Allah and to Him be praise and thanks and goodly gratitude! And
may He bless the King and us all his subjects and vouchsafe unto
us and him the acme of felicity and make his life-tide happy and
his endeavour constant!" Then arose the sixth Wazir and said,
"Allah favour thee with all fell city, O King, in this world and
in the next world! Verily, the ancients have left us this saying,
'Whoso prayeth and fasteth and giveth parents their due and is
just in his rule meeteth his Lord and He is well pleased with
him.' Thou hast been set over us and hast ruled us justly and
thine every step in this hath been blessed; wherefore we beseech
Allah Almighty to make great thy reward eternal and requite thee
thy beneficence. I have heard what this wise man hath said
respecting our fear for the loss of our prosperity, by reason of
the death of the King or the advent of another who should not be
his parallel, and how after him dissensions would be rife among
us and calamity betide from our division and how it behoved us
therefore to be instant in prayer to Allah the Most High, so
haply He might vouchsafe the King a happy son to inherit the
kingship after him. But, after all, the issue of that which man
desireth of mundane goods and wherefor he lusteth is unknown to
him and consequently it behoveth a mortal to ask not of his Lord
a thing whose end he wotteth not; for that haply the hurt of that
thing is nearer to him than its gain and his destruction may be
in that he seeketh and there may befal him what befel the Serpent
charmer, his wife and children and the folk of his house."--And
Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Seventh Night,