In ancient, ancient times, there lived one padishah. He had no children. One day the padishah looked at himself in the mirror and saw that the hair on his head was already grey. He thought about this and said to himself: “It’s a pity that I don’t have a son who could rule the state instead of me!”
But finally, the padishah was about to have an heir. He was so happy about this that he announced throughout the country:
- If I have a son and on the same day someone else also has a son, then I will adopt this boy.
On the day when the padishah’s son was born, a boy was also born in the house of a shepherd. According to this promise, the padishah ordered the shepherd’s son to be brought to the palace and took him into his care.
The children grew up and reached school age. The padishah sent them both to school. The shepherd's son, who was very understanding and quick-witted, showed a particular passion for learning, and what the prince did not understand, he explained to him.
So gradually the boys grew up, became strong adults, the blood was boiling in their young bodies. Finally, they began to go out into the surrounding area to hunt.
One day the young men were going hunting, and the prince shot a chicken near the village. And in one courtyard of this village an old woman was sitting and weaving karbos. The shot bird flew up to her and fell on the carbos, tore it and stained the threads with blood.
The prince went after his prey and ended up in the old woman's yard.
“Hey, well done,” said the old woman when she saw him, “you did very badly.” May you fall in love with Farishtamokh for this!
-Who is Farishtamokh? - asked the surprised prince.
“The beautiful and intelligent Farishtamokh lives towards the sunset,” answered the old woman, “behind seven high passes.” She is so beautiful and so smart that hundreds of young men are burning with love for her, but she has never liked anyone herself.
When the prince heard about such a beauty, he immediately returned to the palace. And there he was informed that the padishah had been waiting for him for a long time.
“My son,” said the padishah, “I am already old and I want you to remove the burden of governing the country from me and take it upon yourself.” You need to prepare for this, let's go, I will show you the royal treasury and all the treasures.
The prince looked closely at his father and asked:
- Oh dear father, tell me what is better: staying at home or traveling around the world?
— Of course, it’s better to travel around the world! - answered the father. “You will see many new places, many different peoples, you will know more and become wiser!”
“If so,” said the son, “then allow me to travel around the world first!” The padishah was forced to let his son travel, but only together
with the shepherd's son.
They drove and drove, crossed seven passes and arrived in one city. They knocked on the first gate. An old woman opened the door for them.
“Mother, we are wanderers, wouldn’t you have a place for us to rest for a day or two?”
- Oh, dear children, I have one closet, if my head fits into it, my legs won’t fit, if my legs fit in, my head won’t fit.
The son of the padishah threw the gold to the old woman, and she, overjoyed, spoke:
- Come in, come in, I have an even larger and spacious room, live in it as long as you want.
The old woman laid blankets in the room, unwrapped the dastarkhon, laid flat cakes in front of the guests and gave them tea. They sat and talked. It was time for bed, the old woman prepared a bed for them and said:
“My children, don’t go out at night, otherwise the consequences will be bad.”
Lying on his bed, the shepherd's son thought: “What is going to happen at night? Why can't we go outside? On the contrary, you need to go out and find out what’s going on.” Thinking about this, he woke up the son of the padishah and said:
“Get up, brother, we didn’t come here to sleep, let’s go out and see what’s going on on the street!”
They both went out and saw that half of the city was dark, and the other half was as bright as day, and so light that shoemakers were making shoes, carpenters were doing carpentry, comb makers were making combs. They marveled at this, looked at it, and then went and went to bed. In the morning they asked the old woman:
- Mother, tell us what kind of miracle we saw at night?
- Oh, my children, did you really go out at night?
- Yes, we went out into the street at night and saw that one side of the city was dark and the other light. Why is this?
“Well, since you went out and saw everything, I am forced to tell you that the light that you saw at night is the brilliance of the beauty of Farishtamokh.” Whichever direction she turns her face during sleep, it becomes light in that part of the city, and that’s it. Those who see this light become in love with the beauty, but she has never liked anyone yet. That’s why I didn’t tell you to go out at night, so as not to doom you to a difficult fate.
“Oh mother,” said the shepherd’s son, “it’s good that you told us about Farishtamokh.” My brother fell in love with this beauty a long time ago, and we came to this city in search of her.
- Many princes and sons of wazirs could not get a meeting with her and look at her, but how will you achieve this?
- Now it’s difficult for us to say how, we are ready to do anything to achieve our goal! - said the shepherd's son. And both friends headed to the house where the beauty lives to look at her.
All those gathered were led into a large room. There, from behind the curtain, a girl’s voice reached them:
“I’m setting a difficult condition.” Whoever fulfills it, I will marry him.
