Khipil answered, 'O King of splendours! I made petition to my neighbours
whom I met, accosting them civilly and with imploring, for I ached to
chafe, and it was the very raging thirst of desire to chafe that was
mine, devouring eagerness for solace of chafing. And they chafed me, O
King; yet not in those parts which throbbed for the chafing, but in those
which abhorred it.'
Then Shahpesh smiled and said, ''Tis certain that the magnanimity of
monarchs is as the rain that falleth, the sun that shineth: and in this
spot it fertilizeth richness; in that encourageth rankness. So art thou
but a weed, O Khipil! and my grace is thy chastisement.'
Now, the King ceased not persecuting Khipil, under pretence of doing him
honour and heaping favours on him. Three days and three nights was
Khipil gasping without water, compelled to drink of the drought of the
fountain, as an honour at the hands of the King. And he was seven days
and seven nights made to stand with
stretched arms, as they were the branches of a tree, in each hand a
pomegranate. And Shahpesh brought the people of his court to regard the
wondrous pomegranate shoot planted by Khipil, very wondrous, and a new
sort, worthy the gardens of a King. So the wisdom of the King was
applauded, and men wotted he knew how to punish offences in coin, by the
punishment inflicted on Khipil the builder. Before that time his affairs
had languished, and the currents of business instead of flowing had
become stagnant pools. It was the fashion to do as did Khipil, and fancy
the tongue a constructor rather than a commentator; and there is a doom
upon that people and that man which runneth to seed in gabble, as the
poet says in his wisdom:
If thou wouldst be famous, and rich in splendid fruits,
Leave to bloom the flower of things, and dig among the roots.
Truly after Khipil's punishment there were few in the dominions of
Shahpesh who sought to win the honours bestowed by him on gabblers and
idlers: as again the poet:
When to loquacious fools with patience rare
I listen, I have thoughts of Khipil's chair:
His bath, his nosegay, and his fount I see,--
Himself stretch'd out as a pomegranate-tree.
And that I am not Shahpesh I regret,
So to inmesh the babbler in his net.
Well is that wisdom worthy to be sung,
Which raised the Palace of the Wagging Tongue!
And whoso is punished after the fashion of Shahpesh, the Persian, on
Khipil the Builder, is said to be one 'in the Palace of the Wagging
Tongue' to this time.