Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 9.djvu/148

128 refused, saying, ‘O king, never was woman among my kindred who married again after her husband’s death; wherefore I will never take another husband, nor will I marry thee, no, though thou kill me.’ Then he sent to say to her, ‘Dost thou seek to go to thy native land?’ And she answered, ‘If thou do good, thou shalt be requited therewith.’ So he collected for her all the jeweller’s possessions and added unto her of his own, after the measure of his rank. Moreover he sent with her one of his viziers, a man renowned for goodness and piety, and an escort of five hundred horse, who journeyed with her, till they brought her to her father, with whom she abode, without marrying again, till she died and they died all. So, if this woman would not consent to replace her dead husband with a Sultan, how shall she be evened with one who replaced her husband, whilst he was yet alive, with a youth of unknown extraction and condition, more by token that this was in lewdness and not by way of lawful marriage? So he who deemeth all women to be alike, there is no remedy for the disease of his madness. And glory be to Him to whom belongeth the empire of the Seen and the Unseen, the [Ever-]Living One, who dieth not!