Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/140

118 discourse of piety. For it is now many days that I am afflicted in my heart; and I have not met with any man to reveal to me that which is in my heart. But if I met anyone from whom I could hear the word of salvation, the fowls of the air should not devour it, nor the beasts of the field trample it underfoot, nor tares strangle it, nor its leaf he dried up. Nay rather will I welcome it and cause it to shoot up right well, and nurture it with faith, and with steadfast hope cause it to bear fruit. But if thou knowest of such a word hide it not from me."

Baralam said: "Well hast thou said my son, and as beseemeth thy majesty. For thou hast not desired to pursue these vanities, but hast only had regard unto pious hopes."

And Baralam spake these parables [meet and helpful].

"A certain king was sitting in his chariot; and he met with some men who wore tattered garments; and their bodies were discoloured by frost and sun. And they cried out saying, 'We are heralds of immortal life.' When the king heard these words of theirs, he descended from his chariot and saluted them; and paying them great honour he seated them near unto himself. But the king's mighty ones murmured thereat, yet did not dare to say aught to the king. But they acquainted his brother of how the sovereign outraged the honour of the sovereignty. And there came the king's brother and told all, but the king made no answer.

"Now it was the custom with this king, that whomsoever he desired to slay, he would send unto such an one's door the messenger of death; who came and blew a trumpet and sounded a pshawm at his door. So [when it was eventide] the king sent trumpeters to the door of his brother, heralding his death. So his brother heard the heralds of his own death, which was to be at dawn. And he rose early, and arrayed himself in a garb of mourning, and went to the door of the palace, and held himself to be altogether amerced of his life. When the king heard that his brother was come to die, he called him before him and said: 'Fool, if thou wast so much affrighted at the messengers of death, who were dispatched to thy door by thy brother whom thou lovest, against whom thou hast not sinned in any way; why then wast thou grieved with me, because I honoured the messengers of my God, who heralded unto me immortal happiness?' And the king honoured his brother, and clad him in royal raiment, and sent him to his home rejoicing."

"Now the same king after that caused to be made two vessels of wood; and he ordered the one of them to be encrusted with gold and silver, and to be adorned