for thee in marriage some one of the King's daughters, fairer
than the Lady Dunya." Answered Taj al-Muluk, "O my father, I
desire none other, for she it is who wrought the gazelles which I
saw, and there is no help but that I have her; else I will flee
into the world and the waste and I will slay myself for her
sake." Then said his father, "Have patience with me, till I send
to her sire and demand her in marriage, and win thee thy wish as
I did for myself with thy mother. Haply Allah will bring thee to
thy desire; and, if her parent will not consent, I will make his
kingdom quake under him with an army, whose rear shall be with me
whilst its van shall be upon him." Then he sent for the youth
Aziz and asked him, "O my son, tell me dost thou know the way to
the Camphor Islands?" He answered "Yes"; and the King said, "I
desire of thee that thou fare with my Wazir thither." Replied
Aziz, "I hear and I obey, O King of the Age!"; where upon the
King summoned his Minister and said to him, "Devise me some
device, whereby my son's affair may be rightly managed and fare
thou forth to the Camphor Islands and demand of their King his
daughter in marriage for my son, Taj al-Muluk." The Wazir
replied, "Hearkening and obedience." Then Taj al-Muluk returned
to his dwelling place and his love and longing redoubled and the
delay seemed endless to him; and when the night darkened around
him, he wept and sighed and complained and repeated this poetry,

"Dark falls the night: my tears unaided rail * And fiercest
flames of love my heart assail:
Ask thou the nights of me, and they shall tell * An I find aught
to do but weep and wail:
Night long awake, I watch the stars what while * Pour down my
cheeks the tears like dropping hail: