Prasildo told the palmer the reason of his coming, and the palmer told him what the reader has heard about the garden; adding, that he must enter by the gate of Poverty, and take no arms or armour with him, excepting a looking-glass for a shield, in which the fairy might behold her beauty. The old man gave him other directions necessary for his passing out of the gate of Riches; and Prasildo, thanking him, went on, and in thirty days found himself entering the garden with the greatest ease, by the gate of Poverty.
The garden looked like a Paradise, it was so full of beautiful trees, and flowers, and fresh grass. Prasildo took care to hold the shield over his eyes, that he might avoid seeing the fairy Medusa; and in this manner, guarding his approach, he arrived at the Golden Tree. The fairy, who was reclining against the trunk of it, looked up, and saw herself in the glass. Wonderful was the effect on her. Instead of her own white-and-red blooming face, she beheld that of a dreadful serpent. The spectacle made her take to flight in terror; and the lover, finding his object so far gained, looked freely at the tree, and climbed it, and bore away a bough[2].
With this he proceeded to the gate of Riches. It was all of loadstone, and opened with a great noise. But he passed through it happily, for he made the fairy who kept it a present of half the bough; and so he issued forth out of the garden, with indescribable joy.
Behold our loving adventurer now on his road home. Every step of the way appeared to him a thousand. He took the road of Nubia to shorten the journey; crossed the Arabian Gulf with a breeze in his favour; and travelling by night as well as by day, arrived one fine morning in Babylon.
No sooner was he there, than he sent to tell the object of his passion how fortunate he had been. He begged her to name her own place and time for receiving the bough at his hands, taking care to remind her of her promise; and he could not help adding, that he should die if she broke it.
Terrible was the grief of Tisbina at this unlooked-for news. She threw herself on her couch in despair, and bewailed the hour she was born. "What on earth am I to do?" cried the wretched lady; "death itself is no remedy for a case like this, since it is only another mode of breaking my word. To think that Prasildo should return from the garden of Medusa! who could have supposed it possible? And yet, in truth, what a fool I was to suppose any thing impossible to love! O my husband! little didst thou think what thou thyself advisedst me to promise!"
The husband was coming that moment towards the room; and overhearing his wife grieving in this distracted manner, he entered and clasped her in his arms. On learning the cause of her affliction, he felt as though he should have died with her on the spot.
"Alas!" cried he, "that it should be possible for me to be miserable while I am so dear to your heart. But you know, O my soul! that when love and jealousy come together, the torment is the greatest in the world. Myself—myself, alas! caused the mischief, and myself alone ought to suffer for it. You must keep your promise. You must abide by the word you have given, especially to one who has undergone so much to perform what you asked him. Sweet face, you must. But oh! see him not till after I am dead. Let Fortune do with me what she pleases, so that I be saved from a disgrace like that. It will be a comfort to me in death to think that I alone, while I was on earth, enjoyed the fond looking of that lovely face. Nay," concluded the wretched husband, "I feel as though I should die over again, if I could call to mind in my grave how you were taken from me."
Iroldo became dumb for anguish. It seemed to him as if his very heart had been taken out of his breast. Nor was Tisbina less miserable. She was as pale as death, and could hardly speak to him, or bear to look at him. At length turning her eyes upon him, she said, "And do you believe I could make my poor sorry case out in this world without Iroldo? Can he bear, himself, to think of leaving his Tisbina? he who has so often said, that if he possessed heaven itself, he should not think it heaven without her? O dearest husband, there is a way to make death not bitter to either of us. It is to die together. I must only exist long enough to see Prasildo! Death, alas! is in that thought; but the same death will release us. It need not even be a hard death, saving our misery. There are poisons so gentle in their deadliness, that we need but faint away into sleep, and so, in the course of a few hours, be delivered. Our misery and our folly will then alike be ended."
Iroldo assenting, clasped his wife in distraction; and for a long time they remained in the same posture, half stifled with grief, and bathing one another's cheeks with their tears. Afterwards they sent quietly for the poison; and the apothecary made up a preparation in a cup, without asking any questions; and so the husband and wife took it. Iroldo drank first, and then endeavoured to give the cup to his wife, uttering not a word, and trembling in every limb; not because he was afraid of death, but because he could not bear to ask her to share it. At length, turning away his face and looking down, he held the cup towards her, and she took it with a chilled heart and trembling hand, and drank the remainder to the dregs. Iroldo then covered his face and head, not daring to see her depart for the house of Prasildo; and Tisbina, with pangs bitterer than death, left him in solitude.