may therefrom take warning; and that they may peruse the annals
of antique peoples and all that hath betided them, and be thereby
ruled and restrained:--Praise, therefore, be to Him who hath made
the histories of the Past an admonition unto the Present! Now of
such instances are the tales called "A Thousand Nights and a
Night," together with their far famed legends and wonders.
Therein it is related (but Allah is All knowing of His hidden
things and All ruling and All honoured and All giving and All
gracious and All merciful [FN#1]) that, in tide of yore and in
time long gone before, there was a King of the Kings of the Banu
Sasan in the Islands of India and China, a Lord of armies and
guards and servants and dependents.[FN#2] He left only two sons,
one in the prime of manhood and the other yet a youth, while both
were Knights and Braves, albeit the elder was a doughtier
horseman than the younger. So he succeeded to the empire; when he
ruled the land and forded it over his lieges with justice so
exemplary that he was beloved by all the peoples of his capital
and of his kingdom. His name was King Shahryar[FN#3], and he made
his younger brother, Shah Zaman hight, King of Samarcand in
Barbarian land. These two ceased not to abide in their several
realms and the law was ever carried out in their dominions; and
each ruled his own kingdom, with equity and fair dealing to his
subjects, in extreme solace and enjoyment; and this condition
continually endured for a score of years. But at the end of the
twentieth twelvemonth the elder King yearned for a sight of his
younger brother and felt that he must look upon him once more. So
he took counsel with his Wazir[FN#4] about visiting him, but the
Minister, finding the project unadvisable, recommended that a
letter be written and a present be sent under his charge to the
younger brother with an invitation to visit the elder. Having