"Well, well," said Khan Sâhib, "there may be some truth in what you say; and I am the more inclined to believe it, as all the learning and philosophy which my good father endeavoured to instil into me never wholly eradicated my early predilection for such stories. I wish not to dispute the claim of our Indian neighbours to the merit of inventing those maxims of wisdom, which have been delivered to posterity through the mouths of cats, monkeys, goats, parrots, foxes, jackalls, and lions. But," added he, "as far as the reputation of the creative genius of Persia is concerned, I shall remain content with the wonders of the Shâh-nâmeh, told as they are in the language of the immortal Firdousee." Though I could not give up my fondness for fables, I was quite ready to concur with my friend in his admiration of Firdousee, and nothing more was necessary to make him dilate upon this favourite work. His memory is extraordinary; and while I listened with pleasure to his recitation of several of the most ancient, and at the same time most beautiful passages of Persian poetry, I was instructed by his critical remarks, for he combines, with a knowledge of the European taste for simplicity, a love for Asiatic splendour of diction; and is particularly versed in those allusions in which their poetry abounds. He recited to me, from the Shâh-nâmeh, the greater part of the episode of the combats between Roostem and his unknown son Soohrâb. This episode, in the first lines of which the poet tells his reader, "It is a tale full of the waters of the eye,"[106] is perhaps one of the greatest efforts of Firdousee's genius; and he rises even above himself in the relation of the death of Soohrâb and the insanity of his distracted mother. The effect produced on the unhappy princess by the account of her son's death is instantaneous. She sets fire to her palace, desiring, when he who constituted her sole object in life was gone, to perish amid that splendour, which she salued on his account alone. Torn from the flames by her attendants, she commanded them to bring the body of her son, his horse, his arms, and his clothes. "She kissed the horse's forehead, she bathed its hoofs with her tears; she clothed herself in the blood-stained garments of her son, she drew his bow, she wielded his lance, his sword, and his mace; and these fond and frantic actions were continued till nature was overpowered, and the distracted mother departed to join her beloved Soohrâb."