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son,’ said King Shehriman, ‘know that I desire to marry thee and rejoice in thee, whilst yet I live, and make thee king over my realm, before my death.’ When the prince heard this, he bowed his head awhile, then raised it and said, ‘O my father, this is a thing that I will never do, though I drink the cup of death. I know of a surety that God the Most High enjoins on me obedience to thee; but in His name I conjure thee, press me not in this matter of marriage, neither think that I will ever marry my life long; for that I have read the books both of the ancients and the moderns and have come to know all the troubles and calamities that have befallen them through women and the disasters that have sprung from their craft without end. How well says the poet:
He, whom the baggages entrap, Deliverance shall never know,
Although a thousand forts he build, Plated with lead;—’gainst such a foe
It shall not profit him to build Nor citadels avail, I trow.
Women are traitresses to all, Both near and far and high and low.
With fingers dyed and flowing hair Plaited with tresses, sweet of show,
And eyelids beautified with kohl, They make one drink of bale and woe.
And no less excellently saith another:
Women, for all to chastity they’re bidden, everywhere Are carrion tossed about of all the vultures of the air.
To-night their converse, ay, and all their secret charms are thine, But on the morn their leg and wrist fall to another’s share;
Like to an inn in which thou lodg’st, departing with the dawn, And one thou know’st not, after thee, lights down and lodges there.
When King Shehriman heard these his son’s words, he made him no answer, of his great love for him, but redoubled in favour and kindness to him. As soon as the audience was over, he called his Vizier and taking him apart, said to him, ‘O Vizier, tell me how I shall do with my son in this matter of his marriage. Night clxxii.I took counsel with thee thereon and thou didst counsel me to marry him, before making him king. I have spoken with him
