In a city of the East there lived a poor widow and her son Aladdin, a heedless, idle boy who cared more for playing in the streets than for any honest trade, so that they were always in want.
One day a stranger came to Aladdin in the marketplace, a dark and clever-eyed man, who said he was Aladdin’s uncle, his father’s long-lost brother, come home at last from far countries. He wept, and embraced the boy, and gave the widow gold, and she believed him, though her husband had never spoken of a brother. But the man was no uncle. He was a sorcerer from the far west, who had learned by his arts that beneath the earth near that city lay a hidden treasure, an enchanted lamp, which only one particular boy could lift; and that boy was Aladdin.
The sorcerer led Aladdin out beyond the city to a lonely place among the hills, and there by his magic he opened a hollow in the ground, with steps going down into the dark. “Go down,” he told the boy, “through the halls you will find, into a garden, and there you will see a little lamp burning in a niche. Pour out its oil and bring it to me, and touch nothing else, though you may gather what fruit you like from the trees. And take this ring for your protection.” Aladdin went down, and passed through the underground halls, and found the lamp, and put it out, and tucked it away; and coming back through the garden he filled his sleeves and pockets with the strange glittering fruit that hung upon the trees, not knowing that they were jewels of great price.
But at the foot of the steps the sorcerer, greedy and impatient, bade him hand up the lamp first, before he would help him out. Aladdin, weighed down with fruit and unable to reach it easily, asked to be helped up first. They quarrelled; and the sorcerer, in a rage, flung down a powder that sealed the earth over, and left Aladdin shut in the dark to die, and stormed away to his own country, for he cared only for the lamp, and if he could not have it, no one should.
Aladdin sat in the dark two days, weeping and despairing, until, in wringing his hands, he chanced to rub the ring the sorcerer had given him. At once a great genie rose before him. “I am the Slave of the Ring,” it said. “What is your wish?” And Aladdin, trembling, asked only to be brought home; and in a moment he was above ground, and running to his mother.
They were still poor, and hungry; so his mother thought to sell the old lamp Aladdin had brought back, and rubbed it to clean it first. And out of it rose a genie greater and more terrible than the first. “I am the Slave of the Lamp,” it said, “and the slave of whoever holds it. What do you wish?” Then Aladdin understood what treasure he had. He asked first for food, and a feast appeared on dishes of silver; and little by little, wish by wish, he and his mother rose out of their poverty into comfort, and then into wealth, selling the silver dishes and the jewels that were the fruit of the enchanted garden.
Now it happened that Aladdin saw the Sultan’s daughter passing to the baths, and glimpsed her face, and loved her at once, and would have no one else for his wife. His mother thought it madness, but he sent her to the Sultan with a gift of the marvellous jewels, heaped in a bowl, and the Sultan, astonished at their splendour, agreed that this unknown suitor might have the princess. By the power of the lamp Aladdin made himself a prince in all men’s eyes, with slaves and gold and fine robes, and built, in a single night, a palace of marble and jasper more wonderful than the Sultan’s own; and the princess was given to him, and she came to love him truly, and they were happy.
But far away the sorcerer learned by his arts that Aladdin still lived, and had won the lamp and a kingdom besides, and he came back burning with envy to undo him. While Aladdin was away hunting, the sorcerer disguised himself as a pedlar and went crying through the streets beneath the palace windows, “New lamps for old! New lamps for old!” And the princess, who did not know the secret of the old lamp that stood in Aladdin’s room, thought it a fine joke to trade that battered old thing for a shining new one, and sent it out to the pedlar. So the sorcerer got the lamp at last; and that very night he called up its genie, and commanded that the whole palace, and the princess within it, be carried away to his own far country. And in the morning the Sultan looked out and saw only bare ground where the palace had stood, and his daughter gone.
The Sultan in his fury would have had Aladdin put to death; but Aladdin begged forty days to set things right, and the Sultan granted it. In despair Aladdin wandered, until once more, by chance, he rubbed the ring that was still upon his finger, and the lesser genie appeared. “Bring back the palace,” Aladdin begged. “That I cannot do,” said the genie, “for that is the work of the Slave of the Lamp; but I can carry you to it.” And in an instant Aladdin stood beneath the windows of his own stolen palace, in the sorcerer’s country.
There he found the princess, who wept for joy to see him, and together they made a plan. The princess welcomed the sorcerer that evening as though she had forgotten Aladdin, and offered him a cup of wine, into which Aladdin had put a sleeping draught; and when the sorcerer drank and fell senseless, Aladdin took back the lamp from his robe, and called up its genie, and commanded that the palace, and all in it, be carried home again. And so in the morning the Sultan looked out and saw the palace returned, and his daughter safe, and Aladdin restored; and the wicked sorcerer troubled them no more.
And Aladdin, who had begun as an idle, heedless boy, grew wise as well as fortunate, and ruled well, and lived long and happily with his princess.
Fortune may fall into an idle hand, but only a wise one can hold it; and the treasure best worth keeping is the one you learn to be worthy of.