Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 7.djvu/91

73 viziers and grandees and officers came in to him. When they were all assembled in their places and the Divan was complete, he said to his vizier, ‘Go to them and tell them that the king is sick and hath passed the night in ill case.’ So Saïd went forth and told the folk what he said; which when the old king heard, he was concerned for his son and summoning the physicians and astrologers, carried them in to Seif el Mulouk.

They looked at him and prescribed him draughts and simples and medicinal waters and wrote him charms and incensed him with aloes-wood and ambergris three days’ space; but his malady persisted three months, till King Aasim was wroth with the physicians and said to them, ‘Out on you, O dogs! Can none of you cure my son? Except ye heal him forthright, I will put you all to death.’ ‘O king of the age,’ replied the chief physician, ‘we know that this is thy son and thou knowest that we fail not of diligence in tending a stranger; so how much more with thy son? But thy son is afflicted with a grievous malady, which if thou desire to know, we will discover it to thee.’ Quoth Aasim, ‘What find ye then to be my son’s malady?’ ‘O king of the age,’ answered the physician, ‘thy son is in love and with one to whose enjoyment he hath no way of access.’ At this the king was wroth and said, ‘How know ye that my son is in love and how came love to him?’ ‘Ask his vizier and brother Saïd,’ answered they; ‘for he knoweth his case.’

So the king called Saïd into his privy closet and said to him, ‘Tell me the truth of my son’s malady.’ But Saïd replied, ‘I know it not.’ Then King Aasim said to the headsman, ‘Take Saïd and bind his eyes and strike off his head.’ Whereupon Saïd feared for himself and said, ‘O king of the age, grant me immunity.’ ‘Speak,’ answered the king; ‘and thou shalt have it.’ Then said Saïd, ‘Thy son is in love.’ ‘With whom is he in love?’