Memnon hid himself in a corner and waited for the moment when he could throw himself at the feet of the monarch. That moment at last arrived. Three times he kissed the earth and presented his petition. His gracious majesty received him very favorably and referred the paper to one of his satraps. The satrap takes Memnon aside and says to him, with a haughty air and satirical grin:
“Hark ye, you fellow with the one eye; you must be a comical dog indeed to address yourself to the king rather than to me, and still more so to dare to demand justice against an honest bankrupt, whom I honor with my protection, and who is also a nephew to the waiting-maid of my mistress. Proceed no further in this business, my good friend, if you wish to preserve the eye you have left.”
Memnon, having thus in his closet resolved to renounce women, the excess of the table, play, and quarrelling, but especially having determined never to go to court, had been, in the short space of four-and-twenty hours, duped and robbed by a gentle dame, had got drunk, had gamed, had been engaged in a quarrel, had got his eye knocked out, and had been at court, where he was sneered at and also insulted.
Petrified with astonishment, and his heart broken with grief, Memnon returns homeward in despair. As he was about to enter his house, he is repulsed by a number of officers who are carrying off his furniture for the benefit of his creditors. He falls down almost lifeless under a plane tree. There he finds the fair dame of the morning, who was walking with her dear uncle, and both set up a loud laugh on seeing Memnon with his plaster. The night approached, and Memnon made his bed on some straw near the walls of his house. Here the ague seized him and he fell asleep in one of the fits, when a celestial spirit appeared to him in a dream.
It was all resplendent with light; it had six beautiful wings, but neither feet, nor head, and could be likened to nothing.
“What art thou?” said Memnon.
“Thy good genius,” replied the spirit.
“Restore me, then, my eye, my health, my fortune, my reason,” said Memnon, and he related how he had lost them all in one day.
“These are adventures which never happen to us in the world we inhabit,” said the spirit.
“And what world do you inhabit?” said the man of affliction.