Author: trans. Richard F. Burton

Cited by

• Andrei Codrescu (1)
  • IN: Whatever Gets You Through the Night (2011) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Then King Shahryar... also sware himself by a binding oath that whatever wife he married he would abate her maidenhead at night and slay her next morning to make sure of his honour. "For", said he, "there never was nor is there one chaste woman upon the face of the earth.".... On this wise he continued for the space of three years; marrying a maiden every night and killing her the next morning, till folk raised an outcry against him and cursed him, praying Allah utterly to destroy him and his rule; and women made an uproar and mothers wept till there remained not in the city a young person fit for carnal copulation.... His Chief Wazir, the same who was charged with the executions... had two daughters, Sharazad and Dunyazad hight, of whom the elder had perused the books, annals, and legends... and the stories... perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart... Thereupon said she, "By Allah, O my father, how long shall this slaughter of women endure?... I wish thou wouldst give me in marriage to this King Shahryar; either I shall live or I shall be a ransom for the virgin daughters of Moslems and the cause of their deliverance from his hands and thine."
    FROM: The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, (1885), Book, NULL