Pagina 367 de 1116

Then he asked his daughter, "Whence knewest thou that he is

ensorcelled?"; and she answered, "O my dear papa, there was with

me in my childhood an old woman, a wily one and a wise and a

witch to boot, and she taught me the theory of magic and its

practice; and I took notes in writing and therein waxed perfect,

and have committed to memory an hundred and seventy chapters of

egromantic formulas, by the least of which I could transport the

stones of thy city behind the Mountain Kaf and the Circumambient

Main,[FN#249] or make its site an abyss of the sea and its people

fishes swimming in the midst of it." "O my daughter," said her

father, "I conjure thee, by my life, disenchant this young man,

that I may make him my Wazir and marry thee to him, for indeed he

is an ingenious youth and a deeply learned." "With joy and goodly

gree," she replied and, hending in hand an iron knife whereon was

inscribed the name of Allah in Hebrew characters, she described a

wide circle-And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased

saying her permitted say.