Chapter 9

The grand vizier, in executing the emperor's orders, would but just give the sisters time to dress themselves to appear before him, without telling them the reason. He brought them to the palace, and presented them to the emperor, who said to them, "Do you remember the wishes you expressed last night, when you were all in so pleasant a mood? Speak the truth; I must know what they were."

At these unexpected words of the emperor, the three sisters were much confounded. They cast down their eyes and blushed, and the colour which rose in the cheeks of the youngest quite captivated the emperor's heart. Modesty, and fear lest they might have offended the emperor by their conversation, kept them silent. The emperor perceiving their confusion, said, to encourage them, "Fear nothing, I did not send for you to distress you; and since I see that is the effect of the question I asked, without my intending it, as I know the wish of each, I will relieve you from your fears. You," added he, "who wished to be my wife shall have your desire this day; and you," continued he, addressing himself to the two elder sisters, "shall also be married to my chief baker and cook."

As soon as the sultan had declared his pleasure, the youngest sister, setting her eldest an example, threw herself at the emperor's feet, to express her gratitude. "Sir," said she, "my wish, since it is come to your majesty's knowledge, was expressed only in the way of conversation and amusement. I am unworthy of the honour you do me, and supplicate your pardon for my presumption." The two other sisters would have excused themselves also; but the emperor interrupting them, said, "No, no; it shall be as I have declared; every one's wish shall be fulfilled."

The nuptials were all celebrated that day, as the emperor had resolved, but in a different manner. The youngest sister's were solemnized with all the rejoicings usual at the marriages of the emperors of Persia; and those of the other two sisters according to the quality and distinction of their husbands; the one as the sultan's chief baker, and the other as head cook.

The two elder felt strongly the disproportion of their marriages to that of their younger sister. This consideration made them far from being content, though they were arrived at the utmost height of their late wishes, and much beyond their hopes. They gave themselves up to an excess of jealousy, which not only disturbed their joy, but was the cause of great troubles and afflictions to the queen consort their younger sister. They had not an opportunity to communicate their thoughts to each other on the preference the emperor had given her, but were altogether employed in preparing themselves for the celebration of their marriages. Some days afterwards, when they had an opportunity of seeing each other at the public baths, the eldest said to the other, "Well, what say you to our sister's great fortune? Is not she a fine person to be a queen!" "I must own," said the other sister, "I cannot conceive what charms the emperor could discover to be so bewitched by the young gipsy. Was it a reason sufficient for him not to cast his eyes on you, because she was somewhat younger? You were as worthy of his bed; and in justice he ought to have preferred you."

"Sister," said the elder, "I should not have regretted if his majesty had but pitched upon you; but that he should choose that hussy really grieves me. But I will revenge myself; and you, I think, are as much concerned as me; therefore I propose that we should contrive measures, and act in concert in a common cause: communicate to me what you think the likeliest way to mortify her, while I, on my side, will inform you what my desire of revenge shall suggest to me."

After this wicked agreement, the two sisters saw each other frequently, and consulted how they might disturb and interrupt the happiness of the queen. They proposed a great many ways, but in deliberating about the manner of executing them, found so many difficulties, that they durst not attempt them. In the mean time, they often went together to make her visits with a detestable dissimulation, and every time shewed her all the marks of affection they could devise, to persuade her how overjoyed they were to have a sister raised to so high a fortune. The queen, on her part, constantly received them with all the demonstrations of esteem they could expect: from a sister who was not puffed up with her high dignity, and loved them as cordially as before.

Some months after her marriage, the queen found herself to be with child. The emperor expressed great joy, which was communicated to all the court, and spread throughout the empire of Persia. Upon this news the two sisters came to pay their compliments, and proffered their service to deliver her, desiring her, if not provided with a midwife, to accept of them.

The queen said to them most obligingly, "Sisters, I should desire nothing more, if it was absolutely in my power to make the choice. I am however obliged to you for your good-will, but must submit to what the emperor shall order on this occasion. Let your husbands employ their friends to make interest, and get some courtier to ask this favour of his majesty; and if he speaks to me about it, be assured that I shall not only express the pleasure he does me, but thank him for making choice of you."

The two husbands applied themselves to some courtiers their patrons, and begged of them to use their interest to procure their wives the honour they aspired to. Those patrons exerted themselves so much in their behalf, that the emperor promised them to consider of the matter, and was as good as his word; for in conversation with the queen, he told her, that he thought her sisters were the most proper persons to assist her in her labour; but would not name them before he had asked her consent. The queen, sensible of the deference the emperor so obligingly paid her, said to him, "Sir, I was prepared to do as your majesty might please to command. But since you have been so kind as to think of my sisters, I thank you for the regard you have shewn them for my sake; and therefore I shall not dissemble, that I had rather have them than strangers."

