Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 1.djvu/27

9 wont: so the Vizier went out and made search for a girl, but found not one and returned home troubled and careful for fear of the king’s anger. Now this Vizier had two daughters, the elder called Shehrzad and the younger Dunyazad, and the former had read many books and histories and chronicles of ancient kings and stories of people of old time; it is said indeed that she had collected a thousand books of chronicles of past peoples and bygone kings and poets. Moreover, she had read books of science and medicine; her memory was stored with verses and stories and folk-lore and the sayings of kings and sages, and she was wise, witty, prudent and well-bred. She said to her father, “How comes it that I see thee troubled and oppressed with care and anxiety? Quoth one of the poets:

When the Vizier heard his daughter’s words, he told her his case, and she said, “By Allah, O my father, marry me to this king, for either I will be the means of the deliverance of the daughters of the Muslims from slaughter or I will die and perish as others have perished.” “For God’s sake,” answered the Vizier, “do not thus adventure thy life!” But she said, “It must be so.” Whereupon her father was wroth with her and said to her, “Fool that thou art, dost thou not know that the ignorant man who meddles in affairs falls into grievous peril, and that he who looks not to the issue of his actions finds no friend in time of evil fortune? As says the byword, ‘I was sitting at my ease, but my officiousness would not let me rest.’ And I fear lest there happen to thee what happened to the ox and the ass with the husbandman.” “And what happened to them?” asked she. Quoth the Vizier, “Know, O my daughter, that