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

Schahzaman said no more to the prince: he admitted him into his council, and gave him all the reason to be satisfied that could be desired. About a year after, he took him aside, and said to him, Well, son, have you thoroughly considered of what I proposed to you last year about marrying? Will you still refuse me the satisfaction I desire, and let me die without seeing myself revive in your posterity?

The prince seemed less astonished than before; he now briskly answered his father as follows: Sir, I have not neglected to consider of what you proposed, and, upon the whole matter, I am resolved to continue in the state I am, without concerning myself with marriage, In short, sir, the many evils I have read that women have caused in the world, and the continual mischiefs I still hear and observe they do, have been the occasion of my resolution to have nothing to do with them; so that, sir, I hope your majesty will pardon me if I acquaint you, that it will be to no purpose to solicit me any further about that affair. This said, and making a low reverence, he went out briskly, without staying to hear what the sultan would answer.

Now, any monarch but Schahzaman would have been in a violent passion at such deportment of a son; but he took little notice of it, resolving to use all gentle methods before he proceeded to force. He communicated this new cause of discontent to his prime minister. I have followed your advice, said he, but Camaralzaman is further off than ever from complying with my desires. He delivered his resolution in such arrogant terms, that I had all the occasion in the world for my reason and moderation to keep me from being in a passion. Fathers who desire favours of their children, which they nevertheless can command, have themselves alone to blame if they are disobeyed. But tell me, I beseech you, how I shall reclaim this hardy young prince, who proves so rebellious to my pleasure.

Sir, answered the grand vizier, patience brings many things about which before seemed impracticable; but it may be that this affair is of a nature not likely to succeed in that way. However, in my judgment, your majesty would do well to give the prince another year to consider of the matter; and if, when this is expired, he still continues averse to your proposal, then your majesty may propose it to him in full council, as a thing that is highly necessary for the common good; it is not likely that he will refuse to comply with it before so grave an assembly, and on so necessary an account, whatever he has done before.

The sultan, who passionately desired to see his son married, thought this long delay an age; however, though with much difficulty, he at length yielded to his grand vizier's reasons, which he could no way disapprove.

After the grand vizier was gone, sultan Schahzaman went to the apartment of the mother of prince Camaralzaman, to whom he had often discovered what an ardent desire he had to marry the prince. When he had told her, with tears in his eyes, how his son had refused to comply a second time, and that nevertheless, through the advice of his grand vizer, he was induced to wait yet a longer time for his compliance, he said, Madam, I know he will hearken more to you than me, therefore I desire you would take your time to speak to him seriously of the matter, and to let him know that, if he persists much longer in his obstinacy, he will oblige me to have recourse to extremities that may not be pleasing to him, and which may give him cause to repent of having disobeyed me.

Fatima, for so was the lady called, acquainted the prince, the first time she saw him, that she had been informed of his second refusal to be married, and how much chagrin he had occasioned his father on that account. Madam, said the prince, I beseech you not to renew my grief upon that head; for, if you do, I have reason to fear, in the disquiet I am under, that something may escape me which may not altogether correspond with the respect I owe you. Fatima knew, by this answer, that it was not then a proper time to speak to him; therefore deferred what she had to say till another opportunity.

Some considerable time after, Fatima thought she had met with a more favourable occasion, which gave her hopes of being heard upon the subject; she therefore accosted him with all the eagerness imaginable: Son, said she, I beg of you, if it be not very irksome to you, to tell me what reason you have for your so great aversion to marriage? If you have no other than the badness and wickedness of some women, there can be nothing less reasonable, or more weak. I will not undertake the defence of those who are bad, there are a great number of them undoubtedly; but it would be the greatest injustice imaginable to condemn all the sex for their sakes. Alas, son! you have met with a great many bad women in your books, who have occasioned great disorders, and I will not excuse them; but you do not consider how many monarchs, sultans, and other princes, there have been in the world, whose tyrannies, barbarities, and cruelties, astonished those who read of them, and which I have myself. Now, for one woman who is thus wicked, you will meet with a thousand of these tyrants and barbarians; and what torment, do you think, must a good woman undergo, for such there are, who is united to one of these wretches?

Madam, replied Camaralzaman, I doubt not but there is a great number of wise, virtuous, good, affable, and generous women, in the world; and would to God they all resembled you! But what pierces me, is the doubtful choice a man is obliged to make; and oftentimes one has not even that liberty.

