The king plainly means man. He has three sons; he is an image of the Trinity, which in the sense of our presentation we shall think of as body, soul and spirit. Two of the sons were wise in the worldly sense, but the third, who represents spirit and in the primitive form, is called conscience, is simple in order to typify the straight and narrow path of truth. The spirit leads in sacred silence those who meekly follow it and dies in a mystical sense if it is denied, or else appears in other forms in order to pursue the soul with the ghosts of murdered virtues. Man is, as it were, in doubt concerning the principle to which the highest leadership in life is due. “Go forth and whoever brings me the finest carpet shall be king after my death.” The carpet is something on which one walks or stands, here representing the best way of life according to Isaiah XXX, 21. “This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left.” The three feathers are, of course, the three principles. Two of them move at once in opposite directions [towards the east and towards the west, as many writers on alchemy represent the two principles or breaths, anima and corpus or [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver]] and so come even at the outset away from the right path. The third, symbol of the spirit, flies straight forward and has not far to its end, for simple is the way to the inner life. And so the spirit will speak to us if we follow its voice, at first quite a faint voice: “But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayst do it.” (Deuteronomy XXX, 14.) Yet the soul is not free from sadness, as the man stands still on the lower steps of the ladder that leads up into eternal life. Simpleton is troubled in his heart and in the humility of this affliction he discovers “all at once” a secret door, which shows him the entrance into the mystical life. The door is on the surface of the earth, in abasement, as the third feather determined it in advance. As Simpleton discreetly obeyed it, he strolled along the path that the door opened for him. Three steps, three fundamental forces. So Christ had to descend before he could rise. The hero of the story knocks as Christ knocks in the gospel (i.e., on the inner door, contrasted with the law of Moses, the outer door). The big toad with her little ones in a circle about her signifies the great mother nature and her creatures, which surround her in a circle; in a circle, for nature always returns upon herself in a cycle. Simpleton gets the most beautiful carpet. The other two beings that we call understanding and feelings (sun and moon of the hermetic writings) look without, instead of seeking the way within; so it comes to pass that they take the first best coarse cloths.