this is a sore injury to some.  In the present case do thou send for the man who is wronged and let bring him to thy presence and bid his wife be also present and do him justice of her.”  After this she removed her husband from the Maristan and went her ways, and the Kazi did with the man as his lady had charged him do and whenever a plaintiff came before him with a grievance against his wife he would decide that the man was the wronged and the woman was the wronger, and he ceased not doing after this fashion for a while of time.  And now (quoth Shahrazad) I will relate to you another history of womankind and this is the tale of

The merchant’s daughter and the prince
of al-irak.[FN#497]

Whilome there was, men say, a Khwajah, a merchant man who was lord of money and means and estates and endowments and appanages, withal he had no seed, or son or daughter, and therefore he sued Almighty Allah that he might be blessed with even a girl-child to inherit his good and keep it together.  Suddenly he heard a Voice bespeak him in dreamery saying, “Ho Such-an-one, Predestination overcometh Prudence and resignation to the trials sent by Allah is foremost and fairest.”  Hearing this he arose without stay or delay and casually[FN#498] slept with his wife who, by decree of the Decreer and by allowance of Allah Almighty, conceived that very night.  When she became pregnant and the signs of gestation showed in her, the merchant rejoiced and distributed and doled and did alms-deed; and, as soon as her tale of days was fulfilled, there befel her what befalleth womankind of labour-pangs, and parturition came with its madding pains and the dolours of delivery, after which she brought forth a girl-babe moulded in mould of beauty and loveliness and showing promise of brilliance and stature and symmetric grace.  Now on the night after the birth and when it was the middle thereof, the Merchant was sitting at converse beside his wife and suddenly he again heard the Voice announcing to him that his daughter was fated to become a mother in illicit guise by the son of a King who reigned in the region Al-Irak.  He turned him towards the sound but could see no man at such time, and presently he reflected that between his city and the capital of the King’s son in Al-Irak was a distance of six months and a moiety.  Now the night wherein the Merchant’s wife became a mother was the same when the King’s wife of Al-Irak bare a boy-heir, and the Merchant, albe he wist naught thereof, was seized with trembling and terror at the words of the Voice and said in himself, “How shall my daughter forgather with the King’s son in question when between us and him is a travel of six months and a half?  What can be such case?  But haply this Voice is of a Satan!” As soon as it was morning-tide the father summoned astrologers and men who compute horoscopes and scribes who cast lots,[FN#499] and when they presented themselves he informed them