LETTER XXI. Usbek, to the chief White Eunuch.

WHEN you open this letter you ought to tremble; or rather you ought to have done so when you permitted the treachery of Nadir. You who, in a cold languishing old age, may not guiltless raise your eyes to the dreadful objects of my love; you, to whom it is never allowed to put your sacrilegious foot over the threshold of the tremendous place which conceals them from the view of every human eye; you suffer those whose conduct is intrusted to your care to do what you have not boldness enough to do yourself; and are you not sensible of the thunder just ready to break on you and them? And what are you but vile instruments which I can destroy according to my humour, who exist only as long as you obey; who were born only to live under my laws, or to die at my pleasure; who do not breathe longer than my happiness, my love, and even my jealousy, have need of your servility; in short, who have no other portion but submission, no other will but my pleasure, and no hope but my happiness. Some of my wives, I know, bear with impatience the strict laws of duty; the continual presence of a black Eunuch disgusts them; they are tired with those frightful objects which are appointed to confine their affections to their husband; all this I know. But you, who have taken part in this irregularity, you shall be punished in such a manner as to make all those who have abused my confidence tremble. By all the prophets in heaven, and by Hali, the greatest of them all, I swear, that if you swerve from your duty, I will regard your life but as the life of those infects which I crush under my feet.

Smyrna, the 2d of the moon Zilcade,
1711.