to the king and produced the boy in his presence.  The king was very angry, and said, “All the wise men and dream interpreters of the court were unable to satisfy me, and thou bringest me a child, and expectest that he shall loose the knot of the difficulty.”  The vazir bowed his head.  And Buzurjmihr said, “Look not upon his youth, but see whether he is able to expound the mystery or not.”  The king then said, “Speak.”  He replied, “I cannot speak in this multitude.”  So those who were present retired, and the monarch and the youth were left alone.  Then said the youth, “A stranger has found entrance into thy seraglio, and is dishonouring thee, along with a girl who is one of thy concubines.”  The king was much moved at this interpretation, and looked from one of the wise men to another, and at length said to the boy, “This is a serious matter thou hast asserted; how shall this matter be proceeded in, and in what way fully known?” The boy replied, “Command that every beautiful woman in thy seraglio pass before thee unveiled, that the truth of this matter may be made apparent.”  The king ordered them to pass before him as the boy had said, and considered the face of each one attentively.  Among them came a young girl extremely beautiful, whom the king much regarded.  When she came opposite to him, a shuddering as of palsy, fell upon her, and she shook from head to foot, so that she was hardly able to stand.  The king called her to him, and threatening her greatly, bade her speak the truth.  She confessed that she loved a handsome slave and had privately introduced him into the seraglio.  The king ordered them both to be impaled, and turning to the rewarding of Buzurjmihr, he made him the object of his special bounty.

This story has been imported into the “History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome,” the European form of the Book of Sindibad, where the prince discovers to his father the paramour of his step-mother, the empress, in the person of a young man disguised as one of her maid-servants, and its presence in the work is quite inconsistent with the lady’s violent lust after the young prince.  There is a similar tale in the Hebrew version, “Mishle Sandabar,” but the disguised youth is not detected.  Vatsyayana, in his “Kama Sutra” (or Aphorisms of Love), speaks of it as a common practice in India thus to smuggle men into the women’s apartments in female attire.  In the Introduction to the “Katha Sarit Sagara,” Vararuchi relates how King Yogananda saw his queen leaning out of a window and asking questions of a Bahman guest that was looking up.  That trivial circumstance threw the king into a passion, and he gave orders that the Brahman should be put to death) for jealousy interferes with discernment.  Then as that Brahman was being led off to the place of execution in order that he should be put to death, a fish in the market laughed aloud, though it was dead.  The king hearing it immediately prohibited for the present the execution of the Brahman, and asked Vararuchi