y is this that thou hast perpetrated?"
The youth replied: "That queen is my mother, and I am her true son.
Because of her natural delicacy, she said not to the king that she had a
son by another husband. And when yearning came over her, she contrived
to bring me here from Rome; and while the king was engaged in the chase
maternal love stirred, and she called me to her and embraced me." On
hearing this, the chamberlain said to himself: "What is passing in his
mother's breast? What I have not done I can yet do, and it were better
that I preserve this youth some days, for such a rose may not be wounded
through idle words, and such a bough may not be broken by a single
breath. For some day the truth of this matter will be disclosed, and it
will become known to the king, when repentance may be of no avail."
Another day he went before the king, and said: "That which was commanded
have I fulfilled." On hearing this the king's wrath was to some extent
removed, but his trust in the kaysar's daughter was departed; while she,
poor creature, was grieved and dazed at the loss of her son.

Now in the palace harem there was an old woman, who said to the queen:
"How is it that I find thee sorrowful?" And the queen told the whole
story, concealing nothing. The old woman was a heroine in the field of
craft, and she answered: "Keep thy mind at ease: I will devise a
stratagem by which the heart of the king will be pleased with thee, and
every grief he has will vanish from his heart." The queen said, that if
she did so she should be amply rewarded. One day the old woman, seeing
the king alone, said to him: "Why is thy former aspect altered, and why
are traces of care and anxiety visible on thy countenance?" The king
then told her all. The old woman said: "I have an amulet of the charms
of Solomon, in the Syriac language, in the the writing of the jinn
[genii]. When the queen is asleep do thou place it on her breast, and,
whatever it may be, she will tell all the truth of it. But take care,
fall thou not asleep, but listen well to what she says." The king
wondered at this, and said: "Give me that amulet, that the truth of this
matter may be learned." So the old woman gave him the amulet, and then
went to the queen and explained what she had done, and said: "Do thou
feign to be asleep, and relate the whole of the story faithfully."

When a watch of the night was past, the king laid the amulet upon his
wife's breast, and she thus began: "By a