try. At his advice, they spend their day building small rafts and hiding them by the shore. When evening comes, they watch as another of their men is roasted alive and devoured. Then, when the giant falls asleep, nine of them pick up the roasting spits, light the ends on fire, and plunge them into the giant’s only eye.
The giant runs into the distance howling, and the men hope that he will die there. By morning, however, he emerges from the woods accompanied by a number of other giants. The sailors all flee, quickly boarding their rafts and rowing away. As they depart, the giants hurl rocks at them, sinking nearly every raft but sparing the one that carries Sindbad and his two companions. The sea tosses that raft about, eventually landing it on another island.
This new island seems to offer a chance to recover. Sindbad and his companions eat the fruit they find there and fall asleep by the shore. That evening, however, a gigantic snake emerges, eating one of the men as he sleeps. The next evening, Sindbad and the other sailor climb a tree, hoping it will offer them protection, but the snake simply climbs after them, devouring Sindbad’s companion. The final evening, desperate, Sindbad makes a fire around the base of the tree he climbs. While this keeps the snake away, Sindbad climbs down the next morning exhausted and fearful.
“As soon as we heard him snore, according to his custom, nine of the boldest among us, and myself, took each of us a spit, and putting the points of them into the fire till they were burning hot, we thrust them into his eye all at once, and blinded him.”“The Third Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor”
Feeling that he is out of options, Sindbad decides to throw himself into the sea to die. Once he reaches the shore, however, he sees a ship in the distance and hails it with the linen from his turban. The ship sends a small boat to shore, rescuing Sindbad. Once aboard, he tells his story and receives food and fresh clothing. He stays with the ship as it travels to several ports, gathering more wealth. When they reach the port of Salabat, the captain of the ship comes to Sindbad with several large parcels. The goods in these parcels, he tells Sindbad, belong to a sailor that he had tragically lost on a previous voyage, accidentally abandoning the man on an island. If Sindbad sells them, the captain promises him a small commission, the bulk of the profit being promised to the abandoned sailor’s family.
Sindbad is shocked, suddenly realizing that he was that sailor, having fallen asleep beside a brook on his second voyage. Sindbad and the captain are overjoyed to recognize one another at last, and the captain gives Sindbad the parcels to sell and keep the profit. His wealth and health both restored, Sindbad stays with the ship through several more ports. When he returns to Baghdad, he has so much wealth that he buys a beautiful estate and gives the remainder of his money to the poor.
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