is wide; and know, O my lords, that it paineth me to part from you.”  At this, they all fell a-weeping; then the two youths put off their clothes and the treasurer habited them with his own.  Moreover he made two parcels of their dress and, filling two vials with the lion’s blood, set the parcels before him on his horse’s back.  Presently he took leave of them and, making his way to the city, ceased not faring till he went in to King Kamar al-Zaman and kissed the ground between his hands.  The King saw him changed in face and troubled (which arose from his adventure with the lion) and, deeming this came of the slaughter of his two sons, rejoiced and said to him, “Hast thou done the work?” “Yes, O our lord,” replied the treasurer and gave him the two parcels of clothes and the two vials full of blood.  Asked the King, “What didst thou observe in them; and did they give thee any charge?” Answered the treasurer, “I found them patient and resigned to what came down upon them and they said to me, ’Verily, our father is excusable; bear him our salutation and say to him, ’Thou art quit of our killing.  But we charge thee repeat to him these couplets,

’Verily women are devils created for us.  We seek refuge with God from the artifice of the devils.  They are the source of all the misfortunes that have appeared among mankind in the affairs of the world and of religion.’’’[FN#373]

When the King heard these words of the treasurer, he bowed his head earthwards, a long while and knew his sons’ words to mean that they had been wrongfully put to death.  Then he bethought himself of the perfidy of women and the calamities brought about by them; and he took the two parcels and opened them and fell to turning over his sons’ clothes and weeping,—­And Shahrazed perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

      When it was the Two Hundred and Twenty-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when King Kamar la-Zaman opened the two bundles and fell to turning over his sons’ clothes and weeping, it so came to pass that he found, in the pocket of his son As’ad’s raiment, a letter in the hand of his wife enclosing her hair strings; so he opened and read it and understanding the contents knew that the Prince had been falsely accused and wrongously.  Then he searched Amjad’s parcel of dress and found in his pocket a letter in the handwriting of Queen Hayat al-Nufus enclosing also her hair-strings; so he opened and read it and knew that Amjad too had been wronged; whereupon he beat hand upon hand and exclaimed, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great!  I have slain my sons unjustly.”  And he buffeted his face, crying out, “Alas, my sons!  Alas, my long grief!” Then he bade them build two tombs in one house, which he styled “House of Lamentations,” and had graved thereon his sons’ names; and he threw himself on Amjad’s tomb, weeping and groaning and lamenting, and improvised these couplets,