But the royal
dreamer and lover in the following story, told by the Parrot on the 39th
Night, according to the India Office MS. No. 2573, adopted a plan for
the discovery of the beauteous object of his vision more conformable to
his own ease:
_The Emperor's Dream._
An emperor of China dreamt of a very beautiful damsel whom he had never
seen or heard of, and, being sorely pierced with the darts of love for
the creature of his dreaming fancy, he could find no peace of mind. One
of his vazirs, who was an excellent portrait painter, receiving from the
emperor a minute description of the lady's features, drew the face, and
the imperial lover acknowledged the likeness to be very exact. The vazir
then went abroad with the portrait, to see whether any one could
identify it with the fair original. After many disappointments he met
with an old hermit, who at once recognised it as the portrait of the
princess of Rum,[46] who, he informed the vazir, had an unconquerable
aversion against men ever since she beheld, in her garden, a peacock
basely desert his mate and their young ones, when the tree on which
their nest was built had been struck by lightning. She believed that all
men were quite as selfish as that peacock, and was resolved never to
marry. Returning to his imperial master with these most interesting
particulars regarding the object of his affection, he next undertakes to
conquer the strange and unnatural aversion of the princess.
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