The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Anonymous (best books to read .txt) 📕

When she had finished the relation of her adventure, she obliged the prince to tell his. He informed her how the talisman occasioned their separation, and the rest of the story relating to him, as already told. They then bemoaned one another's ill fortune, and rejoiced in their good: he complained of her with the kindest expressions love could invent, chiding her tenderly for making him languish so long without her; and she excused herself with the reasons already related. After which, it growing late, they went to bed.

The princess Badoura and prince Camaralzaman rose next morning as soon as it was light; but the princess would no more put on her royal robes as king; she dressed herself in her natural dress, that of a woman, and then sent the chief eunuch to king Armanos, her father-in-law, to desire he would take the trouble to come to her apartment.

When the king entered the chamber, he was amazed to see a lady there who was unknown to him, and the lord-treasurer with her, to whom it was not permitted to come within the inner palace, nor to any of the lords of the court. He sat down, and asked where the king was.

The princess answered, Yesterday I was king, sir; but today I am only princess of China, wife to prince Camaralzaman, the true son of king Schahzaman. If your majesty will have patience to hear our histories, I hope you will not condemn me for putting an innocent deceit upon you. The king bade her go on, and heard her discourse from beginning to end, with astonishment. The princess finishing, said to him, Sir, though our religion does not suffer men to have more wives than one, without some sort of scandal, and we women do not easily comply with the custom men have introduced to have several, yet if your majesty will consent to give your daughter, the princess Haiatalnefous, in marriage to the prince Camaralzaman, I will with all my heart yield up to her the rank and quality of queen which of right belongs to her, and content myself with the second place. If this precedence were not her due, I would, however, give it her, being obliged to her for keeping the secret so faithfully. If your majesty approves of it, I am sure she will, and will pass my word that she will obey you with joy.

King Armanos listened to the princess with admiration, and when she had done, turned about to prince, Camaralzaman, saying, Son, since the princess Badoura, your wife, whom I have all along thought to be my son-in-law through a deceit of which I do not complain, assures me that she will divide your bed with my daughter, I have nothing more to do but to know if you are willing to marry her, and accept of the crown, which the princess Badoura should deservedly wear as long as she lived, if she did not quit it out of love to you. Sir, replied prince Camaralzaman, though I desired nothing so earnestly as to see my father, yet the obligations I have to your majesty and the princess Haiatalnefous are so weighty, that I cannot deny you any thing in my power.

Camaralzaman was proclaimed king, and married the same day with all possible demonstrations of joy; he being very well pleased with the princess Haiatalnefous's beauty and love for him. The two queens lived together afterwards as friendly as they had done before, both being contented with king Camaralzaman's equal carriage towards them; and they were alternately taken to his bed.

Next year each brought him a son, and the births of the two princes were celebrated with extraordinary feastings. The first, whom the princess Badoura was delivered of, king Camaralzaman named Amgrad, Most Glorious; and the other, who was born of queen Haiatalnefous, Assad, Most Happy.

The two princes were brought up with great care, and, when old enough, had the same governor, and the same master for the arts and sciences which king Camaralzaman would have them learn; and they had the same master for each exercise. The friendship which from their infancy they entered into, occasioned an uniformity of manners and inclinations which increased with their years. When they were of age to keep a separate court, they loved one another so tenderly, that they begged king Camaralzaman to let them live together. He consented to it; and they had the same officers, the same domestics, the same lodging, and the same table. King Camaralzaman had so good an opinion of their capacity and justice, that he made no scruple of admitting them into his council at eighteen years old, and letting them by turns preside there, while he took the diversion of hunting, or recreated himself with his queens at his houses of pleasure.

The two princes being equally handsome, both in infancy and when they were grown up, the two queens loved them with incredible tenderness; in such a manner, however, that the princess Badoura had a greater kindness for prince Assad, queen Haiatalnefous' son, than her own; and queen Haiatalnefous loved Amgrad, princess Badoura's son, better than her own son Assad.

The two queens thought at first that this inclination was nothing but a friendship that proceeded from an exeess of their own for each other, which they still preserved; but as the two princes advanced in years, that friendship turned to a secret love, when the graces that appeared in their youth blinded their reason. They knew the criminality of their passion, and did all they could to resist it; but their efforts proved vain. They were accustomed to be familiar with them, to admire, to praise, to kiss and caress them from their infancy, and could not desist when they grew up, which inflamed their desires to such a height that they could neither eat, drink, nor sleep. It was their and the princes' ill fortune, that the latter, being used to be so treated by them, had not the least suspicion of their infamous desires.

