Page:Arabian Nights Entertainments (1728)-Vol. 2.djvu/53

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the Sultan, Sir, your Majeſty muſt needs have forgot your ſelf; I am very much ſurprized that your Majeſty has ſent for me to appear among Men. How Daughter! ſaid the Sultan, you do not know what you ſay! Here is no body but the little Slave, the Eunuch your Governor, and my ſelf, who has the Liberty to ſee your Face; and yet you lower your Veil, and would make me a Criminal in having ſent for you hither. Sir, ſaid the Princeſs, Your Majeſty ſhall ſoon underſtand that I am not in the wrong. That Ape you ſee before you, tho’ he had the Shape of an Ape, is a young Prince, Son of a great King; he has been metamorphiz’d into an Ape by Inchantment. A Genie, the Son of the Daughter of Eblis, has maliciouſly done him this Wrong, after having cruelly taken away the Life of the Princeſs of the Iſle of Ebene, Daughter to the King Epitimarus.

The Sultan afſtoniſh’d at this Diſcourſe, turned towards me, and ſpoke no more by Signs, but in plain Words asked me, if it was true what his Daughter aid? Seeing I cou’d not ſpeak, I put my Hand to my Head to ſignify that what the Princeſs ſpoke was true. Upon this the Sultan ſaid again to his Daughter, How do you know that this Prince has been transform’d by inchantments into an Ape? Sir, replied the Lady of Beauty, your Majeſty may remember, that when I was paſt my Infancy, I had an old Lady waited upon me, ſhe was a moſt expert Magician, and taught me 70 Rules of Magick, by Virtue of which I can tranſport your capital City into the midſt of the Sea in the Twinkling of an Eye, or beyond Mount Cancaſus. By this Science I know all inchanted Perſons at firſt Sight: I know who they are, and by whom they have been Inchanted; therefore do not admire if I ſhould forthwith relieve the Prince in deſpight of the Inchantments, from that which hinders him to appear in your ſight what he naturally is. Daughter, ſaid the Sultan, I did not believe you to have underſtood ſo much. Sir, replied the Princeſs, theſe Things are curious and worth knowing; but I think I ought not to bragg of them. Since it is ſo, ſaid the Sultan, you can diſpel the Prince’s Inchantment. Yes, Sir, ſaid the Princeſs, I can reſtore him to his firſt Shape again. Do it then, ſaid the Sultan, you cannot do me a greater Pleaſure; for will have him to be my Viſier, and he ſhall
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