Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/135

III.] to the country of a great Sultan, and when the Sultan heard that there was an ape who could write beautiful poems, he sent for him to the palace, and they had dinner together, and they played at chess afterwards, the ape behaving in all respects like a man, excepting that he could not speak. Then the Sultan sent for his daughter, the Queen of Beauty, to see this great wonder. But when the Queen of Beauty came into the room she was very angry with her father for showing her to a man, for the Princess was a great magician, and thus she knew that it was a man turned into an ape, and she told her father that the change had been made by a powerful Genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis. So the Sultan ordered the Queen of Beauty to disenchant the Prince, and then she should have him for her husband. On this the Queen of Beauty went to her chamber, and came back with a knife, with Hebrew characters engraved upon the blade. And then she went into the middle of the court and drew a large circle in it, and in the centre she traced several words in Arabic letters, and others in Egyptian letters. Then putting herself in the middle of the circle, she repeated several verses