The emperor named the queen's two sisters to be her midwives; and from that time they went frequently to the palace, overjoyed at the opportunity they should have of executing the detestable wickedness they had meditated against the queen.

When the queen's time was up she was safely delivered of a young prince, as bright as the day; but neither his innocence nor beauty could move the cruel hearts of the merciless sisters. They wrapped him up carelessly in his cloths, and put him into a basket, which they abandoned to the stream of a small canal, that ran under the queen's apartment, and declared that she was delivered of a little dead dog, which they produced. This disagreeable intelligence was announced to the emperor, who became so angry at the circumstance, that he was likely to have occasioned the queen's death, if his grand vizier had not represented to him, that he could not, without injustice, make her answerable for the caprices of nature.

In the mean time, the basket in which the little prince was exposed was carried by the stream beyond a wall, which bounded the prospect of the queen's apartment, and from thence floated with the current down the gardens. By chance the intendant of the emperor's gardens, one of the principal and most considerable officers of the kingdom, was walking in the garden by the side of this canal, and perceiving a basket floating, called to a gardener, who was not far off, to bring it to shore, that he might see what it contained. The gardener, with a rake which he had in his hand, drew the basket to the side of the canal, took it up, and gave it to him.

The intendant of the gardens was extremely surprised to see in the basket a child, which, though he knew it could be but just born, had very fine features. This officer had been married several years, but though he had always been desirous of having children, Heaven had never blessed him with any. This accident interrupted his walk: he made the gardener follow him with the child; and when he came to his own house, which was situated at the entrance into the gardens of the palace, went into his wife's apartment. "Wife," said he, "as we have no children of our own, God has sent us one. I recommend him to you; provide him a nurse, and take as much care of him as if he were our own son; for, from this moment, I acknowledge him as such." The intendant's wife received the child with great joy, and took particular pleasure in the care of him. The intendant himself would not inquire too narrowly whence the child came. He saw plainly it came not far off the queen's apartment; but it was not his business to examine too closely into what had passed, nor to create disturbances in a place where peace was so necessary.

The following year the queen consort was brought to bed of another prince, on whom the unnatural sisters had no more compassion than on his brother; but exposed him likewise in a basket, and set him adrift in the canal, pretending this time that the sultaness was delivered of a cat. It was happy also for this child that the intendant of the gardens was walking by the canal side, who had it carried to his wife, and charged her to take as much care of it as of the former; which was as agreeable to her inclination as it was to that of the intendant.

The emperor of Persia was more enraged this time against the queen than before, and she had felt the effects of his anger if the grand vizier's remonstrances had not prevailed.

The third time the queen lay in she was delivered of a princess, which innocent babe underwent the same fate as the princes her brothers; for the two sisters being determined not to desist from their detestable schemes, till they had seen the queen their younger sister at least cast off, turned out, and humbled, exposed this infant also on the canal. But the princess, as well as the two princes her brothers, was preserved from death by the compassion and charity of the intendant of the gardens.

To this inhumanity the two sisters added a lie and deceit as before. They produced a piece of wood, and affirmed it to be a false birth of which the queen had been delivered.

Khoosroo Shaw could no longer contain himself, when he was informed of the new extraordinary birth. "What!" said he; "this woman, unworthy of my bed, will fill my palace with monsters, if I let her live any longer! No, it shall not be; she is a monster herself, and I must rid the world of her." He pronounced sentence of death, and ordered the grand vizier to see it executed.

The grand vizier and the courtiers who were present cast themselves at the emperor's feet, to beg of him to revoke the sentence. "Your majesty, I hope, will give me leave," said the grand vizier, "to represent to you, that the laws which condemn persons to death were made to punish crimes; the three extraordinary labours of the queen are not crimes; for in what can she be said to have contributed towards them? Many other women have had, and have the same every day, and are to be pitied, but not punished. Your majesty may abstain from seeing her, but let her live. The affliction in which she will spend the rest of her life, after the loss of your favour, will be a punishment sufficiently distressing."

The emperor of Persia considered with himself, and reflecting that it was unjust to condemn the queen to death for what had happened, said, "Let her live then; I will spare her life; but it shall be on this condition, that she shall desire to die more than once every day. Let a wooden shed be built for her at the gate of the principal mosque, with iron bars to the windows, and let her be put into it, in the coarsest habit; and every Mussulmaun that shall go into the mosque to prayers shall spit in her face. If any one fail, I will have him exposed to the same punishment; and that I maybe punctually obeyed, I charge you, vizier, to appoint persons to see this done."

