Turkish Literature; Comprising Fables, Belles-lettres, and Sacred Traditions
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Turkish Literature; Comprising Fables, Belles-lettres, and Sacred Traditions
Turkey -- Literary collections; Turkish literature -- Translations into English
When it was morning the king sat upon his throne and caused the youth to
be brought, and commanded the executioner, “Smite off his head.” The
sixth vezir came forward and said, “O king of the world, beware, act not
on anyone’s word till the crime be proved against the prince; for the
resurrection is at hand, and lying and cunning and craft abound. The
wise man is he who turns off sin and evil that he may not afterward
begin to bite upon the finger with regret and remorse and be repentant,
and who takes the woful by the hand and gives happiness to the unhappy,
and who repulses not him who comes to his door, but sees his needs and
provides for him, and who never lets himself be deceived by a woman’s
word; for these laugh in one’s face. Mayhap my king has not heard the
story of the tailor youth and the woman.” The king said, “Tell on, let
us hear.” Quoth the vezir:
THE TAILOR AND THE WOMAN
“Thus relate they: In the time of Saint Jesus (peace on him!) there was
a tailor youth who had a fair wife, and they greatly loved one another.
One day they made a pact that if the woman died first, her husband
should take no other wife, but throw his arms round her tombstone, and
weep till morning; and if the youth died first, the woman should do
likewise. By the decree of God the woman died. After the tailor had wept
and lamented he buried her, and fulfilled his pact, and threw his arms
round his wife’s tombstone and wept. And he constantly kept watch over
the grave. One day Jesus (peace on him!) when passing by that place, saw
a youth weeping and embracing a tombstone, and he went up to him and
asked why he wept. The youth related all.
“Then Jesus (peace on him!) prayed, and the woman became alive, and came
forth from the grave in her shroud. And Jesus (peace on him!) proceeded
on his way. The youth said, ‘One cannot go thus in a shroud; wait thou
here a moment till I go and fetch clothes from the house; then thou
shalt put on these clothes, and we will go together.’ And he went
quickly to the house, leaving the woman there. Suddenly the son of the
king of that country passed that spot, and saw a fair woman sitting
wrapped in a shroud. As soon as the prince saw that woman he fell in
love with her from heart and soul, and he said to her, ‘Who art thou?’
She answered, ‘I am a stranger; a robber has stripped me.’ Thereupon the
prince ordered his servants to take the woman to the palace, and clothe
her in clean garments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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