Thousand & One Nights: Fourteenth Night: Husband & Wife

There was a jealous man. He had a splendidly beautiful wife. She never let her husband travel and leave her behind, until he found it necessary to go on a journey. He went to the bird market, bought a parrot, and brought it home. The parrot was intelligent, smart, and had an excellent memory.
Then he went away on his journey. After his task, he returned home. He asked the parrot about his wife during his absence. The parrot gave a day-by-day account of how his wife and her paramour carried on their love making.

When the husband heard the account, he felt very angry, went to his wife, and gave her a sound beating. She thought that one of her maids must have informed her husband that she and her lover had their feast of lust during her husband's absence, and interrogated all her maids one by one, and they all swore that the parrot had informed her husband.

The wife wanted to take a revenge on the parrot. She ordered one of her maids to take the grinding stone and grind under the cage. She ordered the second maid to sprinkle water over the cage. And she ordered the third to carry a steel mirror and walk back and forth all the night long. That night her husband stayed out, and when he came in the morning, he approached the parrot and asked her what had transpired in his absence that night. The parrot replied, "Master, forgive me, last night, all night long, I was unable to hear or see very well because of intense darkness, the rain, and thunder and lightning." Seeing that it was summer, the husband doubted some foul play, and he replied, "Damn you, this is no season of rain." The parrot said, "Yes by God, all night long I saw what I told you." The husband concluding that the parrot had lied, got angry, grabbed the parrot out of the cage, smote her on the ground and killed her. But, later the husband heard from the neighbours that the parrot had told the truth about rain, lightning and thunder, which were stagemanaged by his wife to mislead the parrot. He realised that he had been tricked by his wife.

King Yunan concluded, "Vizier, the same will happen to me, if I stick to your advice about the sage and dismiss him from my service."

Morning came, and with it came the closure of the art of story telling.

End of the Section 


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