The emperor pronounced his sentence in such a tone that the grand vizier durst not further remonstrate; and it was executed, to the great satisfaction of the two envious sisters. A shed was built, and the queen, truly worthy of compassion, was put into it, and exposed ignominiously to the contempt of the people; which usage, as she did not deserve it, she bore with a patient resignation that excited the admiration as well as compassion of those who judged of things better than the vulgar.

The two princes and the princess were, in the mean time, nursed and brought up by the intendant of the gardens and his wife with all the tenderness of a father and mother; and as they advanced in age, they all shewed marks of superior dignity, but the princess in particular, which discovered itself every day by their docility and inclinations above trifles, different from those of common children, and by a certain air which could only belong to exalted birth. All this increased the affections of the intendant and his wife, who called the eldest prince Bahman, and the second Perviz, both of them names of the most ancient emperors of Persia, and the princess, Perie-zadeh, which name also had been borne by several queens and princesses of the kingdom.

As soon as the two princes were old enough, the intendant provided proper masters to teach them to read and write; and the princess their sister, who was often with them, shewing a great desire to learn, the intendant, pleased with her quickness, employed the same master to teach her also. Her emulation, vivacity, and piercing wit, made her in a little time as great a proficient as her brothers.

From that time the brothers and sister had the same masters in geography, poetry, history, and even the secret sciences; and made so wonderful a progress, that their tutors were amazed, and frankly owned that they could teach them no farther. At the hours of recreation, the princess learned to sing and play upon all sorts of instruments; and when the princes were learning to ride she would not permit them to have that advantage over her, but went through all the exercises with them, learning to ride also, to bend the bow, and dart the reed or javelin, and often-times outdid them in the race, and other contests of agility.

The intendant of the gardens was so overjoyed to find his adopted children so accomplished in all the perfections of body and mind, and that they so well requited the expense he had been at in their education, that he resolved to be at a still greater: for as he had till then been content only with his lodge at the entrance of the garden, and kept no country house, he purchased a country seat at a short distance from the city, surrounded by a large tract of arable land, meadows, and woods. As the house was not sufficiently handsome nor convenient, he pulled it down, and spared no expense in building a mansion more magnificent. He went every day to hasten, by his presence, the great number of workmen he employed; and as soon as there was an apartment ready to receive him, passed several days together there when his presence was not necessary at court; and by the same exertions, the interior was furnished in the richest manner, answerably to the magnificence of the edifice. Afterwards he made gardens, according to a plan drawn by himself. He took in a large extent of ground, which he walled round, and stocked with fallow deer, that the princes and princess might divert themselves with hunting when they chose.

When this country seat was finished and fit for habitation, the intendant of the gardens went and cast himself at the emperor's feet, and after representing how long he had served, and the infirmities of age which he found growing upon him, begged he would permit him to resign his charge into his majesty's disposal, and retire. The emperor gave him leave, with the more pleasure because he was satisfied with his long services, both in his father's reign and his own; and when he granted it, asked what he should do to recompense him? "Sir," replied the intendant of the gardens, "I have received so many obligations from your majesty and the late emperor your father of happy memory, that I desire no more than the honour of dying in your favour."

He took his leave of the emperor, and retired with the two princes and the princess to the country retreat he had built. His wife had been dead some years, and he himself had not lived above six months with them before he was surprised by so sudden a death, that he had not time to give them the least account of the manner in which he had discovered them.

The princes Bahman and Perviz, and the princess Perie-zadeh, who knew no other father than the intendant of the emperor's gardens, regretted and bewailed him as such, and paid all the honours in his funeral obsequies which love and filial gratitude required of them. Satisfied with the plentiful fortune he had left them, they lived together in perfect union, free from the ambition of distinguishing themselves at court, or aspiring to places of honour and dignity, which they might easily have obtained.

One day when the two princes were hunting, and the princess had remained at home, a religious old woman came to the gate, and desired leave to go in to say her prayers, it being then the hour. The servants asked the princess's permission, who ordered them to shew her into the oratory, which the intendant of the emperor's gardens had taken care to fit up in his house, for want of a mosque in the neighbourhood. She bade them also, after the good woman had finished her prayers, shew her the house and gardens, and then bring her to her.

