The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Vol. 1

"...[the Wazir], whom you insist loves you, took ten thousand gold coins original: "ducats" from you and bought a slave-girl with them, the likes of whom no one has ever seen. But when he saw her, she pleased him, and he said to his son: 'Take her; you are more worthy of her than the Sultan.' So he took her and deflowered her, and she is now in his house. The King will say: 'You lie!' To which the enemy will reply: 'With your permission, I will surprise him and bring her to you.' The King will grant him a warrant for this, and he will descend upon the house, take the girl, and present her to the Sultan, who will question her, and she will be unable to deny what happened. Then my enemy will say: 'O my lord, you know original: "wottest" that I give you the best advice, but I have not found favor in your eyes.' At that, the Sultan will make an example of me, and I shall be a spectacle for all the people, and my life will be lost."

His wife said, "Let no one know of this thing which has happened in secret, and commit your case to God original: "Allah" and trust in Him to save you from such a predicament; for He who knows the future shall provide for the future." With this, she brought the Vizier original: "Wazir" a cup of wine, and his heart was calmed; he stopped feeling anger and fear.

That is how it was for him; but as for his son, Nur al-Din Ali, fearing the consequences of his misdeed, he stayed in the flower garden all day and returned only at night to his mother's room to sleep. Rising before dawn, he returned to the gardens. He continued to do this for two whole months without showing his face to his father, until at last his mother said to his father, "O my lord, shall we lose our boy as well as the girl? If things continue like this for long, he will run away from us."

"And what should I do?" he asked.

She answered, "Watch for him tonight, and when he comes, seize him and frighten him. I will rescue him from you, and then you can make peace with him and give him the young woman as a wife, for she loves him as he loves her. And I will pay you her price."

So the Minister sat up that night, and when his son arrived, he seized him, threw him down, knelt on his chest, and acted as though he would cut his throat. But his mother ran to the youth's aid and asked her husband, "What would you do with him?"

He answered her, "I will slit his throat weasand."

The son said to his father, "Is my death, then, such a light matter to you?"

His father's eyes filled with tears, for natural parental affection moved him, and he replied, "O my son, how light to you was the loss of my property and my life!"

Nur al-Din said, "Listen, O my father, to what the poet has said:—"