Aladdin’s mother came to the foot of the throne and prostrated herself as usual, and when she rose up again, the sultan asked her what she would have. “Sir,” said she, “I come to represent to your majesty, in the name of my son, Aladdin, that the three months, at the end of which you ordered me to come again, are expired; and to beg you to remember your promise.”
The sultan, when he took his time to answer the request of this good woman, the first time he saw her, little thought of hearing any more of a marriage which he imagined must be very disagreeable to the princess, when he only considered the meanness and poverty of Aladdin’s mother in her dress, not above the common run; but this summons for him to be as good as his word was somewhat embarrassing to him; he declined giving an answer till he had consulted his vizier, and signified to him the little inclination he had to conclude a match for his daughter with a stranger whose fortune he supposed to be very mean indeed.
The grand vizier freely told the sultan his thoughts on the matter, and said to him, “In my opinion, sir, there is an infallible way for your majesty to avoid a match so disproportionable, without giving Aladdin, were he better known to your majesty, any cause of complaint; which is, to set so high a value upon the princess, that were he never so rich, he could not come up to it. This is the only way to make him desist from so bold, not to say rash, an undertaking, which he never weighed before he engaged in it.”
The sultan, approving of the grand vizier’s advice, turned about to Aladdin’s mother, and after some reflection, said to her, “Good woman, it is true sultans ought to be as good as their words, and I am ready to keep mine, by making your son happy by the marriage of the princess, my daughter. But as I cannot marry her without some valuable consideration from your son, you may tell him, I will fulfil my promise as soon as he shall send me forty basins of massy gold, brimful of the same things you have already made me a present of, and carried by the like number of black slaves, who shall be led by as many young and handsome well-made white slaves, all dressed magnificently. On these conditions, I am ready to bestow the princess, my daughter, on him; therefore, good woman, go and tell him so, and I will wait till you bring me his answer.”