locks, and deposited me, thus imprisoned, in the bottom of the roaring sea, beneath the dashing waves; not knowing that, when one of our sex desires to accomplish any object, nothing can prevent her. In accordance with this, says one of the poets:
Never trust in women; nor rely upon their vows; For their pleasure and displeasure depend upon their passions. They offer a false affection; for perfidy lurks within their clothing. By the tale of Yusuf be admonished, and guard against their stratagems. Dost thou not consider that Iblis ejected Adam by means of woman?
And another poet says:
Abstain from censure; for it will strengthen the censured, and increase desire into violent passion.
If I suffer such passion, my case is but the same as that of many a man before me:
For greatly indeed to be wondered at is he who hath kept himself safe from women's artifice.
When the two Kings heard these words from her lips they were struck with the utmost astonishment, and said, one to the other, If this is an 'Efrit, and a greater calamity hath happened unto him than that which hath befallen us, this is a circumstance that should console us:and immediately they departed, and returned to the city.
As soon as they had entered the palace, Shahriyar caused his wife to be beheaded, and in like manner the women and black slaves; and thenceforth he made it his regular custom, every time that he took a virgin to his bed, to kill her at the expiration of the night. Thus he continued to do during a period of three years; and the people raised an outcry against him, and fled with their daughters, and there remained not a virgin in the city of a sufficient age for marriage. Such was the case when the King ordered the Wezir to bring him a virgin according to his custom; and the Wezir went forth and searched, and found none; and he went back to his house enraged and vexed, fearing what the King might do to him.
Now the Wezir had two daughters; the elder of whom was named Shahrazad; and the younger, Dunyzad. The former had read various books of histories, and the lives of preceding kings, and stories of past generations: it is asserted that she had collected together a thousand books of histories, relating to preceding generations and kings, and works of the poets: and she said to her father on this occasion, Why do