- Tell me your condition, I will fulfill it! - the prince shouted.
“I will sleep,” the girl began, “you will sit in the same room and, without raising your voice, without flapping your hands, without moving unnecessarily, you will try not to let me sleep until the morning.”
The prince immediately agreed to fulfill this condition, but at night he could not keep Farishtamokh from sleeping, and soon he himself was overcome by sleep. In the morning the prince woke up and realized that he had lost the bet. Sad and upset, he returned to the old woman’s house. The shepherd's son began to console him:
“Don’t kill yourself like that, dear brother, I’ll try to fulfill this condition, and then we’ll come up with something!”
That same day, the shepherd's son carved a doll from wood, went to the beauty in the evening and informed her that he was ready to fulfill her condition. He was brought into her room and sat behind a curtain. The shepherd's son took out his wooden doll and, looking at it meaningfully, began to play with it and say:
- O my dear friend, you are famous for your wisdom and prudence! I have been tormented by important questions for a long time, and to resolve them I am forced to turn to you.
- Well, tell me, what are your important questions? - Making his voice thin, the shepherd’s son asked for the doll.
The beautiful Farishtamokh immediately became interested in the thin-voiced sage, as well as the issues that he undertakes to resolve. Out of the corner of her eye she looked
at the funny young man - and the handsome young man, playing with the doll and having a conversation with it, more and more captured the girl’s attention.
“Oh, dear friend,” said the shepherd’s son, turning to the doll, “in the same city lived a fortune-teller and a healer. One day, a fortune teller told fortunes and learned that the daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh, who had no equal in beauty, fell ill with a serious illness, and not a single healer could cure her. The Egyptian pharaoh announced that whoever cured his daughter would give her as a wife with a large dowry. When the fortuneteller told the healer about this, he said:
“It’s a pity that it’s a long way to go there, otherwise I would have cured her in three days.”
The master, who at that time had completed the construction of a flying horse, learned about this conversation. He invited all three to mount his horse and fly to Egypt in a short time.
They did just that. In a short time they flew to Egypt on a flying horse, and the healer cured the pharaoh’s sick daughter in three days. The delighted pharaoh with expensive gifts was going to give his daughter as a wife to this healer, but the fortuneteller and the master raised a scandal.
- The girl must belong to me! - said the master. - If I had not made a flying horse, the medicine man could not have flown to the Egyptian pharaoh himself!
- No, the girl must belong to me! - said the fortuneteller. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t know anything about this girl!”
So they argued for a very long time, and Pharaoh and his wise men were powerless to help them resolve this dispute. When I heard about their dispute,” the shepherd’s son continued to say, turning to the wooden doll, “I came to the following conclusion: the girl must belong to the fortuneteller; without his skill, neither the master nor the healer would have ever known about this girl!
- No no! - the doll squeaked, shaking its head. “You’re mistaken, the master has the most right to the girl, if he didn’t have the ability to make a flying horse, the fortuneteller and the healer alone could not do anything!”
Farishtamokh only outwardly seemed to be sleeping, but in fact she was listening attentively to the interesting storyteller, and when she heard such conclusions from her interlocutors, she raised her head and expressed disagreement with them:
- You're both wrong. The healer has the right to the girl more than anyone else; only thanks to his knowledge he cured the dying girl.
- Oh, my dear friend! - exclaimed the shepherd's son, again turning to his doll. - It turns out that the beautiful Farishtamokh is right, and not you and me! But for a long time now I have been interested in an even more interesting story. I will tell it and I hope that this time you will not be mistaken in your conclusion and that the beautiful Farishtamokh will like your answer!
“Tell me what this story is?” the doll squeaked, shaking its shoulders and head in the young man’s palm.
“Once upon a time there was a padishah,” the shepherd’s son began a new story, “he had a nightingale. He put the nightingale in a golden cage, which he hung in his garden, and every day at a certain time he came to listen to his singing.
One day the padishah sat and listened to the nightingale, and suddenly two other nightingales flew in, sat on a golden cage, said something to each other and flew away again. The padishah approached the cage and asked his nightingale:
- What kind of nightingales were they and what were they talking about?
“These were my relatives,” the nightingale answered the padishah. “The nightingale padishah is throwing a big celebration, they flew to invite me, and I said: “I’m not free, I’m sitting in a cage, that’s why I can’t fly with you.” They regretted it and flew away.
The padishah thought for a moment and said:
- If I let you go for two or three days, what will you bring me from the nightingale country?
