The Turkish Jester eBook

Nasreddin
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 62 pages of information about The Turkish Jester.

The Turkish Jester eBook

Nasreddin
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 62 pages of information about The Turkish Jester.

One day as the Cogia was going to his house, he met a number of students, and said to them, ’Gentlemen, pray this night come to our house and taste a sup of the old father’s broth.’  ‘Very good,’ said the students, and following the Cogia, came to the house.  ‘Pray enter,’ said he, and brought them into the house; then going up to where his wife was, ’O wife,’ said he, ’I have brought some travellers that we may give them a cup of broth.’  ‘O master,’ said his wife, ’is there oil in the house or rice, or have you brought any that you wish to have broth?’ ‘Bless me,’ said the Cogia, ‘give me the broth pan,’ and snatching it up, he forthwith ran to where the students were, and exclaimed, ’Pray, pardon me, gentlemen, but had there been oil or rice in our house, this is the pan in which I would have served the broth up to you.’

One day the Cogia going into the kitchen of his house, laid himself down; presently the Cogia’s daughter entering into the kitchen to fetch something, saw her father lying hidden behind a cask.  ’O my lord and father, what do you do here?’ said she.  ’What could I better do to get out of your mother’s way than come into this foreign country,’ said the Cogia.

One day when the Cogia was in his chamber, a man knocked at the door of the house.  ‘What do you want?’ said the Cogia from above.  ‘Come down,’ said the man, who was a beggar.  The Cogia forthwith came down and said, ‘What do you want?’ ‘I want your charity,’ said the man.  ’Come upstairs,’ said the Cogia.  When the beggar had come up, the Cogia said, ‘God help you.’  ‘O master,’ said the other, ’why did you not say so below?’ Said the Cogia, ’When I was above stairs, why did you bring me down.’

Once upon a time the wife of the Cogia was in labour; one day, two days, she sat upon the chair but could not bring forth; the women who attended her cried from the interior apartment to the Cogia:  ’O master, do you know no prayer by means of which the child may be brought into the world?’ ‘I know a specific,’ said the Cogia, and forthwith running to a grocer’s shop he procured some walnuts, and bringing them he said, ’Make way,’ and going into the room he spread the walnuts under the chair, and said:  ’Now that the child sees the walnuts he will come out to play with them.’

One day the Cogia’s wife, in order to plague the Cogia, boiled some broth exceedingly hot, brought it into the room and placed it on the table.  The wife then, forgetting that it was hot, took a spoon and put some into her mouth, and, scalding herself, began to shed tears.  ‘O wife,’ said the Cogia, ‘what is the matter with you; is the broth hot?’ ‘Dear Efendi,’ said the wife, ’my mother, who is now dead, loved broth very much; I thought of that, and wept on her account.’  The Cogia thinking that what she said was truth, took a spoonful of the broth, and burning his mouth began to cry and bellow.  ‘What is the matter with you?’ said his wife; ‘why do you cry?’ Said the Cogia, ’You cry because your mother is gone, but I cry because her daughter is here.’

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Project Gutenberg
The Turkish Jester from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.