After they were dead the prince said: "Minister, return to the country of Damas,
with a rag for your girdle, and during your last days change your conduct. If you
do not know it, I am the princess Djouher-Manikam, daughter of the Sultan of
Bagdad, wife of Chah Djouhou, my lord, and the sister of Minbah-Chahaz. God
has stricken your eyes with blindness on account of your crimes toward me. It is
the same with the cadi of the city of Bagdad."
The minister of Damas, seized with fear, trembled in all his limbs. He cast
himself at the feet of the princess Manikam, and thus prostrated he implored
pardon a thousand and a thousand times. Then he returned to Damas all in tears,
and overwhelmed with grief at the death of his three sons. The cadi, covered
with shame on account of his treachery to the Sultan of Bagdad, fled and
expatriated himself.
The King of Roum commanded them to bring the King Chah Djouhou and give
him a garment all sparkling with gold, and he sent him to dwell in the company
of his father-in-law, the Sultan of Bagdad, and his brother-in- law, the prince
Minbah-Chahaz.
Then the princess Djouher-Manikam retired. She entered the palace and returned
clad in the garments of a woman. She then went out, accompanied by ladies of
the court, and went to present herself to her father, the Sultan of Bagdad. She
bowed before her father, her brother the prince Minbah-Chahaz, and her
husband, the King Chah Djouhou. The princess said: "O all of you, lords and
warriors of the country of Roum, know that I am a woman, and not a man.
Behold my father, the Sultan Haroun-er-Raschid, King of Bagdad. Behold my
brother, whose name is Minbah-Chahaz; and behold my husband, the King Chah
Djouhou, who reigns over the country of Damas. From the time when you
placed me upon the throne of Roum, if I have committed any fault by error or by
ignorance, you must excuse me, for constantly the servants of God commit faults
by error or ignorance. It is only God alone who forgets not, nor neglects, and is
free from error or ignorance."
The grandees of the country of Roum said: "Never has your Majesty committed
the least fault, either by ignorance or by error, during the time you have reigned
over the country of Roum. Nevertheless, among the judgments just now
rendered there was a fault committed by your glorious Majesty. The minister
killed, the princess killed, both did it voluntarily. It was a fault of judgment for
the princess Djouher- Manikam to have killed the children of the minister, just as