“I will bring you a grain of apricot,” said the nightingale, “you plant it, in forty days it will become a big tree, bear fruit, and the old man who eats the fruit of this tree will become young and healthy.”
The padishah let the nightingale go for a visit. As promised, the nightingale returned a few days later and brought the padishah a grain of apricot. The padishah planted it, and after forty days a large tree grew from the seed. Densely overgrown with branches, it was covered with many leaves, between which ripe apricot fruits could be seen.
On the forty-first day, the padishah ordered the gardener to pick one fruit and bring it to him. The gardener picked up one fallen fruit from under the tree and brought it to the padishah, and the padishah ordered the most decrepit old man to eat this fruit. But the old man did not become young, but died immediately. The padishah became angry and ordered the head of the deceiving nightingale to be cut off. His order was carried out, and the nightingale died.
Word quickly spread among the people about the deadly apricot fruit. One very poor old man heard about this, for whom his bitter life was a burden. He decided to go and eat the deadly fruits in order to get rid of painful torment. With this intention, he came to the padishah’s garden and, stretching out his trembling hand to a branch of a yellow ripe apricot, ate two or three fruits and remained sitting waiting for death. He sat for five minutes, sat for ten, but death did not come; on the contrary, the old man felt vigorous and strong. “This is a strange thing,” thought the old man, stretching out his hand to his beard, but he did not feel the beard with his hand, his hand touched the smooth young chin. Surprised by this, the old man went to the stream and looked at himself in the water; there he saw himself as he was fifty years ago.
At this very time, the gardener approached him and, suspecting him to be a thief, led him to the padishah. The old man told the padishah what happened to him.
“If so,” said the padishah, “then why did that old man die from eating apricots, but this one didn’t?!”
But neither the padishah nor the gardener knew that the apricot that had fallen to the ground had been bitten by a poisonous snake...”
- Hey, dear friend! - the shepherd’s son turned to his doll. “Now tell me, who is most to blame for the death of the nightingale and the old man?”
- Of course, gardener! - answered the doll. “He had to pick an apricot from a tree branch and take it to the padishah.” It was impossible to carry the fruit picked up from the ground!
“It’s true,” said the shepherd’s son, “the gardener was primarily responsible for the death of both of them.”
Hearing this conclusion, the cheerful Farishtamokh raised her head and said:
- Oh, well done, how stupid you are along with your famous sage! The main culprit for this is the padishah! Before giving the old man the poisonous apricot fruit, and also before treating an innocent nightingale so mercilessly, the padishah had to carefully find out about everything, and then make a decision. This reckless haste of the padishah was the reason for the wasted sacrifices.
The shepherd’s son heard these words and, turning his head to the doll, said:
“Oh, dear friend, this time you were wrong and the beautiful Farishtamokh did not like your answer.” In front of this incredibly beautiful and wise girl, you had to show all the subtlety of your mind. Otherwise, I will forever remain in her memory as a liar! Well, now I’ll tell you another story, you listen more carefully and at the end of it, express your opinion.
- Okay, tell me! - the doll squeaked, quickly bowing and straightening up in front of the shepherd’s son, and he began a new story:
“On one side of our state, on the two banks of a large river, there were two villages. These two villages were connected by a long wooden bridge. Often a robber appeared on this bridge, he caught a traveler passing across the bridge, took off his clothes, took all his things, and threw him into the river. But one day this robber not only did not rob a richly dressed man and throw him into the river, but with a pleasant smile walked him to the other end of the bridge. It happened like this: in one of the villages there lived a shepherd’s son, a modest, handsome and decent young man. He gave his heart to his neighbor's daughter, the bai. The girl also fell in love with the boy with all her heart. Secretly they arranged pleasant meetings and after each of them they liked each other more and more. And finally, they didn’t want to be apart for a minute longer.
At this very time something happened that the pure and sincere bonds of friendship were almost cut: on the other side of the river there lived a rich man, he learned about
the tender beauty of the girl and, wanting to marry his son to her, sent matchmakers to her parents. Bai, the girl's father, found the rich man's son a suitable groom and, not paying attention to his daughter's objections, agreed to marry her to an unloved man. The girl, cursing her unfortunate fate, decided to take her own life in order to get rid of such grief. On her wedding day, she hid a knife in her sleeve and waited.
The wedding is over. The groom entered the bride and saw that the bride was sitting in the corner of the room, sad and upset, with her head pulled into her shoulders, like a partridge hiding from a hunting falcon. He was amazed at this behavior of the bride and headed towards her. And the girl immediately jumped up from her seat and, pulling a knife out of her sleeve, shouted:
- Don't come near me! Otherwise I will kill either you or myself!
