A Wife and Mother Who Was a Sister
First
(An Intelligent Woman)
Once upon a time, there were some bandits who robbed a
village. Some men from the village gave chase but lost the bandits when they
escaped into a thick forest. The villagers surrounded and searched the forest
for the robbers, but could not find them. When they came out of the forest from
the other side, they saw three farmers ploughing hard in their field.
Suspecting them to be bandits in disguise, they captured them immediately.
“Aha! You bandits are pretending to be innocent farmers who are interested only
in ploughing! Come with us to the king, you thieves!” They tied them up and
took them as prisoners to the king, who in turn, locked them up in the palace dungeon.
The next day, a woman was seen in the palace courtyard. For
several days, she came and cried, as if in mourning. One day, the king heard
her cries and so he had his guards bring the woman before him. “Why are you
crying?” asked the king. “I have heard that my husband, son and brother are all
your prisoners, my lord,” she wept.
The king had the three men brought up from the dungeon. Being
a generous ruler, he said to the woman, “I will set one of them free. Which one
do you choose?”
“Can’t you release all three, my lord?” the woman asked. “No,
I cannot,” replied the king.
“If you cannot set all three free, then return me my brother,
oh lord king,” answered the simple woman after she had considered carefully.
The king was surprised by her choice. “You should choose your
husband or son. Why would you want your brother instead?” he asked.
“Oh my lord, as long as I live, it would be easy to find a
new husband. And then I could easily have another son. A husband or a son is
easy to come by in this world, but since my parents are dead, I can never get
another brother!” The king, impressed by her intelligence and pleased with her
answer, decided to reward her, and so set all three men free.
The moral is ✏ Family ties are
important.
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