The Village Chief in the King's Army

A village headman and his son were passing on a road, and they came upon the center of the king of kings' army. The boy saw the heralds, the swords and axes, the silk robes, the golden belts. Heroic archers and skilled hunters, slave-warriors with quivers, sharp with their arrows. One wore a robe of fine brocade, another had a royal crown upon his head. When the boy saw all that splendor and rank, his own father seemed utterly small and lowly to him. Meanwhile the father's manner changed and his color drained; out of sheer awe he fled into some corner to hide. The son said to him: come now, you are the chief of a great village, and as a leader you stand above the other elders. What happened to you, that you lost all hope of life and trembled like a willow in the wind of their grandeur? Yes, he said, I am a commander who gives orders, but my honor holds only as far as my own village reaches. The great are stained with such dread because they have stood in the court of a king. You, unaware child, are still just in the village, where you can imagine yourself holding some high post. The eloquent have never spoken a single word without Saadi finding a fitting example for it. Perhaps you have seen, in the garden or the meadow, how a little glowworm shines at night like a lamp. Someone said to it: little night-glowing worm, what is it with you, that you never come out by day? See what an answer this fiery little earthborn worm gave, speaking from the heart of its own light. It said: day and night I am nowhere but in the open field, yet in the presence of the sun I am simply unseen.