Once there was in the city of Filuyán[30] a Tsar named Angéy, who was
very famous. And, in course of time, it came upon him to stand in the
church at the Divine Service at the reading of the sacred Gospel by the
priest, when the priest was reading those verses in the Gospel in which
it is said: _He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath
exalted the humble and meek_. And when the Tsar heard this he grew
angry, and the Tsar spoke: “This writing is falsely written; the word of
the Gospel is untrue.” And the Tsar said: “I am very rich and famous.
How shall I be put down from my seat and the humble and meek be
exalted?” And then he was filled with fear. And the Tsar bade the priest
be confined in a dungeon, and he bade that page be torn out of the
Gospel Book. And the Tsar went to his palace and began to eat and drink
and be merry.
When the Tsar saw a deer in the fields, he went up and he took his young
men with him, and he hunted him and almost captured the deer; and the
deer was very beautiful. And the Tsar spoke to his champions: “Do ye
stand here. I will go, and I alone will take the deer alive.” And he
hunted after him, and they swam across the stream. The Tsar tied his
horse to an oak, and tied his garments around him, and swam naked across
the stream. Then the deer became invisible, and an angel of God stood by
the Tsar’s horse in the image of Tsar Angéy and spoke to the youths.
“The deer has swum across the stream.”
And he went with the youths into the Tsar’s city to his palace.
But Tsar Angéy went back for his horse, but he could neither find his
steed nor his apparel, and he remained there naked and began to think.
And Angéy went up to his city, and he saw shepherds feeding oxen, and he
asked them: “Ye lesser brothers, shepherds, where have ye seen my horse
and my garments?” And the shepherds asked him: “Who art thou?” He said
to them: “I am Tsar Angéy.” And the shepherds spake: “Wicked boaster!
how darest thou call thyself the Tsar, for we have seen Tsar Angéy, who
has just ridden into his city with five youths!” And they began to
rebuke him and to beat him with whips and scourges. And the Tsar began
to weep and to sob. The shepherds drove him afar, and he went naked into
his city.
The trade folk of the city met him on his way and asked him: “Man, why
art thou naked?” And he said to them: “Robbers have stolen my garments.”
And they gave him a poor and tattered dress. He took it and bowed down
to them, and he went unto his city, and arrived in his town, and he
asked a widow if he might stay there the night, and he questioned her,
saying: “Say, my mistress, who is the Tsar here?” And she replied to
him: “Art thou not a man of our country?” And she said: “Our Tsar is
Tsar Angéy.” He asked: “For how many years has he been Tsar?” And she
said: “For years five and thirty.”
He then wrote a letter with his own hand to the Tsarítsa, that he had
secret things and thoughts to speak of with her; and he bade a woman
take this letter to the queen. The Tsarítsa received the letter and had
it read to her. He signed it as her husband, Tsar Angéy. And a great
fear fell upon her, and in her fear she began to speak: “How can this
poor man name me his wife? I must inform the Tsar and have him
punished.” And she bade him be beaten with whips mercilessly, without
informing the Tsar. He was pitilessly beaten, and was scarcely left
alive, and could hardly leave the town. He wept and sobbed, and
remembered the words of the Gospel: _He hath put down the mighty from
their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek_. And he spoke to a
pope of this, how he had profaned the Sacred Book, and had sent the
priest into the dark dungeon, and had gone a long, long way.
And the Tsarítsa spoke to the angel who was taking the shape of the
Tsar: “Thou, my dear lord, for one year hast not slept with me. How can
I, then, be thine?” And the Tsar spake to her: “I have made a covenant
with God that for three years I will not sleep with thee nor share thy
bed.” And he left her and went into the Tsar’s palace.
Angéy the Tsar arrived in an unknown town and engaged himself with a
peasant to reap the harvest; and he did not know how to do a peasant’s
work; and the peasant discharged him, and he began to weep and sob, and
went on his way from that city. And poor men met him on the road. He
said to them: “Will ye take me up with ye? I am now a poor man, and do
not know how to work, and I am ashamed to beg. What ye bid of me I will
do. I will work for you.” And they accepted him and gave him a burden to
carry. And they went to lie at night, and they bade him heat the bath,
carry water, and lay the bed. And Tsar Angéy wept bitterly: “Woe to me!
What have I done! I was wroth with the Sovereign, and He has deprived me
of my kingdom and has brought me to ruin, and I have suffered all this
through the word of the Gospel.”
In the morning the poor men got up, and they arrived at his own city of
Filuyán. And they reached the abode of the Tsar and began to beg for
alms. At this time the Tsar was holding a mighty feast, and he bade the
poor be summoned into the palace, bade them be fed sufficiently, and he
bade the food of the poor men be taken into the Tsar’s palace and put
into a special room. And, when the Tsar’s feast was over and the
_boyárs_[31] and the guests had all separated, the angel who had taken
the form of the Tsar Angéy came to him in the palace where Angéy the
Tsar was dining with the beggars: “Dost thou know of a proud and mighty
Tsar, how he profaned the word of the Gospel?” And he began to teach him
and to instruct him before all of the world, that he must not profane
the word of the Gospel, and must show respect for the priests, and must
not upraise himself, but must be kindly and inclined to the ways of
peace.