With a blasphemous exclamation the Saracen flung aside the cup, and seeing that his own steed had been slain by the lion, he sprang unceremoniously upon Huon's horse, and rode rapidly away.
[Sidenote: Princess Rezia.] As there was but one mount left for them both, Huon and Sherasmin were now obliged to proceed more slowly to Bagdad, where they found every hostelry full, as the people were all coming thither to witness the approaching nuptials of the princess, Rezia (Esclamonde), and Babican, King of Hyrcania. Huon and Sherasmin, after a long search, finally found entertainment in a little hut, where an old woman, the mother of the princess's attendant, entertained them by relating that the princess was very reluctant to marry. She also told them that Rezia had lately been troubled by a dream, in which she had seen herself in the guise of a hind and pursued through a pathless forest by Babican. In this dream she was saved and restored to her former shape by a radiant little creature, who rode in a glistening silver car, drawn by leopards. He was accompanied by a fair-haired knight, whom he presented to her as her future bridegroom.
"The shadow flies; but from her heart again
He never fades—the youth with golden hair;
Eternally his image hovers there,
Exhaustless source of sweetly pensive pain,
In nightly visions, and in daydreams shown."
WIELAND, Oberon (Sotheby's tr.).
Huon listened in breathless rapture, for he now felt assured that the princess Rezia was the radiant creature he had seen in his dream, and that Oberon intended them for each other. He therefore assured the old woman that the princess should never marry the detested Babican. Then, although Sherasmin pointed out to him that the way to a lady's favor seldom consists in cutting off the head of her intended bridegroom, depriving her father of four teeth and a lock of his beard, and kissing her without the usual preliminary of "by your leave," the young hero persisted in his resolution to visit the palace on the morrow.
[Sidenote: Oberon again to the rescue.] That selfsame night, Huon and Rezia were again visited by sweet dreams, in which Oberon, their guardian spirit, promised them his aid. While the princess was arraying herself for her nuptials on the morrow, the old woman rushed into her apartment and announced that a fair-haired knight, evidently the promised deliverer, had slept in her humble dwelling the night before. Comforted by these tidings, Rezia made a triumphant entrance into the palace hall, where her father, the bridegroom, and all the principal dignitaries of the court, awaited her appearance.
"Emirs and viziers, all the courtly crowd
Meantime attendant at the sultan's call,
With festal splendor grace the nuptial hall.
The banquet waits, the cymbals clang aloud.
The gray-beard caliph from his golden door
Stalks mid the slaves that fall his path before;
Behind, of stately gesture, proud to view,
The Druse prince, though somewhat pale of hue,
Comes as a bridegroom deck'd with jewels blazing o'er."
WIELAND, Oberon (Sotheby's tr.).
In the mean while Huon, awaking at early dawn, found a complete suit of Saracenic apparel at his bedside. He donned it joyfully, entered the palace unchallenged, and passed into the banquet hall, where he perceived the gray-bearded caliph, and recognized in the bridegroom at his left the Saracen whom he had delivered from the lion, and who had so discourteously stolen his horse.
[Sidenote: Huon's success.] One stride forward, a flash of his curved scimitar, and the first part of Charlemagne's order was fulfilled, for the Saracen's head rolled to the ground. The sudden movement caused Huon's turban to fall off, however, and the princess, seated at the caliph's right, gazed spellbound upon the knight, whose golden locks fell in rich curls about his shoulders.
There are several widely different versions of this part of the story. The most popular, however, states that Huon, taking advantage of the first moments of surprise, kissed Rezia thrice, slipping on her finger, in sign of betrothal, the magic ring which he had taken from Angoulaffre. Then, seeing the caliph's guards about to fall upon him, he gently breathed soft music on his magic horn, and set caliph and court a-dancing.
"The whole divan, one swimming circle glides
Swift without stop: the old bashaws click time,
As if on polish'd ice; in trance sublime
The iman hoar with some spruce courtier slides.
Nor rank nor age from capering refrain;
Nor can the king his royal foot restrain!
He too must reel amid the frolic row,
Grasp the grand vizier by his beard of snow,
And teach the aged man once more to bound amain!"
WIELAND, Oberon (Sotheby's tr.).