58 
ILLUSTRATION OF HERODOTUS. 
has such powerful relations, that they would soon avenge her. How 
forcibly this illustrates what T^aban said to Jacob on giving him his 
daughters !— If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take 
other wives besides my daughters, &c. &c. Genesis, xxxi. v. 50. 
We frequently visited him during his grief, and had an opportunity 
of hearing the sort of consolation which he received from his own 
countrymen. The principal argument they brought forward to assuage 
his grief was very remarkable, in as much as it shows a great similarity 
of feeling between modern and ancient Persians on a similar sub¬ 
ject. They said, “ If you had lost a brother, then indeed you might 
cry, for you cannot raise your father and mother from their graves to 
give you another; but why bewail a child, when you still can hope to 
have another ?” When Darius was surprised at the request of the wife 
of Intaphernes to have the life of her brother spared, rather than that 
of any of her other relations, he asked her, why she preferred to 
preserve her brother, instead of her husband and children, who were 
certainly more nearly connected to her; she answered, “ O King! if 
it please the Deity, I may have another husband; and if I be deprived 
of these, may have other children ; but as my parents are both of them 
dead, it is certain I can have no other brother.” * The Persians appeared 
to make use of this phrase, more as the common language of condolence 
than as excited by the peculiar circumstances of the case; and there¬ 
fore we may suppose it to be an idiom that has maintained itself in 
the country from the most ancient times. It could evidently only 
have been used by nations who, like the present Persians, have a 
plurality of wives; who in consequence have no strong conjugal ties; 
and who, having a large promiscuous progeny, have feeble parental 
affections. Mahomed Zeky Khan, our Mehmandar, in his attempts to 
console the Mirza, said, “ Why do you grieve for one child ? I have 
lost more than one at a time, and have never shed a tear.” 
If the Mirza had several wives and many children, there is no doubt 
that he would soon have been consoled; but as this was not the case 
* Herodotus, Thalia, 119. 
