9- Princes Amgiad and Assad

The Story of the Princes Amgiad and Assad.

The two princes were brought up with great care; and, when they
were old enough, had the same governor, the same instructors in
the arts and sciences, and the same master for each exercise. The
affection which from their infancy they conceived for each other
occasioned an uniformity of manners and inclination, which
increased it. When they were of an age to have separate
households, they loved one another so tenderly, that they begged
the king to let them live together. He consented, and they had
the same domestics, the same equipages, the same apartment, and
the same table. Kummir al Zummaun had formed so good an opinion
of their capacity and integrity, that he made no scruple of
admitting them into his council at the age of eighteen, and
letting them, by turns, preside there, while he took the
diversion of hunting, or amused himself with his queens at his
houses of pleasure.

The princes being equally handsome, the two queens loved them
with incredible tenderness; but the princess Badoura had a
greater kindness for prince Assad, queen Haiatalnefous's son,
than for her own; and queen Haiatalnefous loved Amgiad, the
princess Badoura's son, better than her own son Assad.

The two queens thought at first this inclination was nothing but
a regard which proceeded from an excess of their own friendship
for each other, which they still preserved: but as the two
princes advanced in years, that friendship grew into a violent
love, when they appeared in their eyes to possess graces that
blinded their reason. They knew how criminal their passion was,
and did all they could to resist it; but the familiar intercourse
with them, and the habit of admiring, praising, and caressing
them from their infancy, which they could not restrain when they
grew up, inflamed their desires to such a height as to overcome
their reason and virtue. It was their and the princes' ill-
fortune, that the latter being used to be so treated by them, had
not the least suspicion of their infamous passion.

The two queens had not concealed from each other this passion,
but had not the boldness to declare it to the princes they loved;
they at last resolved to do it by a letter, and to execute their
wicked design, availed themselves of the king's absence, when he
was gone on a hunting party for three or four days.

Prince Amgiad presided at the council on the day of his father's
departure, and administered justice till two or three o'clock in
the afternoon. As he returned to the palace from the council-
chamber, an eunuch took him aside, and gave him a letter from
queen Haiatalnefous. Amgiad took it, and read it with horror.
"Traitor," said he, to the