So he went to her
forthright and said to her, 'O my daughter, what ails thee?' 'O
my father,' answered she, 'where is the young man that lay with
me last night?' Then her reason left her and she cast her eyes
right and left and rent her dress even to the skirt. When the
King saw this, he bade the women lay hands on her; so they seized
and bound her, then putting a chain of iron about her neck, made
her fast to the window and there left her. As for her father,
the world was straitened upon him, when he saw what had befallen
her, for that he loved her and her case was not a little thing to
him. So he summoned the doctors and astrologers and magicians
and said to them, 'Whoso cureth my daughter of her disorder, I
will marry him to her and give him half my kingdom; but whoso
cometh to her and cureth her not, I will strike off his head and
hang it over her palace-gate.' Accordingly, all who went in to
her, but failed to cure her, he beheaded and hung their heads
over her palace-gate, till he had beheaded forty physicians and
crucified as many astrologers on her account; wherefore all the
folk held aloof from her, for all the physicians failed to cure
her malady and her case was a puzzle to the men of science and
the magicians.
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