But what surprised me most of all was, that though this spectacle filled me with horror, the king my uncle, instead of testifying his sorrow to see the prince his son in such a frightful condition, spit on his face, and said to him with a disdainful air, ‘This is the punishment of this world, but that of the other will last to eternity;’ and not content with this, he pulled off his sandal, and gave his son a great blow on the cheek with it. But, sir, said Scheherazade, it is day. I am sorry your majesty’s time will not allow you to hear me farther. This story appearing very strange to the sultan, he got up resolved to hear the rest of it next night. THIRTY-NINTH NIGHT. Dinarzade being awake sooner than ordinary, called her sister Scheherazade. My good sultaness, said she, I pray you make an end of your story of the first calender, for I am ready to die with impatience till I know the issue of it. Well then, said Scheherazade, you remember how the first calender continued his story to Zobeide: I cannot enough express, madam, said he, how much I was astonished when I saw the king my uncle abuse the prince his son thus after he was dead. Sir, said I, whatever grief this dismal sight is capable to impress upon me, I am forced to suspend it, on purpose to ask your majesty what crime the prince my cousin may have committed, that his corpse should deserve this sort of treatment? --Nephew, replied the king, I must tell you, that my son (who is unworthy of that name) loved his sister from his infancy, as she did him; I did not hinder their growing love, because I did not foresee the pernicious consequence of it. This tenderness increased as they grew in years to such a height, that I dreaded the end of it. At last I applied such remedies as were in my power. I not only gave my son a severe reprimand in private, laying before him the horrible nature of the passion he entertained, and the eternal disgrace he would bring upon my family, if he persisted in such criminal courses, but I also represented the same to my daughter; and I shut her up so close that she could have no conversation with her brother. But that unfortunate creature had swallowed so much of the poison, that all the obstacles which by my prudence I could lay in the way served only to inflame her love.