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marriage together with the half of my kingdom; and whoso fails to cure her, having offered, his head will I strike off and set it above the gates of my palace as a warning to others.' This he continued to do till forty of the wisest physicians and astrologers had lost their heads. Then the supply foiled; and the Princess, whom the offer of any husband other than the one she sighed for threw into paroxysms of wrath, was as far from a cure at the end as at the beginning. Thus she remained for the space of three years, sitting at a window with a chain about her neck and looking out over the sea.
Now the nurse of the Princess Badoura had a son named Marzavan, who was a great traveller. He was foster-brother to the Princess; when they were children she had been to him as his own sister; and the two loved each other tenderly. So on the day when he returned from his travels
