The Lady or the Tiger

  It must have been excruciatingly painful, given a dilemma – sweet vengeance upon the lady, or the life of the dear, handsome suitor – and days to ponder to and fro. The princess, faced with the unprecedented problem, had withstood days of agonizing thoughts and nightmares before waving her hand of fate. The outcome, unfortunately, remains a mystery, though I fathom that that awaited the poor man was anything but rapture and redemption.

   One must have a thorough understanding of the devious psychological behavior before truly apprehending the princess’s decision. Although she had always loved and cherished the former fiancé, hatred and bitter jealousy was sure to blind and irrationalize her. The more one embraces one thing, the harder it is to let go of it. The more she thought about her lover’s beauty and conduct, his ecstatic delight after seeing the lady, the more she would lamented over losing him to her bitter rival, for she cannot bear seeing his former lover exult over another lady. The anger stacked in her heart until it reaches the point where it engulfed her. By then, even if she had formerly decided to spare him, selfishness and hatred would’ve prevailed, leading her to choose the gorier of the two options.

  The princess, like the king, has a soul wild and reckless, which means that “when she and herself agreed on anything it was done at once”. Thus, there was nothing that could’ve hampered her if she had decided for him to die at once and await her in the enchanted realm where they could live for eternity, not even the thought of the cruel-fanged beast. Being young and foolish, she could not have valued the importance of life. She would’ve killed him and resent later. Furthermore, living in a semi-barbaric society, one can presume that the princess would’ve had no trouble bearing the sight of her lover being torn into pieces by a savage tiger. A sight as disturbing should be commonplace to her, thus would not have influenced her decision.

  When finally deciding on the man’s pathetic future, another major factor that might had influenced the princess is romance itself. Over the course of the previous several months, the love for each other was so great and turbulent that she developed the fallacy that he loves only her, and for him to love other woman would be just as torturous. Thus, by killing him instantaneously, she might have thought that it was saving him from a life that would otherwise be contained with affliction. Eventually, although anticipated, when she saw how her lover begged for her mercy cowardly, and relenting to the fact that he was going to be married to another woman, the princess’s will to kill hardened. After all, what’s the point of saving the man if that he had already devoted to another? 

  The ending of the story is not one to be lightly considered, and one can only look at it from their perspective. The outcome, regardless of the discussions, is a mystery that will not be, nor meant to be, solved.