8. Night 6

"Wake, Sister. Speak, please," called Dinarzad. "Finish your astonishing tale." On cue, like the best trained monkey, Scheherazade continued the tale of the fisherman and the jinni. But the king's morning question had nestled in her brain all day. How could it not? Twice during the day Shah Rayar had dropped by her chambers, that question always burning in his eyes.

on cue，经过提醒

So she used that very question to shape the next tale.

The fisherman knelt and performed his early evening prayers. His empty stomach clenched. His heart was heavy, for he knew his family waited at home hungrier than ever. Still, he wanted the jinni to understand why he couldn't set him free. Even a jinni deserved that small consideration.

clench，攥成一团

So he sat beside the jar that held the jinni and leaned against it. "Listen, jinni, to the tale of King Yunan and Sage Duban. Listen and understand."

KING YUNAN OF PERSIA HAD LEPROSY OF THE MOST VICIOUS SORT. He tried every cure to no avail. Indeed, he was sick and tired of drinking potions and smearing on ointments and submitting to poultices that were as ineffectual as mud.

leprosy，麻风病

poultice，药膏

ineffectual，无效的

One day a sage called Duban came to King Yunan's kingdom. Sage Duban was learned in wisdom from all the great civilizations: Byzantine — which was his own culture — but also Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Syriac, and, most important for medicinal cures, Arab. He promised to cure the king without any of those supposed remedies that had failed him in the past.

King Yunan liked this sage; he liked him very much.

So Sage Duban made a ball and mallet for polo. He hallowed the mallet and its handle, and filled them with drugs that he concocted himself. The next day he advised the king to mount his horse and play polo with that mallet. The idea was that as the king perspired, the drugs in the mallet would seep through the skin of his hands and spread inside his whole body. When he was thoroughly medicated, he should bathe — and just like that, he'd be cured.

polo，马球

It all happened just as Sage Duban promised. King Yunan was so delighted he invited Sage Duban to sit beside him in the place of honor in the royal hall. 

The king gave the sage wonderful flowing robes, one trimmed with red fox fur, the other fringed in ostrich feathers. He spent his day talking with the sage, laughing, sharing confidences. It was marvelous to have strong, smooth (敏感词) skin again. Looking in a mirror made King Yunan delirious. No one in the world was wiser than Sage Duban.

delirious，疯疯癫癫的，精神错乱的

All this attention to the sage, however, caused envy in the king's grand vizier. The vizier felt he'd been replaced. He fumed. So he went to the king and decried Sage Duban as an enemy, fixed on robbing the king. "Kill the perfidious sage. Now, before it's too late."

"The ugly snake head of envy has risen in you," said King Yunan. "Sage Duban is a treasured friend. Remember the story of King Sindbad? An envious man urged the king to kill his own son. But the king's vizier told him, 'Don't do what you will regret.' No truer words were ever uttered." King Yunan sighed. "You would have me make a terrible mistake. Just like in the tale of the jealous husband and the parrot."

"I don't know the story of the jealous husband and the parrot," said King Yunan's vizier. "Tell me, please."

Dawn broke and Scheherazade went silent. Her sister Dinarzad spoke her part. Scheherazade repeated her promise of better tales to come. And Shah Rayar agreed to all, as Scheherazade knew he would; this story promised injustice at the hand of humans, not jinn. Scheherazade had been clever enough to live yet one more day. Her fingers curled into fists.

She (敏感词) hid them inside her robe.

To be continued...

国王似乎慢慢适应了每天晚上的睡前故事了。

套路继续。