The Priest Who Gambled
With a Life
(Misguided Morality)
Once upon a time, there was a king who loved to gamble with
his royal priest. When he threw the dice, he always recited this lucky charm, “If
tempted, any woman will, for sure, give up her faithfulness and act impurely.” Amazing
as it might seem, by using this charm, the king had never lost a game! Before long,
the royal priest lost almost every penny that he owned. “I have lost almost all
my wealth to the king. It must be because of his lucky charm. I need to find a
way to break the spell and win back my money. I must find a pure and chaste
woman who has never had any physical relations with a man. Then I will lock her
up in my mansion and force her to remain faithful to me,” he thought.
This seemed like a good plan to him, until he started having
doubts. He thought, “It would nearly be impossible to keep a woman pure after
she has seen and become accustomed to men. Therefore, to locate the purest
woman possible, I must find one who has never even seen a man before!” Just
then, he happened to see a poor pregnant woman passing by. As the royal priest was
an expert in reading the meaning of marks on the body, he could tell that the unborn
child was a girl. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, “Aha! Only an unborn baby
girl has never seen a man!”
The royal priest was willing to do anything to beat the king
at dice, so he paid the poor woman to stay in his house and deliver her baby
there. When the baby girl was born, the priest bought her from her mother. Then
he made sure that she was raised only by women, and had never seen any man —
except of course the royal priest himself. When the poor girl grew up, he still
kept her completely under his thumb as if he owned her! The cruel priest did
all these because of his gambling habit. While the girl was growing up, he
avoided playing dice with the king. Now that she was of age and still his
prisoner, he challenged the king to a game of dice once more. The king agreed.
After they had made their bets, the king shook the dice and repeated his
favourite lucky charm, “If tempted, any woman will, for sure, give up her
faithfulness and act impurely.” But just before he threw down the dice, the
priest added: “Except my woman — who is faithful evermore!” Lo and behold, the
king’s charm didn’t work. He lost that bet, and from then on the priest won
every throw of the dice.
The king was puzzled by this turn of events. “This priest
must have a pure woman locked up at home, one who is forced to be faithful to
him alone. That’s why my lucky charm doesn’t work anymore,” he thought after
careful reflection. He investigated and discovered what the cruel priest had
done, so he sent for a man who was well-known for his playboy character. He
asked him if he could win the fair lady’s heart. “No problem, my lord!” he
replied. The king paid him a handsome sum of money and told him to do the job
quickly.
Using some of the money, the man bought a supply of the
finest perfumes and cosmetics. He set up a shop just outside the royal priest’s
mansion. This mansion was seven-storey high, with seven entrance gates — one on
each floor. Female servants guarded all the gates closely, and no man except
the priest was allowed to enter.
However, there was one servant who was specially assigned to
wait on the priest’s lady and to care for her every need. She carried
everything in and out, including perfumes and cosmetics that the priest got the
servant woman to buy.
The playboy saw the servant going in and out of the priest’s
mansion regularly. Soon, he realised that she was the only one who could help
get him inside the mansion. So he devised a plan and hired some cronies to help
him. The next morning, when the woman servant went out to do her shopping, the
playboy dramatically fell to the ground before her. Grabbing her knees, he
tearfully cried, “Oh my dear mother, it’s so wonderful to see you again after
such a long time!” Then his cronies chimed in, “Yes, this must be her! She
looks the same — from her hands, feet and face to the type of dress she wears.
Yes, this must be her!” They all kept saying how amazing it was that her looks
had changed so little in all that time.
The poor servant woman must have had a long-lost son, for
soon she was convinced that this must be her child. She hugged the clever
playboy hired by the king, and both sobbed with joy over their miraculous
reunion. In between bouts of crying, the man asked her, “Oh dear mother, where
are you staying now?” “I live next door,” she said, “in the royal priest’s
mansion. I’m the personal attendant to his lady. I tell you my son, there is no
other woman who is as lovely and as exquisite as my lady. Her beauty is truly
peerless, like the singing mermaids that sailors love to praise.”
Seeing that she was in a hurry, he asked, “Where are you
going now, mother?”
“I’m going to shop for her perfumes and cosmetics, my son,”
she replied.
“There’s no need, mother,” he continued, “from now on, I will
give you the best perfumes and cosmetics free-of-charge!” Saying that, he
packed myriad bottles of sweet-smelling perfumes and fine cosmetics into a
basket and gave these to her, along with a bouquet of delicate flowers.
When the priest’s lady saw the perfumes and cosmetics, which
were of much better quality than usual, she asked why the priest was being so
generous. “Why do you say that, my lady?”
“Well, this is because you bought more this time and of
better quality too,” said the lady.
“No, my lady,” answered the servant, “these are not from the
priest. I got them from my son’s shop.” From then on, she got perfumes and
cosmetics from the playboy’s shop and kept the priest’s money. After some time,
the playboy decided to stage the second part of his plan. He pretended to be
sick and stayed in bed.
When the servant came to the shop and couldn’t find her
‘son’, she was told that he was too ill to work, and was taken to see him.
