What the Rose did to the Cypress[FN#1]



Once upon a time a great king of the East, named
Saman-lalposh,[FN#2] had three brave and clever sons--Tahmasp,
Qamas, and Almas-ruh-baksh.[FN#3] One day, when the king was
sitting in his hall of audience, his eldest son, Prince Tahmasp,
came before him, and after greeting his father with due respect,
said: 'O my royal father! I am tired of the town; if you will
give me leave, I will take my servants to-morrow and will go into
the country and hunt on the hill-skirts; and when I have taken
some game I will come back, at evening-prayer time.' His father
consented, and sent with him some of his own trusted servants,
and also hawks, and falcons, hunting dogs, cheetahs and leopards.

At the place where the prince intended to hunt he saw a most
beautiful deer. He ordered that it should not be killed, but
trapped or captured with a noose. The deer looked about for a
place where he might escape from the ring of the beaters, and
spied one unwatched close to the prince himself. It bounded high
and leaped right over his head, got out of the ring, and tore
like the eastern wind into the waste. The prince put spurs to
his horse and pursued it; and was soon lost to the sight of his
followers. Until the world-lighting sun stood above his head in
the zenith he did not take his eyes off the deer; suddenly it