Notable Characters
- King Shahrayar
- King Shahzaman
- King Shahrayar’s vizier
- Shahrazad, the elder daughter of the vizier
- Diinarzad, the younger daughter of the vizier
Plot Summary
King Shahzaman discovers that his wife has been cheating on him, so he killed her and decides to visit his brother to hopefully cheer himself up. He finally feels better about his own plight after discovering that King Shahrayar’s wife and entire harem of concubines has been having an on-going affair with slaves in the courtyard.
Once Shahrayar sees what his wife and slaves do when they believe he is not around, he and his brother decide to travel until they find someone whose trouble with women is worse than theirs.
They come across a demon who keeps a woman locked inside a box unless he lays down to sleep with his head in her lap. The woman notices the kings hiding up in the tree and tells them to come down and join her. They refuse at first, but she threatens to wake the demon and have them killed if they do not come down from the tree and have sex with her. She tells them about the 98 other rings she has from men she has had sex with while the demon slept, and the kings realized the demon had it worse than they did.
Upon returning to his kingdom, Shahrayar has his wife killed, then he kills his concubines and replaces them with others. He vows to marry a woman for one night and kill her the following morning before she can betray him. He marries a new woman each night until the kingdom starts running out of options for him.
The vizier’s elder daughter, Shahrazad, is well-educated and clever. She decides to volunteer to marry Shahrayar because she believes she knows a way to keep him interested enough that he will continue to spare her life.
Her father, the vizier, is obviously distraught to hear this plan of hers, so he tries to talk her out of it by sharing two tales: The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey, and The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife.
Neither of these tales convince Shahrazad to change her mind, and she marries Shahrayar. Her plan begins by having her sister, Dinarzad, fetched so she can say goodbye. Dinarzad has been coached by her sister to ask for a story, which Shahrazad provides. She ends the night before ending the story, prompting Shahrayar to spare her life to her the rest of the story the next night. This continues night after night, building the premise for The Arabian Nights.
The World of the Arabian Nights 