The news of the sultan’s return being spread, the courtiers came betimes in the morning before his pavilion to wait his pleasure.  He ordered them to enter, received them with a more pleasant air than he had formerly done, and gave each of them a present.  After which, he told them he would go no farther, ordered them to take horse, and returned with expedition to his palace.

As soon as he arrived, he proceeded to the sultaness’s apartment, commanded her to be bound before him, and delivered her to his grand vizier, with an order to strangle her, which was accordingly executed by that minister, without inquiring into her crime.  The enraged prince did not stop here, but cut off the heads of all the sultaness’s ladies with his own hand.  After this rigorous punishment, being persuaded that no woman was chaste, he resolved, in order to prevent the disloyalty of such as he should afterwards marry, to wed one every night, and have her strangled next morning.  Having imposed this cruel law upon himself, he swore that he would put it in force immediately after the departure of the king of Tartary, who shortly took leave of him, and being laden with magnificent presents, set forward on his journey.

Shaw-zummaun having departed, Shier-ear ordered his grand vizier to bring him the daughter of one of his generals.  The vizier obeyed.  The sultan lay with her, and putting her next morning into his hands again in order to have her strangled, commanded him to provide him another the next night.  Whatever reluctance the vizier might feel to put such orders in execution, as he owed blind obedience to the sultan his master, he was forced to submit.  He brought him then the daughter of a subaltern, whom he also put to death the next day.  After her he brought a citizen’s daughter; and, in a word, there was every day a maid married, and a wife murdered.

The rumour of this unparalleled barbarity occasioned a general consternation in the city, where there was nothing but crying and lamentation.  Here, a father in tears, and inconsolable for the loss of his daughter; and there, tender mothers dreating lest their daughters should share the same fate, filling the air with cries of distress and apprehension.  So that, instead of the commendation and blessings which the sultan had hitherto received from his subjects, their mouths were now filled with imprecations.

The grand vizier who, as has been already observed, was the unwilling executioner of this horrid course of injustice, had two daughters, the elder called Scheherazade, and the younger Dinarzade.  The latter was highly accomplished; but the former possessed courage, wit, and penetration, infinitely above her sex.  She had read much, and had so admirable a memory, that she never forgot any thing she had read.  She had successfully applied herself to philosophy, medicine, history, and the liberal arts; and her poetry excelled the compositions of the best writers of her time.  Besides this, she was a perfect beauty, and all her accomplishments were crowned by solid virtue.