Bengal Fairy Tales/The Four Riddles
BENGAL FAIRY TALES
PART I
STORIES TOLD BY BHABAGHURAY,
THE TRAVELLER
I
THE FOUR RIDDLES
AN Emperor of the olden days in India once sent a messenger to one of his tributary Rajas, Prithu by name, to ask him four questions. These were:—
- Can there be poison in nectar?
- Can there be nectar in poison?
- Can there be a dog in human shape?
- Is it possible for a donkey to rule a kingdom?
On the answering aright of these questions depended the tributary Raja's life, for the Emperor's order was that, in case of failure, the Raja should forfeit his head. The time granted to him for returning an answer was three months, and the first two months the Raja spent in fruitless endeavours to solve the riddles. The nearer the termination of the prescribed period approached the greater grew his anxiety and dread. At length he wrote the questions in big letters on a large sheet of paper, and tied it round the neck of a fast-going steed, with orders that he should be made to run throughout the whole Raj, and that if anybody on reading the paper could answer the questions he should be immediately brought to the court with promises of very rich rewards.
The plan the Raja had devised promised success, for within a short time there appeared before him a man named Golami who said that he knew the answers. But he would not give them save in the presence of the Emperor himself. Failing to solve the riddle himself, the Raja was forced to send for him to the imperial court. Golami further demanded a very large sum of money and the choicest jewels of great value, in order to bring the matter to a happy issue, and, being furnished with all that he desired, he started on his journey, which he accomplished in about a fortnight. He then hired one of the grandest houses in the Emperor's capital, kept a mistress, and ingratiating himself with the smartest and most fashionable characters there, opened his doors wide to all comers. Pleasure succeeded pleasure, entertainments of all kinds were given on the grandest scale and alms and loans generously distributed, so that Golami soon became one of the most popular men in the city.
Spending a week in this way, he one day called his friends to him, and said that he desired to marry, and that he depended upon their selection. They said that there was a bride, in every way worthy of him, who, however, would not in consequence of a vow listen to the proposal, except upon the receipt of twenty-five thousand rupees in advance. Golami at once loosened his purse-strings, and handed over the sum, not a pice of which, however, found its way into the girl's hands, the entire sum being divided among his false friends. To keep Golami still in their power, they found for him a girl of the vilest and most treacherous nature, and her he brought into his house as his wife, though he knew her to be a bad woman as soon as he cast eyes upon her.
On the third day after the marriage, Golami, who had been out, returned from his banker with a vast sum of money and some jewels and gems of the first water. These he had previously received from his employer, and had deposited in the bank. He showed them to his wife, and told her that they were the effects of a robbery perpetrated by him on a merchant travelling along the highway, and that a royal proclamation had gone forth offering a rich reward to anyone giving information against him. He again went out on pretence of some business, and his wife, taking advantage of his absence, went to the police, and informed them against her husband. Though they had heard nothing of the robbery, or of any royal proclamation, they believed her when they came to know that she was the wife of the offender, and at once sent men with her for his arrest.
They found him at home waiting for the police, and they at once laid hold of him, and took him to the Emperor, who, instead of leaving the judgment of capital offences, of which highway robbery was one, in the hands of the judges appointed by him, took cognizance of them himself. And, after a mere formal trial, Golami was sentenced to death, and sent to prison to wait there till the moment of execution.
The fact was noised abroad, and the prisoner's former mistress, hearing of it, hastened to him and comforted him. She engaged counsel to defend her lover with all the money she had, and Moulvis to offer prayers for him. Not content with these services, she volunteered to remain in prison with him, if thereby she could in any way cheer him up.
Golami sent message after message to his friends, but they neither came to see him, nor sent a word of recognition. They had become his wife's lovers, and with her they merrily talked over his troubles.
At length the day of execution dawned. It happened also to be the last day of the three months allowed for the solution of the questions sent to Raja Prithu on which Golami was led in chains to the place where he was to be executed. There was a large crowd of spectators, in the midst of whom were his false wife and friends. The poor mistress, whose heart was breaking at the sad prospect before him, was waiting in a corner, with swimming eyes raised to the face of him whom she loved more than life. The block of wood, on which his head was to be placed before the falling of the fatal axe, was ready and the Emperor arrived to give the final command.
But that command was not to be given, for the man under sentence of death cried out that he had a word for the ears of the Emperor, to whom it was of paramount importance. Being told to speak his thoughts, he said that they must be whispered in the Emperor's ears, so that others might not hear them. The Emperor, fearing some foul play, would not at first allow the near approach of him whom he had sentenced to death, but he was at length prevailed upon by the prime minister to do so. Golami, led close up to him, with his hands pinioned and his legs bound, brought his face near to the Emperor's ears and whispered, "I am no breaker of the law. I am as innocent as your Majesty. I was commissioned to answer the four questions you sent for solution to Raja Prithu. Will you permit me to give you the answers privately in your ear, or publicly so that your subjects may know them?"
The Emperor thinking that, if there was truth in what the man said, he had wronged him grievously, and that therefore it would be just to exonerate and even to reward him in public, bade Golami give the answers aloud. Thereupon the latter cried out, "Reverend Sire, here are the solutions of your questions. The answers I have found in my experiences here. As to the first question, 'Can there be poison in nectar?' Look at that ugly creature, superficially so attractive, waiting there to see me die. She is my wife, and instead of the nectar which I expected to find in her, I have found poison. To try her I gave out that I had committed a robbery, and thus made myself liable to be punished with death, and no sooner had she heard me than she sped to the police to denounce me.
"With regard to the second question, I have found nectar in a vessel of poison. That woman there, of evil repute, whose heart is supposed to contain poison, has been to me like life-giving nectar. She has done for me a service as great even as that which a dutiful wife could have done.
"As to the third question, my false friends there are dogs in human form. They ate at my expense, even the morsels that I rejected were seized by them voraciously, and just as a dog licks the feet of its master, but, when rabid, bites him to death, so have these men flattered me, and when maddened by greed of money, and a desire to enjoy the uninterrupted companionship of the vile woman whom I made my wife, have rushed at me to bite me to death.
"And as to whether a donkey can possibly rule a kingdom, I pray your Majesty to look at yourself. You are an Emperor, but have you not proved yourself a donkey, in sentencing me to death before thorough investigation?"
The Emperor looked utterly abashed, and remained speechless. At length he invited Golami into the palace, entertained him for several days, and then sent him away with rich presents. But these were nothing in comparison with what Prithu gave him after his return. He bestowed upon him the half of his kingdom, and the hand of his daughter, though the bridegroom was a Mahomedan, and she a Hindu. Caste restrictions were not so strong then as in later times, and so it was not difficult for the Raja to reward his deliverer in this signal manner.
Our story ends here, for Bhabaghuray has not told us what afterwards befell the several actors in this drama.