nothing
could resist."

=Scheherazade= [_Sha.ha'.ra.zah'.de_], the hypothetical relater of the
stories in the _Arabian Nights_. She was the elder daughter of the
vizier of Persia. The sultan, Schahriah, exasperated at the infidelity
of his wife, came to the hasty conclusion that no woman could be
faithful; so he determined to marry a new wife every night, and strangle
her at daybreak. Scheheraz[=a]d[^e], wishing to free Persia of this
disgrace, requested to be made the sultan's wife, and succeeded in her
wish. She was young and beautiful, of great courage and ready wit, well
read, and an excellent memory, knew history, philosophy, and medicine,
was besides a good poet, musician, and dancer. Scheherazad[^e] obtained
permission of the sultan for her younger sister, Dinarzad[^e], to sleep in
the same chamber, and instructed her to say, one hour before daybreak,
"Sister, relate to me one of those delightful stories which you know, as
this will be the last time." Scheherazad[^e] then told the sultan (under
pretence of speaking to her sister) a story, but always contrived to
break off before the story was finished. The sultan, in order to hear
the end of the story, spared her life till the next night. This went on
for a thousand and one nights, when the sultan's resentment was worn
out, and his admiration of his sultana was so great that he revoked his
decree.--_Arabian Nights' Entertainments._ (See MORADBAK.)

Roused like the Sultana Scheherazad[^e], and forced into a story.--C.
Dickens, _David Copperfield_ (1849).

=Schemseddin Mohammed=, elder son of the vizier of Egypt, and brother of
Noureddin Ali. He quarrelled with his brother on the subject of their
two children's hypothetical marriage; but the brothers were not yet
married, and children "were only in supposition." Noureddin Ali quitted
Cairo, and travelled to Basora, where he married the vizier's daughter,
and on the very same day Schemseddin married the daughter of one of the
chief grandees of Cairo. On one and the same day a daughter was born to
Schemseddin, and a son to his brother, Noureddin Ali. When Schemseddin's
daughter was 20 years old, the sultan asked her in marriage, but the
vizier told him she was betrothed to his brother's son, Bed'reddin Ali.
At this reply, the sultan, in anger, swore she should be given in
marriage to the "ugliest of his slaves;" and accordingly betrothed her
to Hunchback, a groom, both ugly and deformed. By a fairy t