Scheherazade, having awaked upon her sister's call, prepared to
give the satisfaction she required, and began thus:
The king, half marble half man, continued his history to the
sultan thus: After this cruel magician, unworthy of the name of a
queen, had metamorphosed me thus, and brought me into this hall
by another enchantment, she destroyed my capital, which was very
flourishing and full of people; she abolished the houses, the
public places, and markets, and made a pond and desert field of
it, which you may have seen; the fishes of four colours in the
pond are the four sorts of people, of different religions, that
inhabited the place. The white are the Mussulmen; the red, the
Persians, who worshipped the fire; the blue, the Christians; and
the yellow, the Jews. The four little hills were the four islands
that gave name to this kingdom. I learned all this from the
magician, who, to add to my affliction, told me with her own
mouth these effects of her rage. But this is not all; her revenge
was not satisfied with the destruction of my dominions, and the
metamorphosis of my person; she comes every day, and gives me,
over my naked shoulders, an hundred blows with ox pizzles, which
makes me all over blood; and, when she has done so, covers me
with a coarse stuff of goats hair, and throws over it this robe
of brocade that you see, not to do me honour, but to mock me.
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