Malayan literature; comprising romantic tales, epic poetry and royal ...

MAKOTA RADJA-RADJA 169
day, when he had gone forth from the city, wandering at random
through plain and forest, he saw a shepherd's hut in the
distance, at the door of which were two dogs hanging by the
neck. Seeing the King, the shepherd approached and led
him to his hovel and served him with the best food he could
afford. But the King said :
"
I shall not eat until you have told me why you have
hanged these two dogs at your cabin-door."
The shepherd responded :
" O king of the world, I hanged
these two dogs because they betrayed my flock. As my flock
was wasting away, I hid one day to see what took place. The
wolf came and the dogs played with him and let him carry off
sheep and goats.
tors."
So I hanged the two dogs as faithless trai-
The King returned to the city and thought over this singu-
"
lar story. It is a lesson for me," he said, " a revelation. It
is impossible not to see that my subjects are the flock and I
am the shepherd, while my minister has acted like the shepherd's
dogs, and the enemy who has my kingdom is the wolf.
I must examine into the conduct of my minister and see with
what fidelity he has served me."
When he had returned to the palace he called his secre-
taries and bade them bring the registers in which the accounts
of the kingdom were kept. When these registers were
opened he saw that they mentioned only the name of the minister
Rassat Rouchin, and included such statements as :
" In-
tercession of Rassat Rouchin in favor of princes so and so,
ministers such and such, and grandees this and that, who ask
pardon for their faults. Rassat Rouchin took their treasures
and granted them grace." There was nothing else in the reg-
isters. When the King saw this he said :
*' Who rests his faith upon a name goes often without bread,
While he who faithless proves for bread shall lose his soul instead."
These words the King had engraved in letters of gold and
fastened to the gate. And at this gate he had the false minis-
ter hanged as the dogs were hanged at the cabin-door.
A King of Persia, in a fit of anger against his wife for a cer-
tain fault which she had committed, commanded his prime
minister to put her to death, together with her nursing in-