Khipil answered, ’O King of splendours!
I made petition to my neighbours whom I met, accosting
them civilly and with imploring, for I ached to chafe,
and it was the very raging thirst of desire to chafe
that was mine, devouring eagerness for solace of chafing.
And they chafed me, O King; yet not in those parts
which throbbed for the chafing, but in those which
abhorred it.’
Then Shahpesh smiled and said, ’’Tis certain
that the magnanimity of monarchs is as the rain that
falleth, the sun that shineth: and in this spot
it fertilizeth richness; in that encourageth rankness.
So art thou but a weed, O Khipil! and my grace is
thy chastisement.’
Now, the King ceased not persecuting Khipil, under
pretence of doing him honour and heaping favours on
him. Three days and three nights was Khipil gasping
without water, compelled to drink of the drought of
the fountain, as an honour at the hands of the King.
And he was seven days and seven nights made to stand
with stretched arms, as they were the branches of a
tree, in each hand a pomegranate. And Shahpesh
brought the people of his court to regard the wondrous
pomegranate shoot planted by Khipil, very wondrous,
and a new sort, worthy the gardens of a King.
So the wisdom of the King was applauded, and men wotted
he knew how to punish offences in coin, by the punishment
inflicted on Khipil the builder. Before that time
his affairs had languished, and the currents of business
instead of flowing had become stagnant pools.
It was the fashion to do as did Khipil, and fancy
the tongue a constructor rather than a commentator;
and there is a doom upon that people and that man
which runneth to seed in gabble, as the poet says
in his wisdom:
If thou wouldst be famous, and rich
in splendid fruits,
Leave to bloom the flower of things,
and dig among the roots.
Truly after Khipil’s punishment there were few
in the dominions of Shahpesh who sought to win the
honours bestowed by him on gabblers and idlers:
as again the poet:
When to loquacious fools
with patience rare
I listen, I have thoughts
of Khipil’s chair:
His bath, his nosegay,
and his fount I see,—
Himself stretch’d
out as a pomegranate-tree.
And that I am not Shahpesh
I regret,
So to inmesh the babbler
in his net.
Well is that wisdom
worthy to be sung,
Which raised the Palace
of the Wagging Tongue!
And whoso is punished after the fashion of Shahpesh,
the Persian, on Khipil the Builder, is said to be
one ’in the Palace of the Wagging Tongue’
to this time.
Now, when the voice of the Vizier had ceased, Shibli
Bagarag exclaimed, ’O Vizier, this night, no
later, I’ll surprise Shagpat, and shave him
while he sleepeth: and he shall wake shorn beside
his spouse. Wullahy! I’ll delay no
longer, I, Shibli Bagarag.’
Said the Vizier, ‘Thou?’
