A King who, when the hostile hosts assault him in the field, Smites them and hews them, limb from limb, with trenchant sword and spear Full many a character of red he writes upon the breasts What time the mailed horsemen break before his wild career. His name was King Mohammed ben Suleiman ez Zeini, and he had two Viziers, one called Muin ben Sawa and the other Fezl ben Khacan. Fezl was the most generous man of his time; noble and upright of life, all hearts concurred in loving him, and the wise complied with his counsel, whilst all the people wished him long life; for that he was a compend of good qualities, encouraging good and preventing evil and mischief. The Vizier Muin, on the contrary, was a hater of mankind and loved not good, being indeed altogether evil; even as says of him the poet: Look thou consort with the generous, sons of the gen'rous; for lo! The generous, sons of the gen'rous, beget the gen'rous, I trow. And let the mean-minded men, sons of the mean-minded, go, For the mean-minded, sons of the mean, beget none other than so. And as much as the people loved Fezl, so much did they hate Muin. It befell one day, that the King, being seated on his throne, with his officers of state about him, called his Vizier Fezl and said to him, 'I wish to have a slave-girl of unsurpassed beauty, perfect in grace and symmetry and endowed with all praiseworthy qualities.' Said the courtiers, 'Such a girl is not to be had for less than ten thousand dinars!' whereupon the King cried out to his treasurer and bade him carry ten thousand dinars to Fezl's house. The treasurer did so, and the Vizier went away, after the King had charged him to go to the market every day and employ brokers and had given orders that no girl worth more than a thousand dinars should be sold, without being first shown to the Vizier. Accordingly, the brokers brought him all the girls that came into their hands, but none pleased him, till one day a broker came to his house and found him mounting his horse, to go to the palace; so he caught hold of his stirrup and repeated the following verses: O thou whose bounties have restored the uses of the state, O Vizier helped of heaven, whose acts are ever fortunate! Thou hast revived the virtues all were dead among the folk. May God's acceptance evermore on thine endeavours wait! Then said he, 'O my lord, she for whom the august mandate was issued is here.' 'Bring her to me,' replied the Vizier. So he went away and returned in a little with a damsel of elegant shape, swelling-breasted, with melting black eyes and smooth cheeks, slender-waisted and heavy-hipped, clad in the richest of clothes. The dew of her lips was sweeter than syrup, her shape more symmetrical than the bending branch and her speech softer than the morning zephyr, even as says one of those who have described her: