Arabs -- Folklore; Fairy tales -- Arab countries; Tales -- Arab countries
On his return he did not fail to interrogate the parrot on what had
passed while he was away; and the bird very expertly related a few
circumstances, which occasioned the husband to reprimand his wife.
She supposed that some of her slaves had exposed her, but they all
assured her they were faithful, and agreed in charging the parrot
with the crime. Desirous of being convinced of the truth of this
matter, the wife devised a method of quieting the suspicions of her
husband, and at the same time of revenging herself on the parrot, if
he were the culprit. The next time the husband was absent, she
ordered one of her slaves, during the night, to turn a handmill
under the bird’s cage, and another to throw water over it like
rain, and a third to wave a looking-glass before the parrot by the
light of a candle. The slaves were employed the greatest part of the
night in doing what their mistress had ordered them, and succeeded
to her satisfaction.
The following day, when the husband returned, he again applied to
the parrot to be informed of what had taken place. The bird replied,
“My dear master, the lightning, the thunder, and the rain, have so
disturbed me the whole night, that I cannot tell you how much I have
suffered.” The husband, who knew there had been no storm that
night, became convinced that the parrot did not always relate facts;
and that having told an untruth in this particular, he had also
deceived him with respect to his wife: being therefore extremely
enraged with it, he took the bird out of the cage, and dashing it on
the floor, killed it: he, however, afterwards learnt from his
neighbours, that the poor parrot had told no story of the conduct of
his wife, which made him repent of having destroyed it.
“When the Greek king,” said the fisherman to the Genius, “had
finished the story of the parrot, he added, “You, vizier, through
envy of Douban, who has done you no evil, wish me to order his
death, but I will take good care, lest, like the husband who killed
his parrot, I should afterwards repent.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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