- Why are you doing this? — asked the groom, surprised by her behavior. “What is my fault if you came to such a decision?”
“I loved another young man with all my heart,” she said. “They gave me forcibly to you, separating me from my beloved, without him life is impossible for me!”
The groom was frightened by such a fearless decision of the girl and thought: “She will kill either me or herself, so it’s better for me to let her go and calm her soul.” And he said to the girl:
- If so, go to your loved one now and live with him!
Without saying anything, the girl got up and left the house. She approached the bridge, intending to cross it, but she was detained by a robber. When he saw the girl in front of him, he was surprised and said:
“It’s strange, at midnight even the bravest men don’t dare come here.” Your bravery amazes me. Tell me, with what intention did you leave your village and where are you going?
The girl frankly told him about what had happened. Admiring the brave girl, the robber took pity on her and said:
- Go and be happy!
The girl came to her beloved. The shepherd's son did not sleep. His eyes were red, his face turned yellow from the grief of separation. Comforting him, the girl said:
“Don’t be upset, my dear, now we will always be together, we will live our whole lives without being separated.”
- Yes, you have a big heart, pure and sincere love beats in it, but you forget some things. After all these events, we cannot be together. Your rich father and your fiancé’s father, famous for their power and heartlessness, upon learning about what happened, will deal cruelly with me, and worst of all, with my father and mother. I myself am ready to endure any punishment, but I don’t want my parents to suffer and suffer because of me. That's why you need
return to my husband now, I will never forget you, the memory of you will forever remain in my heart!
Full of sadness, the girl returned to her husband and began to live with him.”
- Hey, my dear friend! - the shepherd's son turned to the doll, - which of these four people showed the greatest humanity?
“Of course, the shepherd’s son,” said the doll, “he abandoned his beloved, he saved not only himself and his parents, but also the same girl from painful torture.” He showed a high example of humanity!
“In my opinion,” said the shepherd’s son, “the robber acted more humanely than anyone else.” Contrary to his usual robbery, he showed rare kindness to the girl he met.
- Eh, you think very narrowly! - said Farishtamokh. - Both of you are very far from the truth. You forgot about the girl's devotion. After all, in order to remain faithful, she did everything she could, and at the same time showed rare courage. Doesn’t the humanity you glorify in a girl’s behavior mean anything?
Admired by Farishtamoh's clever judgment, the shepherd's son said:
- Of course, you are right, lovely beauty! The girl’s devotion also captivated me immensely!
At this time, the rays of the bright, rising sun fell on Farishtamokh’s radiant and enthusiastic face, as if she had just woken up from a sweet dream. The girl laughed joyfully and cheerfully, and at that time Farishtamokh’s parents and courtiers entered the room.
“Dear parents,” said Farishtamokh, “you know that I did not choose noble and rich suitors, I wanted to connect my life with a person who seemed to me the smartest and kindest.”
Everyone waited with curiosity and impatience for the continuation of the words of Farishtamokh, who had been choosing her groom for so long. And so she, turning her tender gaze to the modest and handsome young man who stood calmly with a wooden doll in his hands, continued:
“I found that this modest young man is the smartest and kindest person I have ever seen and heard. With his skillful invention and entertaining tales, he did not let me fall asleep, and did not make me bored for the whole long night. He fulfilled my difficult condition, and I agree to become his lifelong friend.
The girl’s parents and courtiers joyfully turned their gaze to the young man, and he, calmly raising his gaze to the radiant face of Farishtamokh, said:
“O captivator of hearts, oh the most beautiful and smartest of all whom I have met!” You must choose the most noble and richest young man as your friend in life! I don’t advise you to choose the son of a poor shepherd, I’m not a match for you. I must confess that I tried only for my prince, whose father raised me and with whom I grew up.
- Dear parents! Now you have seen for yourself the rare kindness of this handsome and intelligent young man, who has all the qualities of the person I dreamed of. I will not change my decision, but at the same time I do not want to force anyone to agree with my choice.
- O most beautiful and intelligent Farishtamokh! Is there a person who would not love you at first sight! - exclaimed the shepherd’s son when he was convinced that Farishtamokh chose only him as his friend in life.
The whole city was immediately notified that the beautiful and intelligent Farishtamokh had chosen a groom. The people rejoiced and approved of the choice of their beloved beauty.
The wedding of Farishtamokh and the shepherd's son was joyfully celebrated. Only the son of the padishah, having learned that the beauty did not want to unite her life with him, immediately went to his homeland and did not marry all his life.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru