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bond,[1] for that it would not beseem Thy Grace to give thy daughter to a man like this, of whom it is not known what he is.” Quoth the Sultan, “On what wise shall we rid ourselves of this man, seeing I have given him my word and a King’s word is his bond?” “O my lord,” answered the Vizier, “my counsel is that thou require of him forty dishes of pure virgin gold, full of jewels, such as she[2] brought thee the other day,[3] and forty slave-girls to bear the dishes and forty black slaves.” “By Allah, O Vizier,” rejoined the Sultan, “thou speakest rightly; for that this is a thing to which he may not avail and so we shall be rid of him by [fair] means.”[4] So he said to Alaeddin’s mother, “Go and tell thy son that I abide by the promise which I made him, but an if he avail unto my daughter’s dowry; to wit, I require of him forty dishes of pure gold, which must all be full of jewels [such as] thou broughtest me [erst], together with forty slave-girls to carry them and
- ↑ Gherib, lit. a stranger, an exile, but vulg. by extension, a poor, homeless wretch.
- ↑ i.e. Alaeddin’s mother.
- ↑ Lit. “that day.”
- ↑ Fr. “à l’aimable.” Lit. “by a way or means” (bi-terikeh). It may be we should read bi [hatheti ’t] terikeh, “by [this] means;” but the rendering in the text seems the more probable one, the Sultan meaning that he would thus get rid of Alaeddin’s importunity by practice, without open breach of faith or violence.
