Page:Arabian Nights Entertainments (1728)-Vol. 1.djvu/86

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Deſert; I ought to have treated thee in the ſame manner; I repent now that I did not do it,thou haſt abus’d my Goodneſs too long. As I ſpoke theſe Words, I drew out my Scimiter, and lifted up my Hand to puniſh her; but ſhe ſtedſaſtly beholding me, ſays with a jeering Smile, moderate thy Anger. At the ſame time, ſhe pronounc’d Words I did not underſtand; and afterwards added, By Virtue of my Enchantments, I command thee immediately to become Marble and half Man. Immediately, my Lord, I became ſuch as you ſee me already, a dead Man among the Living, and a living Man among the Dead———Here Scheherazade perceiving Day, broke off her Story.

Upon which Dinarzade ſays, dear Siſter, I am extreamly oblig’d to the Sultan, it’s to his Goodneſs I owe the extraordinary Pleaſure I have in your Stories, My Siſter, replies the Sultaneſs, if the Sultan will be ſo good as to ſuffer me to live till to-morrow, I ſhall tell you a Thing that will afford as much Satisſaction as any thing you have yet heard, Tho’ Schahriar had not reſolv’d to defer the Death of Scheherazade a Month longer, he could not have order’d her to be put to Death that Day.

The Twenty Fifth Night.

TOwards the end of the Night, Dinarzade cry’d, Siſter; if I don’t treſpaſs too much upon your Complaiſance, I would pray you to finiſh the Hiſtory of the King of the Black Iſlands. Scheherazade having awak’d upon her Siſter’s Call, prepar’d to give her the Satisfation ſhe requir’d, and began thus.

The King, half Marble and half Man, continu’d his Hiſtory to the Sultan, thus; after this cruel Magician, unworthy of the Name of a Queen, had metamorphos’d me thus, and brought me into this Hall by another Enchantment, ſhe deſtroy’d my Capitol, which was very flouriſhing and full of People, ſhe aboliſh’d the Houſes, the publick Places and Markets, and made a Pond and deſert Field of it, which you may have ſeen; the Fiſhes of four Colours in the Pond, are the four Sorts of People, of diffe-

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