Cesar Trojan ima kozja ušesa

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Cesar Trojan ima kozja ušesa

There was once an emperor named Trojan. This emperor had goat’s ears, and he summoned barbers in turn to shave him. But none who went ever came back, for whenever a barber had finished shaving him, Emperor Trojan would ask what he had seen, and the barber would answer that he had seen goat’s ears. Then Emperor Trojan would have him beheaded at once.

At last it was the turn of a certain barber, but he pretended to be ill and sent his apprentice instead. When the young man appeared before the emperor, the emperor asked why his master had not come, and he replied that his master was ill. Then Emperor Trojan sat down, and the young man shaved him. As he shaved the emperor, the young man noticed his goat’s ears, but when Trojan asked what he had seen, he answered that he had seen nothing. The emperor then gave him twelve ducats and told him that from then on he must always come to shave him. When the young man returned home, his master asked how things had gone at the emperor’s palace. He answered that all was well and that the emperor had told him to come and shave him every time, and he showed his master the twelve ducats the emperor had given him. But he did not tell him that he had seen the emperor’s goat’s ears.

From that day on, the young man went regularly to shave Trojan, receiving twelve ducats for each shave, and he told no one that the emperor had goat’s ears. But in time, not daring to tell anyone began to torment him and gnaw at his heart, until he grew thin and wasted away. His master noticed this and began asking what ailed him. After much questioning, the young man at last replied that something weighed on his heart, but he dared not tell anyone. “If only,” he said, “I could tell someone, I would feel better at once.” Then his master said:

“Tell me, and I will tell no one. But if you are afraid to tell me, go to your confessor and tell him. And if you will not tell him either, go out into the fields beyond the town, dig a hole, put your head into it, and tell the earth three times what you know. Then fill the hole in again.”

The young man chose the third course. He went out into the fields beyond the town, dug a hole, put his head into it, and said three times, “Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears!” Then he covered the hole with earth, and, his heart at ease at last, went home.

Some time later, an elder sprang up from that very hole, and three fine shoots grew from it, as straight as candles. Some shepherd children found the elder, cut off one of its shoots, and made a pipe from it. But when they began to play, the pipe sang out:

“Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears!” Word of this soon spread throughout the town, and at last Emperor Trojan himself heard the children playing, “Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears!”

When he heard this, Emperor Trojan summoned the barber’s apprentice at once and asked him, “You there! What have you been telling the people about me?” The poor young man began protesting that he had told no one anything, though he had indeed seen what the emperor had. Then the emperor drew his sabre to behead him, and the young man, terrified, told the whole story: how he had confessed to the earth, and how an elder had now grown on that spot, and every pipe made from it sang those words. Then the emperor got into a carriage with him and set off for the place to see whether it was true. When they arrived, they found only one shoot left. Emperor Trojan ordered them to make a pipe from it, so that he could hear how it played. When they had made the pipe and began to play, it sang out:

“Emperor Trojan has goat’s ears!” Then Emperor Trojan saw that nothing on earth could be kept hidden, so he spared the young barber’s life and thereafter allowed any barber to come and shave him.