Page 71 - Bulbul Hezar
P. 71
She gave birth to a prince; her two sisters enfolded
him in swaddling clothes, placed him in a basket and
left him on a stream which ran by the garden, and
picked up a small dog, which they pretended had been
given birth to by the queen. The Sultan, greatly
angered, wanted to punish the Sultana. The Grand
Visier and the other ministers persuaded him not to.
The child in the basket was found by the Sultan’s
Groundskeeper, who was childless. He brought him up
and nourished him, thinking that he had been
abandoned by one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting or
by one of the Sultan’s favorites. The Sultana gave birth
to another child. Her two jealous sisters swapped him
with a cat and abandoned the little prince as they
____
71
