天方夜谭英文故事：The Clever Woman

Once upon a time there lived a king. His name was Shahryar. He and his brother Shazaman got married to two evil sisters incidentally. When days passed Shahzaman's wife cast an evil spell on his husband. So he died of a bad disease. 

 

The news reached the king Shahryar. He felt sorry for his brother Shahzaman. So he ordered his brother's wife to be put to death as a punishment. Just then some holy men came there to see the king and the princess. 

 

But the queen humiliated¹ them and punished them. When he heard the news he ordered to execute his wife also. He decided² to take revenge on women. So he took an oath himself to marry everyday a girl and kill her the next day itself. 

 

From the next day onwards, he married a woman and the next day morning he killed her for some reason. As days passed he continued his oath. So all the women were killed except one. She was one of his minister's daughters. Her name was Shahitha Banu. She was very clever and a good storyteller. 

 

The particular day came for her marriage. As she was intelligent, she worked out a plan in her mind. After the wedding was over both the king and Shahitha Banu were in their room. She asked the king to permit her to tell him a very interesting story to entertain him. The king allowed her to tell the Story. 

 

As she planned before she started to tell the story, “Long long ago there was a king XXXXX. He had his son XXXXX….." 

 

The story I continued till late night and till the morning. But the story did not come to an end. Banu stopped for a while and said, “Now it is morning you have court work in the day. So I will continue the story today night". 

 

The king should have killed the queen in the morning. But he wanted to know the continuation of the story as it was very interesting. So he postponed³ killing⁴ her. 

 

The next day night also the queen began to tell the story, but she extended the story endlessly. The story continued for several months. As days passed the king became very fond of the queen. So the King decided not to kill her. She had won his heart by her clever stories. 

 

The intelligent queen won the king’s heart and made him realize that all women were not wicked. They lived long and ruled their country long.  

1 humiliated   

感到羞愧的

参考例句：

• Parents are humiliated if their children behave badly when guests are present. 子女在客人面前举止失当，父母也失体面。
• He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated. 他感到羞耻，丢尽了面子。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 postponed   

vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发）

参考例句：

• The trial was postponed indefinitely. 审讯无限期延迟。
• The game has already been postponed three times. 这场比赛已经三度延期了。

4 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。