The enchantress went immediately out of the Palace of Tears; she
took a cup of water, and pronounced some words over it, which
caused it to boil, as if it had been on the fire. She afterwards
proceeded to the young king her husband, and threw the water upon
him, saying, "If the creator of all things did form thee as thou
art at present; or if he be angry with thee, do not change; but
if thou art in that condition merely by virtue of my
enchantments, resume thy natural shape, and become what thou west
before." She had scarcely spoken these words, when the prince,
finding himself restored to his former condition, rose up and
returned thanks to God. The enchantress then said to him, "Get
thee from this castle, and never return on pain of death." The
young king, yielding to necessity, went away from the
enchantress, without replying a word; and retired to a remote
place, where he patiently awaited the event of the design which
the sultan had so happily begun. Meanwhile, the enchantress
returned to the Palace of Tears, and supposing that she still
spoke to the black, said, "Dear love, I have done what you
required; nothing now prevents your rising and giving me the
satisfaction of which I have so long been deprived."
The sultan, still counterfeiting the pronunciation of the blacks,
said, "What you have now done is by no means sufficient for my
cure; you have only removed a part of the evil; you must cut it
up by the root." "My lovely black," resumed the queen, "what do
you mean by the root?" "Wretched woman," replied the sultan,
"understand you not that I allude to the town, and its
inhabitants, and the four islands, destroyed by thy enchantments?
The fish every night at midnight raise their heads out of the
lake, and cry for vengeance against thee and me. This is the true
cause of the delay of my cure. Go speedily, restore things to
their former state, and at thy return I will give thee my hand,
and thou shalt help me to arise."
The enchantress, inspired with hope from these words, cried out
in a transport of joy, "My heart, my soul, you shall soon be
restored to your health, for I will immediately do as you command
me." Accordingly she went that instant, and when she came to the
brink of the lake, she took a little water in her hand, and
sprinkling it, had no sooner pronounced some words over the fish
and the lake, than the city was immediately restored. The fish
became men, women, and children; Mahummedans, Christians,
Persians, or Jews; freemen or slaves, as they were before: every
one having recovered his natural form. The houses and shops were
immediately filled with their inhabitants, who found all things
as they were before the enchantment. The sultan's numerous
retinue, who found themselves encamped in the largest square,
were astonished to see themselves in an instant in the middle of
a large, handsome, well-peopled city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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