Page:Arabian Nights Entertainments (1728)-Vol. 3.djvu/94

not tell me the Truth, (ſaid he) heis your Father, and none of mine. But whoſe Son am I?” At this Queſtion, the Lady of Beauty calling to mind her Wedding-Night, which had been ſucceeded by along Widowhood, began to ſhed Tears, repining bitter]y at the Loſs of ſo loving a Husband as Bedreddin.

Whilſt the Lady of Beauty and Agib were both weeping, in comes the Vizier, who demanded the Reaſon of their Sorrow. The Lady told him the Shame Agib had undergone at School, which did ſo much affect the Vizier, that he join’d his Tears with theirs; and judging from this, that the Misfortune that had happen’d to his Daughter, was the common Diſcourſe of the Town, he was quite out of Patience.

Being thus afflicted, he went to the Sultan’s Palace, and falling proſtrate at his Feet, moſt humbly pray’d him to give him Leave to make a Journey into the Provinces of the Levant, and particularly to Balſora, in ſearch of his Nephew Bedreddin Haſſan. For he could not bear any longer, that the People of the City ſhould believe a Genie had got his Daughter with Child,

The Sultan was much concern’d at the Vizier’s Affliction, approv’d his Reſolution, and gave him Leave to go. He caus’d a Paſs-port alſo tobe wrote for him, praying, in the moſt obliging Terms that could be, all Kings and Princes, in whoſe Dominions the ſaid Bedreddin might ſojourn, to grant that the Vizier might bring him along with him.

Schemſeddin Mohammed, not knowing how to expreſs his Thankfulneſs to the Sultan for this Favour, thought it his Duty to fall down before him a ſecond time, and the Floods of Tears he ſhed, gave him ſufficient Teſtimony of His Gratitude. At laſt, having wiſhed the Sultan all manner of Proſperity, he took his Leave, and went home to his Houſe, where he diſpoſed every thing for his Journey; and the Preparations for it were carried on with ſo much Diligence, that in four Days after he had left the City, accompany’d with his Daughter, the Lady of Beauty, and his Grandſon Agib.

Scheherazade, perceiving Day, ſtopp’d. And the Sultan of the Indies got up, extreamly pleas’d with the Sultaneſs’s Diſcourſe, and reſolved to hear it to the end, Scheherazade ſatisfied his Curioſity, in the Night following, thus.