In olden times, in times long past. In a certain country there was a sultan. This sultan and his vizier would argue from time to time. On most matters the sultan would prove to be right. But he also dearly loved this man, his vizier and his helper, and trusted him.
Sometimes at night he and his vizier would go out in disguise to inns, streets, courtyards, weddings, betrothals, in short wherever there was a gathering, and there they would listen to the common folk and witness what went on.
On a day like any other and a night like any other, the two of them once again disguised themselves in dervish garb, went out and mingled with the common folk. As they wandered the streets of the city, they heard three people in a courtyard, by a burning fire, talking animatedly and heatedly.
The sultan and his vizier hid in the darkness outside the courtyard, where they could hear the talk by the fire.
One of the three people said, ‘If the sultan’s beautiful wife were mine, I would want nothing else in this world besides.’
The second person said, ‘If that endless, boundless land beyond the graveyard were mine, I would want nothing else.’
The third person, however, said, ‘What would I do with those? All of them can be bought with gold. If I had two buckets of gold, I would want nothing else at all.’
Having heard all this, the sultan said to the vizier beside him, ‘Remember this door well, vizier,’ and then they set off to return to the palace.
On the way back, the sultan asked his vizier, ‘If we were to grant these men everything they want, what do you think would happen, vizier?’
‘They would become very happy and rich men, my sultan. And besides, one of them wants something that cannot possibly be granted. He wanted your consort.’
‘Watch and see, vizier. We shall see what happens.’
‘You know best, my sultan,’ said the vizier.
The next morning the sultan summoned the vizier and said, ‘Go to the door I told you to remember last night and fetch me the three people who were talking in the night.’
Having received the order, the vizier went, found the three people and brought them before the sultan. Looking at these poor men trembling before him with fear and agitation, the sultan said, ‘If you give true answers to what I ask you, what you talked about by the fire last night will be yours. I will grant what you want, or else you will be put to death,’ and then he went over and sat on his throne.
‘Now let us see, tell me, what did you wish for by the fire last night? But mind you do not lie.’
When the men heard this, they saw that there was no choice but to tell the truth. For they had understood that the sultan must already know everything. ‘We may as well speak the truth and leave ourselves to his mercy. There is nothing else for it,’ they thought.
The first man began to speak: ‘Long live my sultan. Rather than tell a lie, I throw myself upon your mercy and your conscience. I let the devil lead me astray, and I said, I want the sultan’s beautiful wife, I want nothing else in the world.’
After stroking his beard, the sultan said in a calm voice, ‘My wife is yours from tomorrow. Early tomorrow morning I will send her to your house, I give you my word.’
Turning to the second man, the sultan asked, ‘And you?’ The man began to speak: ‘Long live my sultan. As for me, I said, let that great, fertile and flat land beyond the city graveyard be mine, I want nothing else besides.’
Looking at the man, the sultan said, ‘The land is yours from tomorrow morning.’
When the sultan turned to the third man, the man began to speak: ‘Long live my sultan. I do not know if what I said was true, but I said, gold buys both the woman and the field. I want two buckets of gold, I want nothing else besides.’
The sultan turned to his guards and said: ‘Give this man two buckets of gold as well, and send him on his way.’
And so the men left the palace. The next day, first thing, the sultan’s wife and the maidservants of her retinue came to the door of the man who had wanted the sultan’s wife.
Having come to the man’s house, the sultan’s wife wanted a room each for the five maidservants with her. She wanted to be shown the hammam so that she could wash. She wanted a separate room for her clothes.
The man saw that the wants of the sultan’s wife had no end, and that these wants were the wants that came with the life the woman was used to. Hanging his head, the man turned to the sultan’s wife and said, ‘But I cannot meet all these.’
Looking angrily into the man’s eyes, the sultan’s wife said, ‘You foolish man. Without so much as a look at your own state, you wish for the sultan’s wife. Wish for something that is within your power and that you can possess. Why do you wish for what you cannot possess, foolish man? Without being a sultan, without possessing the sultan’s means, if you wish for a sultan’s wife, you have made a mistake grave enough to deserve death,’ and then she said to the guards beside her, ‘Cut off this man’s head.’
And so the man lost his head, even though he had got what he wanted.
To the second man they gave the endless, boundless land beyond the city graveyard. But sowing the land required such means as labourers, a plough, seed and oxen. The man, however, had none of these.
So the man went to the city’s moneylender and asked for money for oxen, a plough, seed and labourers. The moneylender wanted a high rate of interest. The man had to accept. He sowed the land and gathered in his crop at harvest time. He paid off his debt to the moneylender. And he had no money left at all.
When the sultan’s guards came and asked for the tax on the produce, the man could not pay the tax, since he had no money left.
Thereupon the sultan summoned the man and said, ‘I gave you what you wanted, but you could not even meet my tax. Do you see now what harm there is in wanting property beyond your power, a fortune you cannot manage? I have lost my tax, and you have worked a year for nothing. For coveting another’s property, for greed, for acting without counting the cost, and, what is more, for not paying my tax, I sentence you to the dungeon. Throw this man into the dungeon for life.’
As for the third man, on the day he received the two buckets of gold, he took to the road, carrying them with him. A few people who had seen the gold went after him. At a place where he found himself alone, the thieves who had been following him wounded the man gravely and left him to die.
They took the gold from the man’s hands.
The sultan’s guards, who had been following him from behind, saw the state the man was in and sent word to the sultan. Coming to the spot, the sultan said to the man, whom he found gravely wounded, ‘O foolish man, why would you want a fortune you cannot protect? Look, now you have lost your life too, and how well you were living,’ and with that the man breathed his last.
Turning to his vizier, the sultan said: ‘Power always attracts the evil and poisons the good. If he who possesses power has not the power to stand against evil, if he is not sure of his own goodness, it is better for him not to want power than to want it.’
THE END