Afterward he went to his own home, and informed his mother and father of his arrival. Alas! his parents had both become blind from weeping about the loss of their son. "Let him come in," said the king, "and put his hands upon our eyes, and we shall see again." So the prince entered, and was most affectionately greeted by his old parents; and he laid his hands on their eyes, and they saw again.
Then the prince told his father all that had happened to him, and how he had been saved several times by attending to the advice that he had purchased from the Brahmani. Whereupon the king expressed his sorrow for having sent him away, and all was joy and peace again.
The Emperor's Nightingale
hina, as you know, is ruled over by an Emperor, who is a Chinaman, and all his courtiers are Chinamen, too. Now, this little story that I am going to tell you happened ever so long ago, and that is why you ought to hear it now, before it is forgotten, for it is well worth hearing.
The Emperor lived in the most beautiful palace in the world and it was a very costly one, for it was made of the finest porcelain, and was so brittle that you had to be very careful if you touched it. It was surrounded by such a large garden that the gardener himself did not quite know where it ended. Lovely flowers grew in luxuriance, and, lest people should pass the most beautiful without noticing them, peals of silver bells were tied to their stems.
Truly, everything was carefully planned in the Emperor's garden. If you kept on far enough, you came to a mighty forest which stretched down so close to the margin of the sea that the poor fishermen in their boats could sail under the overhanging branches.
In one of these boughs a nightingale lived, and so beautiful was its song that the rough sailors would stop to listen on their way out to spread their nets.