THE HISTORY
OF PRINCE AMGIAD, AND OF PRINCE ASSAD.
These two princes were brought up with great care. And when they were of a proper age, they had each the same governor, and the same masters in all those sciences and branches of the polite arts which king Camaralzaman wished them to be skilled in. The same person also taught them both the same personal exercises. The great regard they showed for each other, even from their infancy, produced a certain uniformity in all their thoughts and actions, which in itself tended still to augment their friendship.
When they were far enough advanced in years for each of them to have a separate house and establishment, they were so strongly attached to each other, that they requested their father to suffer them to have but one between them. They obtained their wishes; and in this manner they had the same officers appointed for each, the same attendants, the same equipage, the same apartment, and the same table. Camaralzaman indeed insensibly placed so implicit a confidence both in their ability and their ideas of rectitude, that, when they were about nineteen years old, he did not hesitate to appoint them alternately to preside at the council, whenever he was for a few days engaged in hunting.
As these two princes were of equal beauty, both in face and person, and had always been esteemed so from their infancy, the two queens felt an almost incredible attachment to them; yet it nevertheless happened, that the princess Badoura had a greater affection for Assad, the son of queen Haiatalnefous, than she had for Amgiad, her own son: and in the same manner queen Haiatalnefous was much fonder of Amgiad than she was of her own son Assad.
The queens each thought at first that this affection only proceeded from the great friendship they had for each other. But as the princes advanced in age, this regard, which commenced in friendship, changed to a more tender feeling, and at length became the most violent love. The princes, indeed, appeared in their eyes possessed of so many accomplishments, that they were absolutely blinded and led away by their charms. All the infamy of their passion was well known to them, and they made the greatest efforts to resist it: but the freedom and familiarity with which they saw the princes every day, and the continued habit they always had of admiring them from their earliest infancy, of praising them, and of caressing them, which it was scarcely in their power to break themselves of, inflamed their passions to such a degree, that they could get no rest, and lost all their appetite. To heighten their misfortune, as well as that of the princes, the latter had not, so much were they ever accustomed to their manners, the slightest suspicion of this hateful and horrid attachment.
As the two queens had not entrusted each other with the secret of their passion, and as neither of them had the audacity openly to make a declaration of it in person to the prince whom she loved, they both agreed, though unknown to each other, to explain it by letter. And in order to execute this fatal design, they took advantage of the absence of king Camaralzaman, who was gone for a few days on a hunting party.
The day after the king’s departure, prince Amgiad presided at the council, and was employed two or three hours in the afternoon in hearing complaints and administering justice. As he came out from the council, and was going back to the palace, an eunuch took him aside, and gave him a letter from queen Haiatalnefous. Amgiad immediately opened it, and read its contents with the greatest degree of horror. “What,” cried he to the eunuch, the moment he had perused it, and drawing his sabre, “is this the fidelity you owe to your king and master?” And, in saying this, he struck off his head.
He had no sooner done this, than Amgiad went in the greatest possible rage to find his mother, queen Badoura, and with an air that plainly showed his anger, held out the letter to her, and informed her of the contents; first telling her from whom it came. Instead, however, of listening to him, the queen herself began to be angry. “Be assured, my son,” she replied, “that what you tell me is nothing but a calumnious falsehood. Queen Haiatalnefous is both prudent and wise, and indeed I consider it a great act of boldness in you to speak against her with so much insolence.” To this speech of the queen, the prince said, “You are both equally wicked, and were it not for the respect I owe to the king, my father, this day should be the last which Haiatalnefous has to live.”
From the manner in which prince Amgiad conducted himself, queen Badoura might easily judge what she had to expect from prince Assad, who was equally virtuous, and who would not, therefore, receive the similar declaration more favorably, which she intended to make to him. This, however, did not prevent her from pursuing her detestable plan; the next day, therefore, she wrote a letter to him, which she entrusted to an old woman, who had free admission into the palace.