Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/129

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Now this damsel was the daughter of the King of France, the which is a wide and spacious city, abounding in arts and manufactures and rarities and trees and flowers and other plants, and resembleth the city of Constantinople: and for her going forth of her father’s city there was an extraordinary cause and thereby hangs a rare story, that we will set out in due order, to divert and delight the reader. She was reared with her father and mother in honour and indulgence and learnt rhetoric and penmanship and arithmetic and martial exercises and all manner crafts both of men and women, such as broidery and sewing and weaving and girdle-making and silk-cord making and enamelling gold on silver and silver on gold, till she became the pearl of her time and the unique [jewel] of her age and her day. Moreover, God (to whom belong might and majesty) had endowed her with such beauty and grace and elegance and perfection that she excelled therein all the folk of her time, and the kings of the isles sought her in marriage of her father, but he refused to give her to wife to any of her suitors, for that he loved her with an exceeding love and could not brook to be parted from her an hour. Moreover, he had no other daughter than herself, albeit he had many sons, but she was dearer to him than they.

It chanced one year that she fell sick of an exceeding sickness and came nigh upon death, wherefore she made a vow that, if she recovered from her sickness, she would make the pilgrimage to a certain monastery, situate in such an island, which was high in repute among the Franks, who used to make vows to it and look for a