Twelfth Tale Of a Master of Prayer #8
The Orator decided to accompany them as they continued on their search to find the rest, for they saw that Blessed God was helping them find their companions.
This they attributed to the merit of their virtuous Master of Prayer, who was always praying for their reunion.
Through the intercession of the Master’s prayers they were deemed worthy of finding their companions.
So they continued on in the hope of finding the rest.
They travelled on and came to the border of another country and asked the guards, What country is this and who is your king?
The guards replied that they were of the group that had chosen pleasure and carousal as their chief goal.
They had made a drunkard their king for he was always happy.
Not long after, they came upon a man who was sitting in a sea of wine.
He pleased them far more because he was surely a very great drunkard indeed, sitting as he was in a whole sea of wine. They took him for their new king.
The five asked whether they might have an audience with their king.
The guards went and announced them. When they were let in to see him, they saw that this was, indeed, the King’s 180 Favourite, who had been sitting in the sea of wine, which had come from the Orator’s words of consolation.
When they went in to see him they all instantly recognized one another, and there was great happiness and tears.
The Favourite joined and went along with them.
They travelled on and came to another country. They asked the guards, Who is your king?
They replied that their monarch was a beautiful woman, because she advanced their ultimate goal, which was the populating of the world. Previously they had had a beautiful woman to rule over them, but then they found a woman of truly exceptional beauty. They made her their new ruler.
They surmised, That must surely be the Princess.
The six asked whether they might have an audience with her. The guards went and announced them, and they were let in to see this queen. They instantly recognized her as the Princess and the rejoicing that resulted was beyond description.
They asked, How did you come to be here?
She described how when the great tempest struck and snatched her dear Child from its crib, in that moment of chaos she ran after her Child but could not find it.
She expressed her milk and it became a sea of milk.
Afterwards she found this country and they made her their ruler.
There was much rejoicing as well as a great deal of crying over the precious Child who was not there, and over her father and mother whose whereabouts she did not know.
At last, her country had a king, too, for the mighty Warrior—the husband of the Princess (who was now this country’s ruler)—was now by her side. 181
The Princess entreated the Master to go into her country and cleanse it of its shameful vice.
Among them, the ultimate goal was beauty and they were demoralized by their carnal lust. Accordingly, she asked the Master if he could cleanse them of it and exhort them not to wallow in their lascivious lust nor act so crudely in that vice.
For this unseemly lust was an article of faith among them.
Out they set to search for the rest. Travelling on, they arrived at another country where they asked, Who is your king?
The border guards answered that their king was a yearling child.
They were of the group that had decided that the one who should be their king was he who had a great deal of nourishment but did not feed on the food of common people.
They had had a wealthy man as their king, but they later found a person who was sitting in a sea of milk.
He pleased them greatly since he nourished himself, living on milk, and did not feed on the food of other people.
Accordingly, they made him their king. And that was why they called him the yearling king, because he lived on milk like a one-year-old.
The seven surmised that this must surely be their Child, so they asked whether they might have an audience with him.
The guards went and announced them, and they were let in to see him.
They instantly recognized one another; and he recognized them even though he had been a mere babe when he was snatched away, because he was a great savant from the moment of his birth and born with much wisdom.
And clearly they recognized him, too. There was understandably a great deal of rejoicing, but also many tears over the missing King and Queen. 182
They asked him, How did you come to be here?
He described how when the great tempest had struck and snatched him, it had borne him away somewhere.
There he sustained himself on what he found around him until he came to the sea of milk.
He instantly understood that this sea had surely come from his mother’s own milk; she had undoubtedly expressed it and it became that sea.
So he sat there in the sea of milk and was nourished by it until the people of the country came and made him their king.
The eight of them continued on their way and came to another country where they asked, Who is your king?
These guards answered that they had chosen murderousness as the essential principle of the world and had made a murderer their king.
Then, they found a woman sitting in a sea of blood and made her their monarch, because they saw that she was clearly an even greater murderer, sitting as she was in a sea of blood.
They then asked whether they might have an audience with their monarch.
The guards went and announced them, and they were let in to see her.
This was the Queen who wept constantly and whose tears had become the sea of blood.
They all instantly recognized one another.
Unsurprisingly there was much rejoicing, but also many tears over the absence of the King.
The nine continued on their way and came to yet another country where they asked, Who is your king?
They answered that they had chosen as their king an esteemed man, for among them honour was the essential principle of the world.
They found an old man sitting in a field with a crown upon his head.
He pleased them greatly; he clearly was an esteemed 183 man, sitting as he was in a field with a crown upon his head. So they made him their king.
They surmised that he must surely be their King.
So they asked whether it might be possible to have an audience with him.
The guards went and announced them, and they were let in to see him.
