There was once a great and powerful emperor who had, beside his palace, a beautiful garden, rich in flowers and marvelously crafted! Such a garden had never before been seen in those lands. At the far end of the garden stood an apple tree that bore golden apples, and since the emperor had owned it, he had never managed to eat a single ripe apple from it. For just as he would see the apples bloom, grow, and begin to ripen, someone would come by night and steal them, right before they were ready to be picked.
All the guards of the empire and the most skilled soldiers whom the emperor had posted to watch over the tree had failed to catch the thief. At last, the emperor’s eldest son came to him and said:
Father, I have grown up in your palace, I have walked through this garden countless times, and I have seen the beautiful fruit in the tree at the back of the garden, but I have never been able to taste any. Now that they are ripening, let me keep watch over them these next nights, and I swear I will catch the thief who has been robbing us.
My dear son, said the emperor, so many strong men have kept watch, and none have succeeded. I long so much to see even one apple from that tree on my table, this tree that has cost me such a great sum and so, I am persuaded to let you try, though I can hardly believe you’ll succeed.
Then the emperor’s son kept watch for an entire week: by night he kept guard, and by day he rested. But one morning, he returned to his father, downcast, and told him how he had stayed awake until midnight, how later he had begun to doze, unable to keep himself on his feet, and how, after that, sleep had overcome him and he fell as if dead, unable to wake until the sun was already two spear-lengths high in the sky, only then did he see that the apples were gone.
Unwelcome was the sorrow that struck his father upon hearing this tale.