Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 3 (of 6) Part 1
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
When the sultan returned to his palace, he ordered his jewels to be
fetched out, and the jewellers took a great quantity, particularly those
which Aladdin had made him a present of, which they soon used without
making any great advance in their work. They came again several times
for more, and in a month’s time had not finished half their work. In
short, they used all the jewels the sultan had of his own, and borrowed
of the vizier, and yet the work was not half done.
Aladdin, who knew that all the sultan’s endeavours to make this window
like the rest were in vain, and that he never could compass it with
credit, sent for the jewellers, and goldsmiths, and not only bid them
desist from their work, but ordered them to undo what they had begun,
and to carry all their jewels back to the sultan and to the vizier. They
undid in a few hours what they had been six weeks about, and retired,
leaving Aladdin alone in the hall. He took the lamp, which he carried
about him, and rubbed it, and presently the genie appeared. “Genie,”
said Aladdin, “I ordered thee to leave one of the four-and-twenty
windows of this hall imperfect, and thou hast executed my commands
punctually; now, I would have thee make it like the rest.” The genie
immediately disappeared. Aladdin went out of the hall, and returning
soon after into it, he found the window, as he wished it to be, like the
others.
In the meantime, the jewellers and goldsmiths reached the palace, and
were introduced into the sultan’s presence, where the first jeweller,
presenting the jewels which he had brought back, said, in the name of
all the rest, “Sir, your majesty knows how long we have been upon the
work you were pleased to set us about, in which we used all imaginable
industry. It was far advanced, when Aladdin obliged us not only to leave
off, but to undo what we had already begun, and bring your majesty your
jewels back.” The sultan asked them if Aladdin gave them any reason for
so doing, and they answering that he had given them none, he ordered a
horse to be brought to him presently, which he mounted, and rode to
Aladdin’s palace, with some few attendants on foot by his side. When he
came there, he alighted at the staircase, which led up to the hall with
the twenty-four windows, and went directly up to it, without giving
previous notice to Aladdin; but it happened that at that very juncture
Aladdin was opportunely there, and had just time to receive him at the
door.
The sultan, without giving Aladdin time to complain obligingly of his
not giving him notice, that he might have acquitted himself with the
more duty and respect, said to him, “Son, I come myself to know the
reason why you left so noble and magnificent a hall as this is
imperfect.”
Aladdin disguised the true reason, which was, that the sultan was not
rich enough in jewels to be at so great an expense, but said, “It is
true your majesty saw this hall unfinished, but I beg of you now to see
if anything is wanting.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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