The sultan, astonished at this discourse, turned towards me, and spoke no more by signs, but, in plain words, asked me, if it was true what his daughter said?  Seeing I could not speak, I put my hand to my head to signify that what the princess spoke was true.  Upon this the sultan said again to his daughter, How do you know that this prince has been transformed by enchantment into an ape?  Sir, replied the lady of beauty, your majesty may remember that when I was past my infancy, I had an old lady that waited upon me; she was a most expert magician, and taught me seventy rules of magic, by virtue of which I can transport your capital city into the midst of the sea, in the twinkling of an eye, or beyond mount Caucasus.  By this science I know all enchanted persons at first sight.  I know who they are, and by whom they have been enchanted:  therefore do not admire if I forthwith relieve this prince, in spite of enchantments, from that which hinders him to appear in your sight what he naturally is.  Daughter, said the sultan, I did not believe you to have understood so much.  Sir, replies the princess, these things are curious, and worth knowing; but I think I ought not to boast of them.  Since it is so, said the sultan, you can dispel the prince’s enchantment.  Yes, sir, said the princess, I can restore him to his first shape again.  Do it then, said the sultan, you cannot do me a greater pleasure; for I will have him to be my vizier, and he shall marry you.  Sir, said the princess, I am ready to obey you in all that you shall be pleased to command me.

The princess, the lady of beauty, went into her apartment, from whence she brought in a knife which had some Hebrew words engraved on the blade:  She made us all, viz. the sultan, the master of the eunuchs, the little slave, and myself, to go down into a private court adjoining to the palace, and there left us under a gallery that went round it.  She placed herself in the middle of the court, where she made a great circle, and within it she wrote several words in Arabian characters, some of them ancient, and others of those which they call the character of Cleopatra.

When she had finished and prepared the circle as she thought fit, she placed herself in the centre of it, where she began adjurations, and repeated verses out of the alcoran.  The air grew insensibly dark, as if it had been night, and the whole world about to be dissolved.  We found ourselves struck with a panic fear, and this fear increased the more, when we saw the genie, the son of the daughter of Eblis, appear all of a sudden in the shape of a lion of a frightful size.