A Tale of Mercy

A man's donkey had sunk into the mud, and grief turned his heart to boiling blood. Wilderness, rain, cold, and flooding, with darkness draping its skirts over the whole horizon. All night, trapped in this misery until dawn, he swore, he cursed, he hurled insults. No enemy escaped his tongue, nor any friend, nor even the king to whom this land belonged. As fate would have it, the lord of that vast plain happened to pass by him in that wretched state. He heard these outrageous words, too much to bear in silence, yet with no way to answer back. The king, ashamed, looked at his men and wondered: why is this man's fury aimed at me? One of them said, 'My king, strike him with your sword; he has spared no one, neither daughter nor wife.' The noble king considered the matter: he saw himself in a bind, and the donkey stuck in the mire. He took pity on the poor man's plight and swallowed his anger at those bitter words. He gave him gold, a horse, and a fur-lined coat. How fine is kindness at the moment of revenge. Someone said to the man, 'You old fool without sense, how strangely you escaped death.' The king said, 'Be quiet.' 'If I moaned out of my own pain, he bestowed gifts in keeping with his own nature.' Repaying evil with evil is easy; if you are truly a man, do good to the one who wronged you.