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Burton, Richard Francis

"The Arabian Nights"

Now when evening evened, Aladdin
returned from the chase and met his wife, who salaamed to him, and
he clasped her to his bosom and kissed her. Presently, looking at
her face, he saw thereon a shade of sadness, and he noted that,
contrary to her custom, she did not laugh, so he asked her: "What hath
betided thee, O my dearling? Tell me, hath aught happened to trouble
thy thoughts?" "Nothing whatever," answered she. "But, O my beloved, I
fancied that our pavilion lacked naught at all. However, O eyes of me,
O Aladdin, were the dome of the upper story hung with an egg of the
fowl called roc, there would be naught like it in the universe." Her
husband rejoined: "And for this trifle thou art saddened, when 'tis
the easiest of all matters to me! So cheer thyself, and whatever
thou wantest, 'tis enough thou inform me thereof, and I will bring
it from the abysses of the earth in the quickest time and at the
earliest hour."
Aladdin, after refreshing the spirits of his Princess by promising
her all she could desire, repaired straightway to his chamber and
taking the lamp, rubbed it, when the Marid appeared without let or
delay saying, "Ask whatso thou wantest.


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