Page:Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp.djvu/238

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forthright and went to meet the Sultan, who[1] said to him, when he saw him, “Wherefore, O my son, hast thou done thus, and why sufferedst thou not the jewellers complete the lattice-work of the oriel,[2] so there might not remain a place in thy palace[3] defective?” “O King of the Age,” answered Alaeddin, “I left it not imperfect but of my free will, nor did I lack of ableness to complete it. However, I could not brook that Thy Grace should honour me [with thy presence] in a palace[4] wherein there was somewhat lacking; wherefore, so thou mayst know that it was not for lack of ableness that I left it uncomplete,[5] let Thy Grace go up and see the lattice-work of the kiosk,[6] an there be aught lacking thereto.”

The Sultan accordingly went up to the pavilion[7] and entering the kiosk,[8] viewed it right and left and

  1. Night DLXXII.
  2. Lit. “kiosk” (kushk).
  3. Fi szerayyetika.
  4. Szeraya.
  5. Lit. “that I was not lacking in ableness to complete it.”
  6. Kushk, here used in sense of “belvedere.”
  7. Or “upper chamber” (keszr).
  8. Kushk. From this passage it would seem as if the belvedere actually projected from the side of the upper story or soler (keszr), instead of being built on the roof, lantern-wise, or being (as would appear from earlier passages) identical with the hall itself; but the whole description is as before remarked. so full of incoherence and confusion of terms that it is impossible to reconcile its inconsistencies.