The old woman went into the oratory, said her prayers, and when she came out two of the princess's women invited her to see the house and gardens; which civility she accepted, followed them from one apartment to another, and observed, like a person who understood what belonged to furniture, the nice arrangement of every thing. They conducted her also into the garden, the disposition of which she found so well planned, that she admired it, observing that the person who had formed it must have been an excellent master of his art. Afterwards she was brought before the princess, who waited for her in the great hall, which in beauty and richness exceeded all that she had admired in the other apartments.

As soon as the princess saw the devout woman, she said to her, "My good mother, come near and sit down by me. I am overjoyed at the happiness of having the opportunity of profiting for some moments by the good example and conversation of such a person as you, who have taken the right way by dedicating yourself to the service of God. I wish every one were as wise."

The devout woman, instead of sitting on a sofa, would only sit upon the edge of one. The princess would not permit her to do so, but rising from her seat,'and taking her by the hand, obliged her to come and sit by her. The good woman, sensible of the civility, said, "Madam, I ought not to have so much respect shewn me; but since you command, and are mistress of your own house, I will obey you." When she had seated herself, before they entered into any conversation, one of the princess's women brought a little low stand of mother of pearl and ebony, with a china dish full of cakes upon it, and many others set round it full of fruits in season, and wet and dry sweetmeats.

The princess took up one of the cakes, and presenting her with it, said, "Eat, good mother, and make choice of what you like best; you had need to eat after coming so far." "Madam," replied the good woman, "I am not used to eat such delicacies; but will not refuse what God has sent me by so liberal a hand as yours."

While the devout woman was eating, the princess ate a little too, to bear her company, and asked her many questions upon the exercise of devotion which she practised, and how she lived: all which she answered with great modesty. Talking of several things, at last she asked her what she thought of the house, and how she liked it.

"Madam," answered the devout woman, "I must certainly have very bad taste to disapprove any thing in it, since it is beautiful, regular, and magnificently furnished with exactness and judgment, and all its ornaments adjusted in the best manner. Its situation is an agreeable spot, and no garden can be more delightful; but yet if you will give me leave to speak my mind freely, I will take the liberty to tell you, that this house would be incomparable if it had three things which are wanting to complete it." "My good mother," replied the princess Perie-zadeh, "what are those? I conjure you, in God's name, to tell me what they are: I will spare nothing to get them, if it be possible."

"Madam," replied the devout woman, "the first of these three things is the speaking bird, so singular a creature, that it draws round it all the singing birds of the neighbourhood, which come to accompany his song. The second is the singing tree, the leaves of which are so many mouths, which form an harmonious concert of different voices, and never cease. The third is the yellow water of a gold colour, a single drop of which being poured into a vessel properly prepared, it increases so as to fill it immediately, and rises up in the middle like a fountain, which continually plays, and yet the basin never overflows."

"Ah! my good mother," cried the princess, "how much am I obliged to you for the knowledge of these curiosities! They are surprising, and I never before heard there were such wonderful rarities in the world; but as I am persuaded that you know, I expect that you should do me the favour to inform me where they are to be found."

"Madam," replied the good woman, "I should be unworthy the hospitality you have with so much goodness shewn me, if I should refuse to satisfy your curiosity in that point; and am glad to have the honour to tell you, that these curiosities are all to be met with in the same spot on the confines of this kingdom, towards India. The road to it lies before your house, and whoever you send needs but follow it for twenty days, and on the twentieth let him only ask the first person he meets where the speaking bird, singing tree, and yellow water are, and he will be informed." After saying this, she rose from her seat, took her leave, and went her way.

The princess Perie-zadeh's thoughts were so taken up with what the devout woman had told her of the speaking bird, singing tree, and yellow water, that she never perceived her departure, till she wanted to ask her some question for her better information; for she thought that what she had told her was not a sufficient reason for exposing herself by undertaking a long journey, possibly to no purpose. However, she would not send after her, but endeavoured to remember all she had told her; and when she thought she had recollected every word, took real pleasure in thinking of the satisfaction she should have if she could get these wonderful curiosities into her possession; but the difficulties she apprehended, and the fear of not succeeding, made her very uneasy.

She was absorbed in these thoughts when her brothers returned from hunting; who, when they entered the great hall, instead of finding her lively and gay, as she used to be be, were amazed to see her so pensive, and hanging down her head as if something troubled her.

"Sister," said prince Bahman, "what is become of all your mirth and gaiety? Are you not well? or has some misfortune befallen you? Has any body given you reason to be so melancholy? Tell us, that we may know how to act, and give you some relief. If any one has affronted you, we will resent his insolence."