Читать книгу Oriental tales, for the entertainment of youth - Anonymous - Страница 8

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A certain Cham of Tartary going a progress with his nobles, was met by a Dervise, who cried with a loud voice, whoever will give me a hundred pieces of gold, I will give him a piece of advice. The Cham ordered him the sum: upon which the Dervise said, begin nothing of which thou hast not well considered the end.

The courtiers upon hearing this plain sentence, smiled, and said with a sneer, “The dervise is well paid for his maxim.” But the king was so well satisfied with the answer, that he ordered it to be written in golden letters in several places of his palace, and engraved on all his plate. Not long after, the king’s surgeon was bribed to kill him with a poisoned lancet at the time he let him blood. One day, when the king’s arm was bound, and the fatal lancet in the surgeon’s hand, he read on the bason, begin nothing of which thou hast not well considered the end. He immediately started, and let the lancet fall out of his hand. The king observed his confusion, and enquired the reason: the surgeon fell prostrate, confessed the whole affair, and was pardoned, and the conspirators died. The Cham, turning to his courtiers who heard the advice with contempt, told them, “that counsel could not be too much valued, which had saved a king’s life.”