The two queens had not discovered the secret of their passion, nor had either the boldness to mention the prince she loved, by word of mouth, or the guilty flame with which she burnt; they at last resolved to do it by billet, and made use of king Camaralzaman's absence to execute their wicked design, when he was gone a hunting, which would take him up three or four days.

Prince Amgrad presided at the council-table the day of king Camaralzaman's departure, and heard causes till three or four o'clock in the afternoon. When he returned to the palace from the council-chamber, an eunuch took him aside, and gave him a billet from queen Haiatalnefous, Amgrad took it but read with horror. Traitor! said he to the eunuch, as soon as he had read it through, is this the fidelity thou owest thy master and thy king? At these words he drew his sabre, and cut off his head.

Having done this, he ran in haste to the princess Badoura his mother, bearing his resentment still in his looks, and showing her the billet, told her the contents of it, and from whom it came; but, instead of hearkening to him, she fell into a passion, and said, Son, it is all a calumny and imposture: Queen Haiatalnefous is a very discreet princess, and you are very bold to talk after this rate. The prince was enraged at his mother, to hear her speak so of him. You are both bad alike, said he and had it not been for the respect I owe my father, this day should have been the last of Haiatalnefous's life.

Queen Badoura might have imagined, by the example of her son Amgrad, that prince Assad, who was as virtuous as the other, would not be pleased with such a declaration of love as had been made to his brother: yet that did not hinder her persisting in so abominable a design; she wrote him a billet the next day, which she trusted with an old woman belonging to the palace to convey to him.

The old woman watched her opportunity to give it as he was coming from the council-chamber, where he presided that day in, his turn: the prince took it; and, reading it, fell into such a fury, that, without finishing it, he drew his sabre, and punished the old woman as she deserved. He ran presently to the apartment of his mother queen Haiatalnefous with the billet in his hand; he would have shown it to her, but she did not give him time crying out, I know what you would have: you are as impertinent as your brother Amgrad, Begone! and never come into my presence again.

Assad stood as one thunderstruck at these words, of which he could not comprehend the meaning. When he recollected himself, he was so transported with rage, that he had like to have given very fatal demonstrations of his anger; but he contained himself, and withdrew without making any reply, fearing, if he staid, he might say something unworthy the greatness of his soul. Amgrad had put the same constraint on himself; and, guessing by his mother's carriage that she was altogether as criminal as queen Haiatalnefous, went to his brother, to chide him, for not communicating that hated secret to him, and to mingle his sorrow with Assad's.

The two queens grew desperate when they found so much virtue in the two princes; and, instead of reforming themselves, renounced all sentiments of mothers and of nature, and conspired together to destroy them: they made their women believe the two princes had attempted to ravish them: they counterfeited the matter to the life by tears, cries, and curses, and lay in the same bed, as if the resistance they had made had wasted them so much, that they were almost at death's door.

When Camaralzaman returned to the palace from hunting, he was very much surprised to find them in bed together in tears; and the part of desponding ladies was acted so well, that he was touched with compassion, and asked them, with earnestness, what had happened to them.

At this question, the dissembling queens wept and groaned more bitterly than before; and, after pressing them again and again to tell him, queen Badoura at last answered thus: Sir, our grief is so extraordinary, and so just, that we ought not to see the light of the sun nor live a day, after the violence that has been offered us by the princes your sons. Their brutality is such, that they entered into a horrid design in your absence, and had the boldness and insolence to make attempts upon our honour. Your majesty will excuse us from saying more; you may guess the rest by our affliction.

The king sent for the two princes, and would have killed them both with his own hand, if old king Armanos, his father-in-law, who was present, had not held his arm. Son, said he, what are you going to do? Will you stain your hands and your palace with your own blood? There are other ways of punishing, if they are really guilty.

He endeavoured thus to appease him, and desired him to examine the matter, and see whether they did indeed commit the crime of which they were accused. It was now a hard thing for Camaralzaman to be so much master of himself as not to butcher his own children. He ordered them to be put under arrest, and sent for an emir called Giendar, whom he commanded to carry them out of the city, and put them to death, as far off and in what place he pleased; but not to return unless he brought their clothes back, as a token of having executed his orders.

Giendar travelled with them all night, and early the next morning alighted, telling them, with tears