The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01Anonymous
General
The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Volume 01
Anonymous
Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales; Folklore -- Arab countries
I cannot enough express, Madam, said the calender 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, and so she did him: I did not hinder their growing love,
because I did not foresee the pernicious consequences of it. This
tenderness increased as they grew in years, and came 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 foulness of the
passion he was entertaining, and the eternal disgrace he would
bring upon my family if he persisted in such criminal courses,
but I also represented the same thing to my daughter; and besides
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 poision, that all the obstacles, which by my prudence I
could lay in the way, served only the more to inflame her love.
My son, being persuaded of his sister's constancy, on pretence of
building a tomb, caused this subterraneous habitation to be made,
in hopes to find one day or other an opportunity to possess
himself of that object which was the cause of his flame, and to
bring her hither. He laid hold on the time of my absence to enter
by force into the place of his sister's confinement; but that is
a thing which my honour would not suffer me to make public; and,
after so damnable an action, he came and enclosed himself and her
in this place, which he has supplied, as you see, with all sorts
of provisions, that he might enjoy his detestable pleasures for a
long time, which ought to be a subject of horror to all the
world: but God, who would not suffer such an abomination, has
justly punished them both. At these words he melted into tears,
and I joined mine with his.
After a while, casting his eyes upon me, Dear nephew, cried he,
embracing me, if I have lost that unworthy son, I shall happily
find in you one who will better supply his place. And, upon some
other reflections he made on the doleful end of the prince and
princess, we both fell into a new fit of weeping.
We went up the same stairs again, and departed at last from this
dismal place. We let down again the trapdoor, and covered it with
earth, and such other materials as the tomb was built of, on
purpose to hide, as much as lay in our power; so terrible an
effect of the wrath of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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