Let us suppose, then, Madam, continued he, that I had a mind to marry, as the sultan my father so earnestly desires I should; what wife, think you, would he be likely to provide for me? Probably a princess, whom he would demand of some neighbouring prince, and who would think it an honour done him to send her to him. Fair or ugly, good or ill-humoured, she must be accepted; nay, suppose no other princess excelled her in beauty, yet who can be certain that her temper would be of equal goodness; that she would be affable, complaisant, entertaining, obliging, and the like; that her discourse would generally run on solid matters, and not on trifles, such as dress, adjustments, ornaments, and the like fooleries, which would disgust any man of sense? In a word, that she would not be haughty, proud, arrogant, impertinent, scornful, and waste a man's estate in frivolous expences, such as gaudy clothes, unnecessary jewels, toys, and the like long train of magnificent follies.

Thus you see, madam, continued he, how many reasons a man may have to be disgusted at marriage. Well, but to go further: let this princess be ever so perfect, accomplished, and irreproachable, I have yet a great many more reasons not to desist from my sentiment, or depart from my resolution.

What, son, replied Fatima; have you then more reasons than those you have already advanced? I do not doubt but that I shall find wherewithal to answer them, and stop your mouth with a word. Very well, madam, replied the prince; and perhaps I may find wherewithal to reply to your answer.

I mean, son, said Fatima, that it is easy for a prince, who has had the misfortune to marry such a wife as you describe, to get rid of her, and take such care that she may not prejudice his estate. Ah, but, madam, replied the prince, you do not consider what a mortification it would be to a person of so great quality to be obliged to come to an extremity of that nature. Would it not have been better, think you, and much more for his honour and quiet, that he had never run such a risk?

But, son, said Fatima once more, after the manner you understand things, I apprehend you have a mind to be the last king of your race, who have nevertheless reigned so long and gloriously in the isles of the Children of Khaledan.

Madam, replied the prince, for my part I do not desire to survive the king my father; and if I should die before him, it would be no great matter of wonder, since so many children have died before their parents. But as for my leaving no successor, I am of opinion it is much better to be the last of one's race, than father to a bad prince, or husband to a bad wife.

From that time Fatima had frequent conferences with her son the prince on the same subject, and omitted no opportunity or argument to endeavour rooting out his aversion to the fair sex; but he eluded all her reasonings by such as she could not well answer, and continued in the same mind.

The year expired, and, to the great regret of the sultan, prince Camaralzaman gave not the least proof of having changed his sentiments; so that one day, when there was a great council held, the prime vizier and other viziers, the principal officers of the crown, and the generals of the army, being present, the sultan spoke thus to the prince: Son, it is now a long while since I have earnestly desired to see you married; and I imagined you would have had more complaisance for a father, who required nothing unreasonable of you, than to oppose him so long. But, after so great resistance on your part, which has almost worn out my patience, I have thought fit to propose the same thing once more to you in presence of my council. Now I would have you to consider, that the favour I desire is not only to oblige me, but to comply with the earnest request of the estates of my dominions, who, for the common good of us all, in conjunction with me, require it of you. Declare then, before these lords present, whether you will marry or not; that, according to your answer, I may proceed, and take those measures which I ought.

The prince answered with so little temper, or rather with so much heat, that the sultan, enraged to see himself affronted in full council, cried out, How, unnatural son! have you the insolence to talk thus to your father and sultan? Ho! guards, take him away! At these words he was seized by the eunuchs, and carried to an old tower that had been uninhabited a long while; where he was shut up, with only a bed, a few moveables, some books, and one slave only to attend him.

Camaralzaman, thus deprived of liberty, was nevertheless pleased that he had the freedom to converse with books, which made him look on his confinement with some indifference. In the evening he bathed, and said his prayers; and, after having read some chapters in the alcoran with the same tranquillity of mind as if he had been in the sultan's palace, undressed himself, and went to bed, leaving his lamp burning by him all the while he slept.

In this tower was a well, which served for a retreat to a certain fairy named Maimoune, daughter of Damriel, king or head of a legion of genii. It was about midnight when this Maimoune came forth silently, to wander about the world after her wonted custom. She was surprised to see a light in prince Camaralzaman's chamber. She entered it; and, without stopping at the slave who lay at the door, approached the bed, whose magnificence, though very great, she did not so much wonder at, as that there should be a man in it.

Prince Camaralzaman had but half covered his face with the bed-clothes, by which Maimoune could perceive that he was the finest young man she had seen in all her rambles through the world. What beauty, or rather what prodigy of beauty, said she within herself, will this youth appear, when his so well formed eye-lids shall be open? What crime can he have committed, to deserve this rigorous treatment?

She could not forbear admiring the prince, till at length, having kissed him gently on both cheeks, and in the middle of the forehead, without waking him, she laid the bed-clothes in the order they