Dinarzade, willing to keep the sultan in ignorance of her design,
cried out as if she had started out of her sleep: O, dear sister, I
have had a troublesome dream, and nothing will sooner make me forget
it than the remainder of the story of the Grecian king and doctor
Douban. I conjure you by the love you always bore me, not to defer
it a moment longer. I shall not fail, good sister, to ease your
mind; and if my sovereign will permit me, I will go on. Schahriar,
being charmed with the agreeable manner of Scheherazade’s telling
her stories, says to her, You will oblige me no less than Dinarzade,
therefore continue. [2]
The Grecian king, says the fisherman to the genie, was not satisfied
with having admitted the physician Douban to his table, but towards
night, when he was about dismissing the company, he caused him to be
clad in a long rich robe, like those which his favourites usually
wore in his presence; and besides that he ordered him two thousand
sequins. The next day and the day following, he continued his favour
to him; in short, the prince, thinking that he could never enough
acknowledge the obligations he lay under to that able physician,
bestowed every day new favours upon him. But this king had a grand
vizier, who was avaricious, envious, and naturally capable of all
sort of mischief. He could not see, without envy, the presents that
were given to the physician, whose other merits had already began to
make him jealous, and therefore he resolved to lessen him in the
king’s esteem. To effect this, he went to the king, and told him
in private, that he had some advice to give him, which was of the
greatest concern. The king having asked what it was, Sir, said he,
it is very dangerous for a monarch to put confidence in a man whose
fidelity he never tried. Though you heap favours upon the physician
Douban, and show him all the familiarity that may be, your majesty
does not know but he may be a traitor, and come on purpose to this
court to kill you. From whom have you this, answered the king, that
you dare to tell it me? Consider to whom you speak, and that you
advance a thing which I shall not easily believe. Sir, replied the
vizier, I am very well informed of what I have had the honour to
represent to your majesty; therefore do not let your dangerous
confidence grow to a farther height: if your majesty be asleep, be
pleased to awake; for I once more repeat it, that the physician
Douban did not leave the heart of Greece, his native country, nor
come here to settle himself at your court, but to execute that
horrible design which I have just now hinted to you.
No, no, vizier, replies the king; I am certain that this man, whom
you treat as a villain, and a traitor, is one of the best and most
virtuous men in the world, and there is no man I love so much. You
know by what medicine, or rather by what miracle, he cured me of my
leprosy; if he had a design upon my life, why did he save me? He
needed only have left me to my disease; I could not have escaped it;
my life was already half gone. Forbear, then, to fill me with unjust
suspicions: instead of listening to you, I tell you, that from this
day forward I will give that great man a pension of a thousand
sequins per month for his life; nay, though I were to share with him
all my riches and dominions, I should never pay him enough for what
he has done for me: I perceive it to be his virtue which raises your
envy; but do not think that I will be unjustly possessed with
prejudice against him. I remember too well what a vizier said to
king Sinbad, his master, to prevent his putting to death the prince,
his son. But, sir, says Scheherazade, day light appears, which
forbids me to go any further.
I am very well pleased that the Grecian king, says Dinarzade, had so
much firmness of spirit, to reject the false accusation of the
vizier. If you commend the firmness of that prince to-day, says
Scheherazade, you will as much condemn his weakness to-morrow, if
the sultan be pleased to allow me time to finish this story. The
sultan, being curious to hear wherein the Grecian king discovered
his weakness, did further delay the death of the sultaness.