ome from all quarters to ask her hand,
and on one and all she imposes a condition. She says to them: "I know
a riddle; and I will marry anyone who answers it, and will bestow on
him all my possessions. But if a suitor cannot answer my question I
cut off his head and hang it on the battlements of the citadel." The
riddle she asks is, "What did the rose do to the cypress?"

'Now, when my son heard this tale, he fell in love with that unseen
girl, and he came to me lamenting and bewailing himself. Nothing that
I could say had the slightest effect on him. I said: "Oh my son! if
there must be fruit of this fancy of yours, I will lead forth a great
army against King Quimus. If he will give you his daughter freely,
well and good; and if not, I will ravage his kingdom and bring her
away by force." This plan did not please him; he said: "It is not
right to lay a kingdom waste and to destroy a palace so that I may
attain my desire. I will go alone; I will answer the riddle, and win
her in this way." At last, out of pity for him, I let him go. He
reached the city of King Quimus. He was asked the riddle and could not
give the true answer; and his head was cut off and hung upon the
battlements. Then I mourned him in black raiment for forty days.

'After this another and another of my sons were seized by the same
desire, and in the end all my seven sons went, and all were killed. In
grief for their death I have abandoned my throne, and I abide here in
this desert, withholding my hand from all State business and wearing
myself away in sorrow.'

Prince Tahmasp listened to this tale, and then the arrow of love for
that unseen girl struck his heart also. Just at this moment of his
ill-fate his people came up, and gathered round him like moths round a
light. They brought him a horse, fleet as the breeze of the dawn; he
set his willing foot in the stirrup of safety and rode off. As the
days went by the thorn of love rankled in his heart, and he became the
very example of lovers, and grew faint and feeble. At last his
confidants searched his heart and lifted the veil from the face of his
love, and then set the matter before his father, King Saman-lal-posh.
'Your son, Prince Tahmasp, loves distractedly the Princess Mihr-afruz,
daughter of King Quimus, son of Timus.' Then they told the king all
about her and her doings. A mist of sadness clouded the king's mind,
and he said to his son: 'If this thing is so, I will in the first
place send a