Page 87 - Bulbul Hezar

them? A great many other women have done, and do the
same every day, and are to be pitied, but not punished. Your

majesty may abstain from seeing her, and let her live: The
affliction in which she will spend the rest of her life, after the
loss of your favour, will be a punishment great enough.
The sultan of Persia considered with himself, and found that
it was injustice in him to condemn the sultaness to death,
and said, Let her live then; I will give her life; but it shall be
on this condition, that she shall desire to die more than once

a-day. Let a place be built for her at the gate of the principal
mosque, with iron bars to the windows, and let her be put
into it, in the coarsest habit; and every mussulman that shall
go into the mosque to prayers shall spit in her face: If any
one fail, I will have him exposed to the same punishment;
and that I may be punctually obeyed, I charge you, visier, to
appoint persons to see this done.
The sultan pronounced this last sentence in a tone of so
much resolution, that the grand visier durst not open his

mouth; and it was executed, to the great satisfaction of the
two envious sisters. A cage or lodge was built, and the
sultaness, truly worthy of compassion, as soon as her month
was up, was put into it, and exposed ignominiously to the
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