There was once, long ago and in ages and times long gone before, a King of the kings of the Persians, who was much addicted to the love of fair women. His courtiers told him of the wife of a certain of his Chamberlains, a model of beauty and loveliness and perfect grace, and this egged him on to visit her. When she saw him, she recognised him and said to him, "What urges the King to this?" and he replied, saying, "Truly, I long for you with excess of longing and there is no help but that I enjoy your favours." And he gave her wealth such as women lust after; but she said, "I cannot do the deed whereof the king speaks, for fear of my husband;" and she refused herself to him with the most rigorous of refusals and would not allow him to win his wish. So the king went out in wrath, and forgot his girdle in the place. Now it chanced that her husband entered immediately after his lord had departed, and saw the girdle and recognised it. He was aware of the king's love for women; so he said to his wife, "What is this I see with you?"

She said, "I'll tell you the truth," and recounted to him what had occurred; but he believed her not and suspicion entered his heart. As for the King, he passed that night in care and concern, and when morning came, he summoned that Chamberlain and made him governor of one of his provinces; then he bade him betake himself there, purposing, after he should have departed and gone far away, to visit his wife. The Chamberlain perceived his project and understood his intent; so he answered, saying, "I hear and I obey!" Then he added, "I will go and order my affairs and give the necessary injunctions for the well-doing of my business; then will I undertake the Sovereign's commission." The King said, "Do this and make haste." So the Chamberlain arranged that which was necessary and, assembling his wife's kinsfolk, said to them, "I am determined to dismiss my wife." They took this ill of him and complained against him, summoning him before the Sovereign and prosecuting him. Now the King had no knowledge of what had passed; so he said to the Chamberlain, "Why will you put her away and how can your soul consent to this? Why take yourself a fine and fertile piece of land and presently abandon it?" The husband answered, "Allah amend the king! By the Almighty, O my King, I saw within it the mark of the lion and fear to enter that land, lest the lion devour me; and the like of my affair with her is that which befell between the Crone and the Draper's Wife." The king asked, "What is their adventure?" and the Chamberlain answered, "Hear, O king,