“What happened to you, my son?” she asked massaging his back. He replied, “Even
if I were about to die, I couldn’t tell you, my mother.”
“If you can’t tell me, whom can you tell?” she continued. Then,
according to his plan, he broke down and admitted to her about his infatuation with
the priest’s lady. “I was fine until you told me about the dazzling beauty of
your mistress how beautiful she was and
how her loveliness was equal to none. Because of your description, I have
fallen in love with her. I must have her. I can’t live without her. I’m so
depressed, without her, I’ll surely die!” he sighed.
“Don’t worry, my son, leave it to me,” promised the worried
mother. Then with a larger and heavier bundle of perfumes and cosmetics than
her previous trips, she went home to her lady and groaned, “My lady, after my
son heard from me about your ravishing beauty, he fell madly in love with you!
I don’t know what to do next!” Since the priest was the only man she had ever
seen, the lady was curious. And of course, she resented being locked up by
force, so she said, “If you sneak him into my room, it’s all right with me!”
As the women guards at the seven gates searched everything
that the servant took in and out, she had to draw up a plan. She swept and
collected all the dust and dirt that she could find in the whole mansion. Each
day, she took some of it out of a large covered flower basket, and whenever she
was searched, she made sure that some of the dust and dirt got onto the guards’
faces. This made them sneeze and cough. Pretty soon, they stopped searching her
when she went in and out.
Finally, one day, she hid the playboy in her covered flower
basket. He was trim, fit, and wasn’t heavy at all. She was able to sneak him
past all seven guarded gates, and into the lady’s private chamber. The two
lovers stayed together for several days and nights, so the playboy was able to
destroy her perfect faithfulness, which had been forced upon her by the
cold-hearted priest. Eventually, she told him that it was time to go. “I will
go. But first, my dear, since the old priest has been so mean to you, let me
give him one good blow on the head,” he declared.
She agreed and hid him in a closet. This, too, was part of
his secret plan. When the priest arrived, his lady exclaimed, “My lord and
master, I’m so happy today! I’d like to dance while you play the guitar.” “Of
course, my beauty,” he answered.
“But I’m too shy to dance in front of you,” she added, “so please
wear this blindfold while I dance.” Again, he agreed to her request and she put
a blindfold over his eyes. The priest played a pretty tune on his complicated
Indian guitar, while his lady danced.
After a while, she asked, “As part of my dance, won’t you let
me give you a tap on the head?”
“As you wish, my dear,” he said.
Then she motioned to the playboy, who came out of the closet,
sneaked up from behind, and hit the old priest hard on the head! His eyes
nearly popped out, and a bump soon began to form from the blow. He cried out
and the lady quickly placed her hand in his to soothe him. “Your soft hand sure
can wallop hard, my dear,” the priest said.
The playboy returned to the closet. The lady removed the
priest’s blindfold and applied some ointment on his bump. When he had left, the
woman servant hid the playboy in her flower basket and smuggled him out of the
mansion. Immediately, he went to the king and told him the whole story, in a
very boastful way, of course. The next day, the royal priest went to the palace
as usual. “Shall we have a gamble on the dice?” asked the king. The priest,
expecting to win once more, agreed. Just as before, the king recited his lucky
charm,
“If tempted, any woman will, for sure, give up her
faithfulness and act impurely.” As usual, the priest added: “Except my woman —
who is faithful evermore!” But, this time, the dice fell in the king’s favour
and he took the priest’s money.
Then the king quipped, “Oh priest, your woman is no
exception! True faithfulness cannot be forced upon one! You snatched a newborn
baby girl, locked her up in a mansion behind seven guarded gates, and forced
her to be good, but you have failed. Any prisoner’s greatest wish is to be
free!” “She blindfolded you, then got her playboy lover to give you that bump
on your old, bald head. This only proved that your gates and guards are
useless!”
The priest returned home fuming mad. Meanwhile, the lady had
thought of a plan to thwart her lord’s accusations. “No, my lord, I have been
completely faithful to you. No man has ever touched me except you! And I will
prove my innocence in a trial by fire. I will walk on fire without being burned
to prove that I speak the truth,” she exclaimed when the priest questioned her
about her fidelity.
She ordered the old woman servant to fetch her son, the
playboy. She was to tell him to take the lady by the hand and prevent her from
stepping into the flames. The woman did as she was instructed. When the day
arrived for the lady to walk on fire, she said to the crowd of onlookers,
“I have never been touched by any man except this priest who
is my master. By this truth, may the fire have no power over me.” Then, just as
she was about to step into the fire, the playboy leaped from amongst the crowd
and grabbed her hand. “Stop! Stop! How can this priest be so cruel as to force this
tender young lady into a raging fire!” he shouted.
She shook her hand free and turned to the priest saying, “My
lord, since this man has touched my hand, the trial by fire is useless, but you
can see my good intention!” The priest realised he had been tricked. He beat
her and drove her out of his house. At last, she was free from his clutches and
had control of her own life.
The moral is ✏ You can’t force
someone to be good.
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