He was a young man in the flower of youth—in his countenance the delight of the eye, the joy of the heart, the gladness of souls.
He was the ornament of his people and the face of his clan; they bent themselves toward him and smoothed his way before him, and singled him out with love and fond companionship. And those around him kept rousing his restive soul with talk of marriage—of the pleasure in it for the heart, and the peace and ease that nature finds in it.
One of the kings' envoys said to him: "As for the princess of Bahlik—how beautiful she is! She is like a bouquet of hillside blossoms in spring!"
But the young prince turned his face away, as though nothing of the talk had touched him, and gave no answer.
Another said: "...And there is the princess of Kandhdar... blooming and elegant, radiant and resplendent, like the radiance of a well-ordered cluster of grapes." But the young prince slipped away into the forest and did not come out again for some time.
A page from the palace of the king—his father—said: "...Beautiful is the princess of Kambhuj, beautiful as the bow of the horizon when the lights and glimmers of dawn break forth...
and her eyes are drowsy and dreaming, sparkling like bright drops of dew!"
But the young prince buried himself in his book, turning its pages, never lifting his eyes from it and never waking!
The royal father sought out his son's confidant and companion, asking him what had turned his son away from marriage and made it hateful to him!
The prince's companion said: "O august King, what has made the prince disdain marriage is what he has heard of the brides of the waters; he has sworn in his secret heart that his wife shall be one of the brides of the sea, the daughters of the water..."
The king wished to learn something of the matter of these brides, so he summoned to him the men of learning and the masters of wisdom... But the masters of wisdom did not know... and the men of learning had seen nothing in their books of the alleged brides. They are those brides of fancy, phantoms of the imagination—so said the Indian merchants who ride the sea!
So the aged king called his son's companion to him, to ask who had told his son this imagined fancy. He answered: he is a madman who roams the horizons; and the prince heard from him what he heard in
the forest, while he was out hunting! So the king sent his men to search for this mad vagabond and bring him before him, until they found him and brought him to the king's grand and splendid palace.
The king asked him where the kingdom of the water brides might lie.
The madman said: "It lies just beyond the northern borders of your kingdom, O mighty King, at the foot of Mount Chitrahi, where the lake of Kamyaka wells forth..."
The king said: "And can a man see the water brides there?"
The crazed wanderer answered: "Yes! A man may see them, but he can scarcely know them, for the obscurity and mystery that wrap them round; yet I know the enchanting brides by the wondrous sounds of their pipes, or by a blazing gleam of their light!"
The king grew angry at this raving and said: "He is mad indeed! The life of vagrancy and wandering has touched his mind—drive him out."
But the prince had listened to that sublime raving, and what he heard clung to his heart, and there was no driving it out.
•
Spring came, the splendor of its beauty all but stealing men's minds away. Its blossoms burst forth in the forest, filling it with loveliness and fragrance! The prince mounted his steed and rode out. His people asked him: Whither, O noble prince? But the prince kept silent and gave no answer.
The torrent comes rushing down from the mountaintop, then pours into the lake till it overflows. And there, there near the mountain, in