[6] At that sight the eldest of us said, 'Take comfort, lady, we know that your husband was beautiful and brave, but we have chosen you a man to-day who is no whit inferior to him in face or form or mind or power; Cyrus, we believe, is more to be admired than any soul on earth, and you shall be his from this day forward.' But when the lady heard that, she rent the veil that covered her head and gave a pitiful cry, while her maidens lifted up their voice and wept with their mistress.

[7] And thus we could see her face, and her neck, and her arms, and I tell you, Cyrus," he added, "I myself, and all who looked on her, felt that there never was, and never had been, in broad Asia a mortal woman half so fair as she.

Nay, but you must see her for yourself." [8] "Say, rather, I must not," answered Cyrus, "if she be such as you describe." "And why not ?" asked the young man.
"Because," said he, "if the mere report of her beauty could persuade me to go and gaze on her to-day, when I have not a moment to spare, I fear she would win me back again and perhaps I should neglect all I have to do, and sit and gaze at her for ever." [9] At that the young man laughed outright and said: "So you think, Cyrus, that the beauty of any human creature can compel a man to do wrong against his will?
Surely if that were the nature of beauty, all men would feel its force alike.

[10] See how fire burns all men equally; it is the nature of it so to do; but these flowers of beauty, one man loves them, and another loves them not, nor does every man love the same.

For love is voluntary, and each man loves what he chooses to love.