THE STORY OF THE PORTER WITH THE YOUNG LADIES
Source
It just happens that the king's daughter is a sorceress. She made the efreet to come to the palace and they start to fight ferociously.
ON THE FOURTEENTH NIGHT
Sheherazade said:
The second saâlouk continued his story:
Then the king said to the eunuch: “Go to your young mistress, my daughter, and say to her: “Come quickly, my mistress, to the king!" because I want my daughter to be able to enjoy this show and see this wonderful monkey!"
Then the eunuch went away, and he soon returned with his young mistress, the king's daughter, who, as soon as she saw me, covered her face with her veil and said: "O my father, how could you bring yourself to send for me so that the foreign men could see me?" And the king said to her: “O my daughter, there is only my young slave here with me, this child whom you see, and the eunuch who raised you, and this monkey, and I your father! Who here are you covering your face with?" Then the girl answered: “Know, O my father, that this monkey is the son of a king! The king, his father, is called Aymarus, and he is the master of a country in the far interior. This monkey is simply bewitched; and it was the efreet Georgirus, of the posterity of Eblis, who bewitched him, after having killed his own wife, the daughter of King Aknamus, master of the Ebon Isle. This monkey, which you believe to be a real monkey, is, therefore, a man, but learned, educated, and very wise!"
At these words, the king was greatly astonished, looked at me, and said to me: “Is it true what my daughter says about you?" So I replied with my head: “Yes! It's true!" and I started crying. Then the king asked his daughter: “But where did you learn to discern if he is bewitched?" She answered: “O my father, when I was little, the old woman who was with my mother was an old witch full of tricks and well versed in magic. It was she who taught me the art of sorcery. And, since then, I deepened it still more, I perfected myself there and I thus learned nearly one hundred and seventy articles of magic; and the most insignificant of these articles would enable me to transport your whole palace with all its stones, and the whole city behind Mount Caucasus, to transform all this country into a mirror of the sea and to change all the inhabitants into fish! »
Then his father exclaimed: “By the truth of the name of Allah upon you! O my daughter, deliver this young man then so that I can make him my vizier! How! you have such considerable talent and I do not know it? Oh! deliver him so that I can quickly make him my vizier because he must be a nice young man full of intelligence!"
And the young girl answered: “With all friendly and generous hearts, as due homage!"
the young girl, at these words, took in her hand a knife on which were engraved words in the Hebrew language, and with this knife, she traced a circle in the middle of the palace, and in the middle of this circle she wrote proper names and talismanic lines; then she stood in the middle of this circle and muttered magic words, and read, in a very old book, things that no one understood, and continued thus for a few moments. Suddenly, the part of the palace where we were was in darkness so thick that we thought we had been buried alive under the ruins of the world. And suddenly before us, appeared the efreet Georgirus, in the most horrible and hideous form, with hands like pitchforks, feet like masts, and eyes like two flaming embers. So all of us were terrified. But the king's daughter said to him: "I do not welcome you! And I do not give you a cordial welcome, O you efreet!" Then the efreet said to her: “O treacherous one! how can you betray your oath? Didn't you swear to me and agree that neither of us would mind the other's business and try to antagonize them? So, O traitor, you well deserve the fate that awaits you! Catch this!" And immediately the efreet changed into a terrible lion, which opened its mouth wide and rushed at the girl. So she, with a quick movement, tore a hair from her hair, brought it to her lips, and muttered magic words over it, and immediately the hair became a finely sharpened sword. Then she seized the sword, struck the lion violently with it, and cut it in two halves. But immediately the lion's severed head became a scorpion which crawled towards the girl's heel to bite it; but immediately the young girl changed into a giant snake which rushed on the accursed scorpion, and the two engaged in a close battle. But the scorpion suddenly changed into a vulture, and immediately the serpent became an eagle, which swooped down on the vulture and set off in pursuit; he was about to reach it, after an hour of pursuit, when suddenly the vulture changed into a black cat, and immediately the young girl became a wolf: then, in the middle of the palace, the cat and the wolf fought and fought a terrible battle; and the cat, seeing itself defeated, changed again and became a big pomegranate, red and very big. And this pomegranate let himself fall to the bottom of the basin which was in the yard; but the wolf threw himself into the basin and was about to seize it when the grenade rose into the air. But, as it was too big, it fell heavily on the marble and it split: then all the grains crumbled one by one, and covered the whole floor of the courtyard. Then the wolf changed into a rooster, which began to pick them up with its beak and swallow them one by one, and there was only one grain left, which the rooster was also going to swallow, when suddenly this grain fell from the beak of the rooster, for that was what fate and destiny wanted it to be, and lodged itself in a crevice, near the basin, and in such a way that the rooster no longer knew where.
At this point in her narration, Sheherazade saw the morning appear and quietly fell silent.
First Night - Second Night - Third Night - Fourth Night - Fifth Night - Sixth Night - Seventh Night
Eighth Night - Ninth Night - Tenth Night - Eleventh Night - Twelfth Night - Thirteenth Night