Henceforth she has a national literature, with its own peculiar faults as well as beauties, even though her best works belong to her past. No poetry has ever been more peculiarly national than that of Persia, for three centuries her lyre has been virtually silent, and yet her people cherish with peculiar fondness the memory of her poets. The finest odes of Hāfiz and the most beautiful passages of her Shāh Nāmah still live, even in the memory of her peasants; and the sorrows of Lailī and Majnūn will be chanted by Persian and Arab as long as the sons of the desert are found amidst the roses of Īrān. CHAPTER XVII. MEHER AND MŪSHTERI. PERSIAN ROMANCE—THE TWO COMRADES—THE SEPARATION—THE QUEEN—THE DEPARTURE— THE ANNOUNCEMENT. Persian romance, as well as Persian poetry, is burdened with florid description, and the redundancy of style which is everywhere found in the works of even their best authors makes them tedious to the reader. In these books of Oriental romance, it often happens that a new story is begun before the first is finished, being introduced as a narrative by one of the characters, and the second is in turn interrupted by a third, when the author apparently forgets to finish any one of his fables except the last. Whole volumes are constructed in this way, legends being repeated as often by a bird or an animal as by men and women. Story-telling was esteemed a great accomplishment in the East, and those who excelled in the art were favorites at court as well as in other grades of society. It sometimes happened that a victim who had been selected for capital punishment, either deservedly or otherwise, could save his life if he could find an opportunity of telling a pleasing tale to some official, who would bear the news of his ability to the king. Royalty considered this an easy method of entertainment, and the members of the harem as well as the princes of the courts were often favored in this way. It sometimes happened that a favorite of the king owed her position in the affection of his majesty to the fact that she could entertain him for hours together with pleasing myths of her own composition.