The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)
General
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 03 (of 10)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth King
Shahriman to his son Kamar al-Zaman, "The name of Allah encompass thee
about, O my son, and be thy wit preserved from witlessness! What thing
be this young lady whom thou fanciest I sent to thee last night and
then again that I sent to withdraw her from thee before dawn? By the
Lord, O my son, I know nothing of this affair, and Allah upon thee,
tell me if it be a delusion of dreaming or a deception caused by
indisposition. For verily thou layest down to sleep last night with thy
mind occupied anent marriage and troubled with the talk of it (Allah
damn marriage and the hour when I spake of it and curse him who
counselled it!); and without doubt or diffidence I can say that being
moved in mind by the mention of wedlock thou dreamedst that a handsome
young lady embraced thee and didst fancy thou sawest her when awake.
But all this, O my son, is but an imbroglio of dreams." Replied Kamar
al-Zaman, "Leave this talk and swear to me by Allah, the All creator,
the Omniscient; the Humbler of the tyrant Caesars and the Destroyer of
the Chosroes, that thou knowest naught of the young lady nor of her
woning-place." Quoth the King, "By the Might of Allah Almighty, the God
of Moses and Abraham, I know naught of all this and never even heard of
it; it is assuredly a delusion of dreams thou hast seen in sleep.' Then
the Prince replied to his sire, "I will give thee a self evident proof
that it happened to me when on wake."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn
of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the One Hundred and Ninety-first Night,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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