WHEN Jehaundar Shaw had quitted the palace, he unexpectedly met, in ashy-coloured raiment, with marks of grief and sadness impressed upon his countenance, Hoormuz, the son of his father’s vizier, who had taken the habit of a fakeer. The prince, surprized at his appearance in so distant a country, said, “Wherefore hast thou fixed the place of thy abode in a foreign region, and among a strange people, and courting absence from thy family, preferred to affluence wretchedness and poverty? From what motive hast thou esteemed as light upon thyself all this vexation and trouble?”

Hoormuz, agreeably to the maxim that the frantic have nothing to do with prudence, without regard to the rules of precaution, laying open the secrets of his heart, replied, “The king of this country hath a daughter named Bhe­rawir Banou; a daughter did I say? she is a conspicuous planet in the sky of beauty, a precious pearl in the sea of perfection. The world-irradiating sun gained his splendour from the glow of her cheek, and the moon, from its exalting reflection, her light. From report, I fell, unseeing, like a fish, into the net of her amber-coloured locks, and being hurled from the reposing place of sense into the wilds of madness, my soul dissolving like wax in the fire of love, I could find no means of attaining my wishes. No sensation of hope has gladdened the perceptions of my heart, and from the failure of my unhappy stars the cup of my desires has not been crowned with the wine of enjoyment. But wherefore do I complain? She, like a cruel turk, disdains to lead such mean prey as me captive at her stirrup, and regards a condescending look at such a poor wretch grovelling in the mire of the wilds of distraction, as lessening the dignity of her beauty.

“To thee, however, my prince, be congratulations, for this phoenix of the firmament of glory will without endeavour fall into thy net. It is long since she has lost her heart at the game of thy love, and now she soars abroad in the wide expanse of desire in search of thy affection. I know not whether this blooming rose may have heard thy auspicious name from the western breeze, or if this radiant moon may have beheld thy sun-like aspect in a dream. Inform me how thou hast fallen from the couch of prosperity on the dust of misfortune, how sunk from the throne of royalty on the lowly mat of poverty, and wherefore thou hast preferred the cap of a mendicant to the crown of monarchy.”

The prince at first, on hearing of the captivation of Hoormuz in the love of Bherawir Banou, the ensnaring of his heart in the curly tresses of that Hoori-like enchantress, his insolent attempts in the path of search, and his sitting on the ground of frenzy, was tortured with the fire of jealousy. But from the grateful tidings, affording hope, that the seeds of mutual affection were springing up in the soil of his beloved’s heart, and that through his favourable star the shrub of regard for him had taken kindly root in the garden of her mind, his anguish was allayed. Not admitting Hoormuz into the confidential recess of his secrets, he left the city, and took up his abode in the favourite garden* of Bherawir Banou, hoping that possibly the zephyr might waft the perfume of his charmer to the perception of his soul. Like the wretched pilgrim and lowly mendicant, kindling a fire with the flame of his heart, and sprinkling the ashes of passion on his countenance, he added glory to the operations of love. He sifted drops of blood and fragments of his liver from the seven searced sieve of his eyes on the lap of his condition. From the crimson tears, his eyelashes, like the ruby of Buddukshaun, became the envy of the Pleiades and the coral branch. With longing for the company of his love, he scattered the dust of sorrow over the head of his fortunes. Day and night, the companion of his solitude and friend of his confidence was the fancied image of his charmer. The ruling desire of his mind and object of his heart was the company of his mistress. A confidant, (to whom he might utter the secret of his soul and complain to him of his sor­rows) excepting the parrot, who was indeed a prudent friend and sympathizing companion, he had not. Before him, therefore, he would at times throw out from his burning breast thousands of the sparks of sorrow, recount the anguish and distress of his soul, and entreat his assistance to explore a remedy for his case, and success to his affairs.

The parrot, as he was a wise and most intelligent bird, when he beheld the prince overwhelmed in sorrow and cap­tivated in the talons of grief, approached him in the path of sympathy and condo­lence, with comfort-exciting speeches and ease-affording arguments; saying, “O thou chief of distracted lovers, and first in the chain of the hopeless enamoured, because for a few days the scent of enjoyment reaches not the per­ception of thy soul from the grove of hope, and the rose of thy wishes in the garden of thy heart does not glow with the tinge and fragrance of attain­ment, plunge not thyself into the caverns of despair or the wilds of discon­solateness, nor rashly withdraw the hand of reliance from the mercy-yielding skirt of divine bounty. Knowest thou not, that the sound of, Despair not of the mercy of God,* is heard through all his works? At last, the tender bud of thy hopes may expand from the gale of enjoyment, and the tree of thy wishes bring forth the fruit of completion.

“It is the ancient custom of fortune, and time has long established the habit, that she at first bewilders the thirsty travellers in the path of desire, by the misty vapour of disappoint­ment; but when their distress and misery has reached extremity, suddenly relieving them from the dark wind­ings of confusion and error, she conducts them to the fountains of enjoyment. Thou alone hast not explored the paths of hopeless love and distraction, or invented the habits of madness and frenzy. Many high-born princes and glorious kings before thee, have exalted the standards of extravagant passion on the plains of the world, and sounded the drums of frenzy in the field of insanity. The adventures of each of them form a body of events astonishing to the understanding, and even hearing the dangers and distresses which occurred to them in the intricate mazes of love, is enough to make the gall of Rustum-hearted heroes dissolve into water. Even a tenth of the tenth of them has not yet reached thy ears; but these personages at length obtained the pearl of success from the deep ocean of toil and difficulty, and, after many dangers and numberless perils, they gained their desires.”

The prince replied, “O my grief-dispersing friend, I wish thou wouldst inform me of the histories of those quaffers of the wine of the stores of love, partakers at the board of ardent affection, and strugglers in the stormy ocean of despondence; also of the hazards and disappointments which hap­pened to them in such perilous travels. Relate too their deliverance from the gloomy state of despair, and their arrival at the object of their wishes.”

The parrot, regarding fanciful tales, heart-attracting anecdotes, and memoirs of lovers, (that would in listening to them, amuse the mind, and from the fla­vour of which the palate of the heart might obtain gratification) as a mean of calming the anxious breast of the prince, determined, that until the appearance of the mistress of his hopes and the unfold­ing of the blossoms of his desires, he would every night narrate to him a soul-delighting history. He trusted thus to asswage his frantic mind, and give heal­ing balsam to the wounds of his bleeding heart, to amuse him by variety, and preserve him for the present from the dangerous paroxysms of insanity.