Sixth Tale Of a Humble King’s Portrait
Sixth Tale
Of a Humble King’s Portrait
A story:
O nce there was a king who had a sage. The king said to his sage, There is a king whose seal indicates that he is both a mighty and valiant warrior and also a man of truth and humility.
With regard to his might and valour, I know that to be the case.
For the sea surrounds his domain, and on the sea sails his navy armed with cannon, allowing no one to land.
Further inland from the sea the country is girt by a large swamp.
Through this swamp there is but one lone path, wide enough for a single person to pass, and defended by more cannon.
Were any to come to wage war, the cannon would fire on them. Thus none can reach his domain.
But as for his being a man of truth and humility, the king went on, that I cannot say. I want you to bring me his portrait.
The king, you see, had a royal portrait collection. But no king possessed the portrait of the island king, because that king kept himself hidden from people, seated behind a curtain, and distant from his subjects.
The sage then went forth into that country and decided he needed to understand its ways. How might he come to understand 54 such things? Through its jokes. Because if one needs to understand a thing’s essence, one has to get a feel for the jokes about it.
There are, of course, many kinds of jokes.
If, say, someone were to wish to cut another person to the quick with his words but the object of his barb then took offence, he might add, I am only joking, as the Good Book says: As a mad man who casteth firebrands and arrows and saith, Am not I in sport?
And sometimes someone really does mean it only as a joke, but his words still hurt the other person.
So clearly there are various kinds of jokes.
Now there is a country that is the epitome of all the countries in the world.
And in that country is a city that is the epitome of all the cities in the country that is the epitome of all countries.
There is a house that is the epitome of all the houses in that city, the city that is the epitome of all cities in the country that is the epitome of all counties.
In this house can be found a man who is the epitome of all householders, in this house that is the epitome of all houses in the epitome of all cities, in the epitome of all countries.
And that man makes the jests and jokes of the entire country.
Now, the sage had brought with him a lot of money when he came to the country.
There he saw all the kinds of derision and joking that went on, and he understood from them that the country was full of deception.
He watched their mockery and how they deceived one another in business.
And when one of them sought recourse in city hall, lies were told and bribes were taken.
So one appealed to a higher court, but there was more 55 lying, and everyone made a jesting mockery of this perversion of justice.
The sage came to understand from all this mockery that the country was full of lies and deception and there was no truth there.
So he went and did business in the country and let himself be duped.
He sought recourse in court, where lies and bribery abounded.
So he paid a bribe. But the very next day, all that had transpired was forgotten, so he appealed to a higher court.
That court, too, was full of lies. And so this went on until he reached the county’s Senate, which was also fraught with fraud and bribery.
So it was until he reached the court of the king himself.
When he appeared before the king he said, Over whom are you king? Your country is overrun with lies, from start to finish. There is no truth in it whatsoever. He then began to detail the duplicity of the country.
As he listened to what the sage had to say, the king inclined his ear towards the curtain to hear better, because it was an immense surprise to encounter a man who was so aware of his country’s duplicity.
The royal ministers, too, listened to what he had to say and grew increasingly vexed.
But the sage kept recounting the country’s duplicity.
The sage concluded, One could say that you, O king, are very much like the rest of your realm, hiding your face as you benefit from deception just like the rest of your subjects.
On the other hand, one might equally infer that you are a man of truth and therefore unlike the rest, and that you hide away because you cannot bear to see your country’s deceitfulness. 56
He then started heaping praise upon the king.
For the king was a very humble man, and, as our sages of old taught, Wherever you find His might and valour, there you shall find His humility .
For this is the way of a truly humble man: the more he is praised and lauded, the smaller he becomes in his own estimation and grows humbler still.
As the sage kept praising and lauding him, the king’s humility increased and he grew smaller and smaller until he had become nothing.
Unable to contain himself, the king threw back the curtain so he could lay eyes on the sage, demanding, Who is he that knows and understands all these things?
The face of the king was thereby revealed. The sage gazed upon it and went on to paint the king’s portrait, which he brought to his own king.