The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night/The Blind Man and the Cripple

by Unknown

THE BLIND MAN AND THE CRIPPLE.

‘A blind man and a cripple were travelling-companions and used to beg in company. One day they sought admission into the garden of some one of the benevolent, and a kind-hearted man hearing their talk, took compassion on them and carried them into his garden, where he left them and went away, bidding them do no waste nor damage therein. When the fruits became ripe, the cripple said to the blind man, “Harkye, I see ripe fruits and long for them; but I cannot rise to them, to eat thereof; so go thou, for thou art sound of limb, and fetch us thereof, that we may eat.” “Out on thee!” replied the blind man. “I had no thought of them, but now that thou callest them to my mind, I long to eat of them and I cannot avail unto this, being unable to see them; so how shall we do to get at them?” At this moment, up came the overseer of the garden, who was a man of understanding, and the cripple said to him, “Harkye, overseer! I long for some of those fruits; but we are as thou seest; I am a cripple and my mate here is stone-blind: so what shall we do?” “Out on ye!” replied the overseer. “Have ye forgotten that the master of the garden stipulated with you that ye should do no waste nor damage therein? Take warning then and abstain from this.” But they answered, “Needs must we get at these fruits, that we may eat thereof: so tell us how we shall contrive this.”

When the overseer saw that they were not to be turned from their purpose, he said, “O cripple, let the blind man take thee on his back and carry thee to the tree whose fruit pleaseth thee, so thou mayst pluck what thou canst reach thereof.” So the blind man took the cripple on his back and the latter guided him, till he brought him to a tree, and he fell to plucking from it what he would and tearing at its branches, till he had despoiled it; after which they went round about the garden and wasted it with their hands and feet; nor did they cease from this fashion, till they had stripped all the trees in the garden.

Then they returned to their place and presently up came the master of the garden, who, seeing it in this plight, was sore angered and said to them, “Out on ye! What fashion is this? Did I not stipulate with you that ye should do no waste in the garden?” Quoth they, “Thou knowest that we cannot avail to come at any of the fruit, for that one of us is a cripple and cannot rise and the other is blind and cannot see that which is before him: so what is our offence?” But the master answered, saying, “Think ye I know not how ye wrought and how ye have gone about to do waste in my garden? I know, as if I had been with thee, O blind man, that thou tookest the cripple on thy back and he guided thee, till thou borest him to the trees.” Then he punished them grievously and put them out of the garden.

Return to King Jelyaad of Hind and His Vizier Shimas.

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