Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/128

 104 and save him, one day each"; and he went and entered the presence of the king, and prostrated himself, and said: "Kings should do nothing until they are sure of the truth."

1ST. I.—The first philosopher spake: "Long live my sovereign lord! I heard that there was once a king, to whom there was nothing so pleasant as the love of women. One day he beheld and saw a beautiful woman, and love for her entered his heart, and he became enamoured of her; so one day he sent and called her husband, and sent him upon a message; then the king went to that woman, and requested to have intercourse with her. She, however, in her wisdom, said to the king: 'My lord, I am thy servant, do all that thou wishest.' Now her husband had a book which admonished greatly concerning fornication, and she bade the king read that book. The king took (it), read, and saw that it contained a warning against fornication; so the king rose in haste and departed, and his ring fell beneath the couch. Thus he left, and the woman was saved. Her husband came home and sat upon the couch, saw the ring and recognised it, while his wife did not notice it. The husband thought within himself: 'The king has been, and has had connection with my wife.' He was afraid of the king, so he did not live with her for some long time. The wafe then sent to her father, and informed him that her husband had estranged himself from her. Her father went to the king, and said: 'I had a field and gave it to this man in order that he might work it; he worked at it for a time, but now he has estranged himself from it, he does not work at it, but deserts it.' The king spake to the husband of the woman: 'What have you to say?' And he answered and said: 'In very deed, my lord, has he given me a field, nor have I neglected its cultivation as far as lay in my power. But it happened one day that I observed that there had come upon it the path of a lion's paw, and I was afraid on