Presently a girl of such moon-like beauty opened a window that the
prince lost to her a hundred hearts. She was delighted with the
beautiful deer, and cried to her nurse: “Catch it! if you will I will
give you this necklace, every pearl of which is worth a kingdom.” The
nurse coveted the pearls, but as she was three hundred years old she
did not know how she could catch a deer. However, she went down into
the garden and held out some grass, but when she went near the creature
ran away. The girl watched with great excitement from the palace
window, and called: “O nurse, if you don’t catch it, I will kill you!”
“I am killing myself,” shouted back the old woman. The girl saw that
nurse tottering along and went down to help, marching with the gait of
a prancing peacock. When she saw the gilded horns and the kerchief she
said: “It must be accustomed to the hand, and be some royal pet!” The
prince had it in mind that this might be another magician who could
give him some other shape, but still it seemed best to allow himself to
be caught. So he played about the girl and let her catch him by the
neck. A leash was brought, fruits were given, and it was caressed with
delight. It was taken to the palace and tied at the foot of the Lady
Jamila’s raised seat, but she ordered a longer cord to be brought so
that it might be able to jump up beside her.
When the nurse went to fix the cord she saw tears falling from its
eyes, and that it was dejected and sorrowful “O Lady Jamila! this is a
wonderful deer, it is crying; I never saw a deer cry before.” Jamila
darted down like a flash of lightning, and saw that it was so. It
rubbed its head on her feet and then shook it so sadly that the girl
cried for sympathy. She patted it and said: “Why are you sad, my heart?
Why do you cry, my soul? Is it because I have caught you? I love you
better than my own life.” But, spite of her comforting, it cried the
more. Then Jamila said: “Unless I am mistaken, this is the work of my
wicked sister Latifa, who by magic art turns servants of God into
beasts of the field.” At these words the deer uttered sounds, and laid
its head on her feet. Then Jamila was sure it was a man, and said: “Be
comforted, I will restore you to your own shape.” She bathed herself
and ordered the deer to be bathed, put on clean raiment, called for a
box which stood in an alcove, opened it and gave a portion of what was
in it to the deer to eat. Then she slipped her hand under her carpet
and produced a stick to which she said something. She struck the deer
hard, it pirouetted and became Prince Almas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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