The Brown Fairy Book | Page 7

then give him
proper lodgment. So he struck upon the drums, and at once summoned
an officer who took him to King Quimus.
When the king saw how very young the prince looked, and that he was
still drinking of the fountain of wonder, he said: 'O youth! leave aside

this fancy which my daughter has conceived in the pride of her beauty.
No one can answer er her riddle, and she has done to death many men
who had had no pleasure in life nor tasted its charms. God forbid that
your spring also should be ravaged by the autumn winds of martyrdom.'
All his urgency, however, had no effect in making the prince withdraw.
At length it was settled between them that three days should be given to
pleasant hospitality and that then should follow what had to be said and
done. Then the prince went to his own quarters and was treated as
became his station.
King Quimus now sent for his daughter and for her mother,
Gulrukh,[FN#6] and talked to them. He said to Mibrafruz: ' Listen to
me, you cruel flirt! Why do you persist in this folly? Now there has
come to ask your hand a prince of the east, so handsome that the very
sun grows modest before the splendour of his face; he is rich, and he
has brought gold and jewels, all for you, if you will marry him. A better
husband you will not find.'
But all the arguments of father and mother were wasted, for her only
answer was: 'O my father! I have sworn to myself that I will not marry,
even if a thousand years go by, unless someone answers my riddle, and
that I will give myself to that man only who does answer it.'
The three days passed; then the riddle was asked: 'What did the rose do
to the cypress?' The prince had an eloquent tongue, which could split a
hair, and without hesitation he replied to her with a verse: 'Only the
Omnipotent has knowledge of secrets; if any man says, " I know " do
not believe him.'
Then a servant fetched in the polluted, blue-eyed headsman, who asked:
'Whose sun of life has come near its setting?' took the prince by the arm,
placed him upon the cloth of execution, and then, all merciless and
stony hearted, cut his head from his body and hung it on the
battlements.
The news of the death of Prince Tahmasp plunged his father into
despair and stupefaction. He mourned for him in black raiment for forty
days; and then, a few days later, his second son, Prince Qamas,
extracted from him leave to go too; and he, also, was put to death. One
son only now remained, the brave, eloquent, happy-natured Prince
Almas-ruh-bakhsh. One day, when his father sat brooding over his lost
children, Almas came before him and said: 'O father mine! the daughter

of King Quimus has done my two brothers to death; I wish to avenge
them upon her.' These words brought his father to tears. 'O light of your
father! ' he cried, 'I have no one left but you, and now you ask me to let
you go to your death.'
'Dear father!' pleaded the prince, 'until I have lowered the pride of that
beauty, and have set her here before you, I cannot settle down or indeed
sit down off my feet.'
In the end he, too, got leave to go; but he went a without a following
and alone. Like his brothers, he made the long journey to the city of
Quimus the son of Timus; like them he saw the citadel, but he saw
there the heads of Tahmasp and Qamas. He went about in the city, saw
the tent and the drums, and then went out again to a village not far off.
Here he found out a very old man who had a wife 120 years old, or
rather more. Their lives were coming to their end, but they had never
beheld face of child of their own. They were glad when the prince came
to their house, and they dealt with him as with a son. He put all his
belongings into their charge, and fastened his horse in their out-house.
Then he asked them not to speak of him to anyone, and to keep his
affairs secret. He exchanged his royal dress for another, and next
morning, just as the sun looked forth from its eastern oratory, he went
again into the city. He turned over in his mind without ceasing how he
was to find out the meaning of the riddle, and to give them a right
answer, and who could help him, and how to avenge his brothers. He
wandered about the