Hammam without eye seeing her.’  But I have looked upon her even as she is, for she raised her veil at the door and, when I viewed her favour and beheld that noble work of the Creator, a sore fit of ecstasy, O my mother, fell upon me for love of her and firm resolve to win her hath opened its way into every limb of me, nor is repose possible for me except I win her.  Wherefor I purpose asking her to wife from the Sultan her sire in lawful wedlock.”  When Alaeddin’s mother heard her son’s words, she belittled his wits and cried, “O my child, the name of Allah upon thee! meseemeth thou hast lost thy senses.  But be thou rightly guided, O my son, nor be thou as the men Jinn-maddened!” He replied, “Nay, O mother mine, I am not out of my mind nor am I of the maniacs; nor shall this thy saying alter one jot of what is in my thoughts, for rest is impossible to me until I shall have won the dearling of my heart’s core, the beautiful Lady Badr al-Budur.  And now I am resolved to ask her of her sire the Sultan.”  She rejoined, “O my son, by my life upon thee speak not such speech, lest any overhear thee and say thou be insane:  so cast away from thee such nonsense!  Who shall undertake a matter like this or make such request to the King?  Indeed, I know not how, supposing this thy speech to be soothfast, thou shalt manage to crave such grace of the Sultan or through whom thou desirest to propose it.”  He retorted, “Through whom shall I ask it, O my mother, when thou art present?  And who is there fonder and more faithful to me than thyself?  So my design is that thou thy self shalt proffer this my petition.”  Quoth she, “O my son, Allah remove me far therefrom!  What! have I lost my wits like thyself?  Cast the thought away and a long way from thy heart.  Remember whose son thou art, O my child, the orphan boy of a tailor, the poorest and meanest of the tailors toiling in this city; and I, thy mother, am also come of pauper folk and indigent.  How then durst thou ask to wife the daughter of the Sultan, whose sire would not deign marry her with the sons of the Kings and the Sovrans, except they were his peers in honour and grandeur and majesty; and, were they but one degree lower, he would refuse his daughter to them.”—­And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

      When it was the Five Hundred and Forty-second Night,

Quoth Dunyazad, “O sister mine, an thou be other than sleepy, do tell us some of thy pleasant tales,” whereupon Shahrazad replied, “With love and good will.”—­It hath reached me, O King of the Age, that Alaeddin took patience until his parent had said her say, when Quoth he, “O my mother, everything thou hast called to mind is known to me; moreover ’tis thoroughly well known to me that I am the child of pauper parents; withal do not these words of thee divert me from my design at all, at all Nor the less do I hope of thee, an I be thy son and thou truly love me, that thou grant