"A little while!" repeated the other.

"How can you say that?
Cannot you understand that the time it takes to wink is a whole eternity if it severs me from the beauty of your face ?" Then Cyrus burst out laughing in spite of his own tears, and bade the unfortunate man take heart of grace and be gone.

"I shall soon be back with you again, and then you can stare at me to your heart's content, and never wink at all." [C.5] Thus Cyrus left his grandfather's court and came home to Persia, and there, so it is said, he spent one year more as a boy among boys.
At first the lads were disposed to laugh at him, thinking he must have learnt luxurious ways in Media, but when they saw that he could take the simple Persian food as happily as themselves, and how, whenever they made good cheer at a festival, far from asking for any more himself he was ready to give his own share of the dainties away, when they saw and felt in this and in other things his inborn nobleness and superiority to themselves, then the tide turned and once more they were at his feet.
And when this part of his training was over, and the time was come for him to join the younger men, it was the same tale once more.

Once more he outdid all his fellows, alike in the fulfilment of his duty, in the endurance of hardship, in the reverence he showed to age, and the obedience he paid to authority.
[2] Now in the fullness of time Astyages died in Media, and Cyaxares his son, the brother of Cyrus' mother, took the kingdom in his stead.
By this time the king of Assyria had subdued all the tribes of Syria, subjugated the king of Arabia, brought the Hyrcanians under his rule, and was holding the Bactrians in siege.

Therefore he came to think that, if he could but weaken the power of the Medes, it would be easy for him to extend his empire over all the nations round him, since the Medes were, without doubt, the strongest of them all.