[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.).