The plot is of the simplest description possible. Rostevan, a patriarchal Eastern king, who has renounced the throne of Arabia in favour of his daughter Tinatina, is out hunting one day with Avtandil, one of his generals, when he sees a weeping youth of wondrous beauty, dressed in a panther's skin. The king orders his guards to seize the stranger, but the latter kills several of them and mysteriously escapes, whereupon the old king falls into a fit of sadness so deep that Tinatina at length promises her hand to the knight who will satisfy her father's curiosity. Avtandil sets out to seek the man in the panther's skin, wanders about for three years, meeting with wondrous adventures, before he finds the object of his search, who turns out to be Tariel, a young knight enamoured of Nestan Daredjan, daughter of the king of India, and then returns to claim the hand of his queen. In Avtandil we have a Christian chevalier of the East who is worthy of comparison with our Rolands and Red Cross Knights, while Tariel is a wild Mussulman, whose passion drives him to excesses worthy of Amadis of Gaul. The interest is powerfully sustained all through the poem, and its dramatic unity is never lost sight of; yet, however interesting the narrative may be, it is chiefly as a picture of life in Georgia in the days of Tamara that "The Man in the Panther's Skin" is valuable. Tinatina, who is none other than Tamara herself, is described as follows:-- "One daughter only had the aged king, And she was fair as is the Eastern sun. He upon whom her gaze but once did rest Was ravish'd of his heart and soul and thought." Tinatina is a beautiful type of womanhood, such as we might expect to find in the literature of Western Europe, but hardly in a little country standing alone amid the wild hordes of Asia. Her wisdom, her strength of character, the purity and loyalty of her love, have made her the model of many a generation of Rustaveli's countrywomen, who have ever behaved nobly alike in joy and sorrow. Avtandil is thus portrayed:-- "A prince's son was Avtandil, the very first 'Mong all the bravest warriors of the aged king His form was slender as the cypress-tree, And clear and beauteous was his piercing glance. Though young, his soul was true and strong As adamant is hard. The fire from Tinatina's eyes had long Set his young heart aflame with strong desire, And stricken him with wounds that never heal'd. Many a day he hid his burning love, And sunder'd from his mistress, all the red Fled from his roselike, tender cheeks; But soon as fate did bring him near to her again, The wildly beating heart crimson'd his face, And all his aching wounds did gape afresh. Thus hidden love doth torture youthful breasts."