Fishburn and Hughes: "A tale from the Thousand and One Nights, whose theme is the universal triumph of death. Viewed by Amir Musa from the top of a mountain, the city appears to have no human beings in it, only bronze statues and vampires. Bronze columns, tombs, domes and sepulchral inscriptions are the dominant images, and the narrative concludes with the lament: 'Why is man born if he must die?' In an annotation to his translation of the Thousand and One Nights, Lane explains that the city's image was associated in the Arab mind with that of temples, statues and tombs in Egypt. The story of the city of bronze follows that of Sinbad the Sailor." (47)
