who lay with me last night?” Then her reason fled from her head and she cast her eyes right and left and rent her raiment even to the skirt.  When her sire saw this, he bade the women lay hands on her; so they seized her and manacled her, then putting a chain of iron about her neck, made her fast to one of the palace-windows and there left her.[FN#282] Thus far concerning Princess Budur; but as regards her father, King Ghayur, the world was straitened upon him when he saw what had befallen his daughter, for that he loved her and her case was not a little grievous to him.  So he summoned on it the doctors and astrologers and men skilled in talisman-writing and said to them, “Whoso healeth my daughter of what ill she hath, I will marry him to her and give him half of my kingdom; but whoso cometh to her and cureth her not, I will strike off his head and hang it over her palace-gate.”  Accordingly, all who went in to her, but failed to heal her, he beheaded and hung their heads over the palace-gates, till he had beheaded on her account forty doctors and crucified forty astrologers; wherefor the general held aloof from her, all the physicians having failed to medicine her malady; and her case was a puzzle to the men of science and the adepts in cabalistic characters.  And as her longing and passion redoubled and love and distraction were sore upon her, she poured forth tears and repeated these couplets,

“My fondness, O my moon, for thee my foeman is, *
     And to thy comradeship the nights my thought compel: 
In gloom I bide with fire that flames below my ribs, *
     Whose lowe I make comparison with heat of Hell: 
I’m plagued with sorest stress of pine and ecstasy; *
     Nor clearest noon tide can that horrid pain dispel.”

Then she sighed and repeated these also,

“Salams fro’ me to friends in every stead; *
     Indeed to all dear friends do I incline: 
Salams, but not salams that bid adieu; *
     Salams that growth of good for you design: 
I love you dear, indeed, nor less your land, *
     But bide I far from every need of mine!”

And when the Lady Budur ceased repeating her poetry, she wept till her eyes waxed sore and her cheeks changed form and hue, and in this condition she continued three years.  Now she had a foster-brother, by name Marzawan,[FN#283] who was travelling in far lands and absent from her the whole of this time.  He loved her with an exceeding love, passing the love of brothers; so when he came back he went in to his mother and asked for his sister, the Princess Budur.  She answered him, “O my son, thy sister hath been smitten with madness and hath passed these three years with a chain of iron about her neck; and all the physicians and men of science have failed of healing her.”  When Marzawan heard these words he said, “I must needs go in to her; peradventure I may discover what she hath, and be able to medicine her;” and his mother replied, “Needs must