noon
Then said his mother : The King thy father discovered , long ago , the elixir of life : and even now he has been living for fifteen hundred years . And this is a jest that he plays , now and then , for his own amusement , making one of his innumerable sons his heir . For all his heirs die before him , as thou wilt also , never even reaching so much as the very first step of that throne that lures them on and hangs always just before them , like a bundle of _ hariali _ grass held by a crafty rider on a stick before the nose of the deluded beast of burden that carries him along . Thine is only the phantom of a sun that will presently go down and disappear , leaving the true sun , thy father , still in the very blaze of noon . -LSB- Footnote 31 : _ i.e. _ `` little king , '' Prince of Wales or Dauphin . The story is a piece of old folklore , and one version may be found in Somadewa . -RSB- -LSB- Footnote 32 : The women 's apartments , or _ gynæceum _ . -RSB-