They instantly recognized that this was indeed their King, and the rejoicing that ensued was more than a mind could fathom.
For the life of them, the foolish so-called gods from the Nation of Wealth who had trailed along on the journey had no idea what was going on nor why everyone was so happy.
Now the holy community was again reunited: the King and all his holy retinue.
They sent the Master to all the countries of the groups that had chosen wicked things as their principal goals in order to reprove them and cleanse them and extricate them from their misguided state.
He was to lead them out of their vices and follies for they had all been so deluded.
Now the Master surely had the power to turn them round onto the right path.
Power and authority had been ceded by the erstwhile kings of all those countries, and all their present kings were now alongside him.
So, with the authority of their new kings, the Master went to cleanse the various countrymen of their wayward ways and turn them around towards repentance.
The Warrior spoke with the King concerning the nation that had fallen into idolatry of money. The Warrior said to the King, I have heard from Your Majesty that by means of the path to the sword, one can extricate those who have fallen into the lust for money.
The King replied, Indeed, that is so. 184
The King told the Warrior that branching from the path to the sword there was a sidetrack that led to a mountain of fire.
On that mountain lived a lion. When it needed to eat, it attacked the flocks, taking sheep and livestock and devouring them.
The shepherds knew of the lion and tried to protect their sheep from it.
But the lion paid no heed. Rather, when it wished to feed, it fell upon the flocks, and the shepherds raised a hue and cry and raged at the lion, but the lion remained heedless and took the sheep and livestock, roaring and devouring them. This mountain of fire was invisible.
Branching from the path to the sword there was another sidetrack leading to a place known as the Kitchen.
In the Kitchen all manner of delicacies were made but there was no oven.
The foods were cooked by the flames of the lion’s fiery mountain, which was quite far away.
There were conduits and furrows running from the mountain of fire to the Kitchen by means of which the delicacies were cooked.
The Kitchen, too, was invisible. But birds perched atop it were the tell-tale sign as to where the Kitchen was.
The birds fanned their wings either to stoke or to weaken the fire.
They fanned the flames according to the needs of the food, that is, each food required a different kind of heat.
All this the King told the Warrior. You shall lead the people from the Nation of Wealth, he went on, towards this path—first into the wind so they should catch the scent of the delicacies, and then when you give them some of the food, they will surely be rid of their lust for money.
The Warrior did just that, taking along the great leaders of the country of wealth who had accompanied the Chamberlain 185 and who, when they left their country, had been given the authority to do whatever was necessary.
The Warrior took those people and guided them along the path the King had told him of and brought them into the Kitchen.
First he led them into the wind where they caught the scent of the food.
They started to implore him to give him some of those delicacies.
Then he led them upwind and they started to shout about an exceedingly fetid odour.
The Warrior said to them, You can see for yourselves there is nothing here that could make such a stench. Clearly it must be you who stinks, for there is nothing here that has such a putrid odour.
He then gave them some of the delicacies.
As soon as they ate, they instantly began casting off their gold and silver and throwing their money away.
Each one dug a pit and buried himself in it because of the great shame they felt so keenly.
As they tasted the food, they knew it was their wealth that reeked so terribly.
They tore at their faces and buried themselves and could not raise their heads.
They all felt such shame. Such was the nature of the delicacies: whoever ate of them hated money.
In that place, money was the greatest humiliation.
Should one of them wish to insult another he did so by saying, You have money!
Money was a very great shame there, and the more money one had the more shame he bore.
No one could raise his head, even to look at one another, let alone the Warrior.
Whoever found in his possession a gulden or a groschen would immediately cast it aside, throwing it far away.
Later, the Warrior came to them and took them out of the pits in which they had buried themselves out of shame and said 186 to them, Come with me. Now you need have no further fear of the Warrior, for I am that very Warrior.
They asked the Warrior to give them some of the food so they could take it back to their nation. They themselves would forever abhor money, but they wanted the entire land to be extricated from the lust for it. The Warrior doled out the delicacies, and they brought them back to their nation.
As soon as the people were given the food from the Kitchen, they all instantly began throwing away their money and burying themselves in the ground out of their great shame.
The wealthy people and the so-called gods felt the greatest shame, while those who were referred to as beasts and birds were ashamed at even having considered themselves so insignificant because they had less money.
For now they finally knew that it was just the opposite: money is the world’s principal abomination.
The delicacies possessed such a quality that whoever ate of them came to detest money, which now had the rank stench of shit.
So without exception they threw away their money, all their gold and all their silver.
Later, they were sent the Master of Prayer, who doled out penance and atonement. He cleansed them, and the King became ruler over the entire world, and the world turned itself around and returned to Blessed God. All devoted themselves to the Holy Law and prayer and repentance and good deeds.
Amen. May it be His will. Blessed be God forever Amen and
Amen