Prevod

The wife of Solomon the Wise took a fancy to another emperor and resolved to leave her first husband and flee to the other. But she could find no way to slip away, for Solomon kept a close watch over her. So she came to an understanding with the other emperor, who sent her something to drink that would make her seem dead. When she had thus died, Solomon cut off her little finger to see whether she was truly dead, and when he saw that she felt nothing and appeared quite lifeless, he buried her. But the other emperor sent his men to dig her up by night and bring her to him. Then, by some means, he restored her to life, took her for his wife, and began to live with her. When Solomon the Wise learned what had become of his wife, he set out in search of her, taking a good many armed men with him. On drawing near the capital of the emperor who had taken his wife, he left his men in the forest, telling them that when they heard a trumpet sound, they were to follow its call and come to his aid, each carrying a leafy green bough before him. He himself went alone to the emperor’s palace. When he arrived, he found his wife there with only the servants, for the emperor had gone hunting. At the sight of her first husband, she took fright, but somehow she managed to trick him and lock him in a room. When the emperor returned from the hunt, she told him that Solomon the Wise had come and was locked in such and such a room. “Go to him at once,” she said, “and cut him down. But mind you do not begin talking to him, for if you let him utter so much as a single word, he will outwit you.” With a drawn sabre in his hand, the emperor opened the door and advanced upon Solomon the Wise to cut off his head. Solomon sat calmly and fearlessly on a cushion, and when he saw the emperor coming towards him with the sabre, he laughed. At this, the emperor could not help asking why he was laughing. Solomon replied that he laughed to see one emperor about to put another to death on a woman’s pillow. “How should it be done, then?” asked the emperor. Solomon answered, “I am already in your power. Bind me and take me out into the open country beyond the city, and put me to death where all can see. Before you kill me, order the trumpet to be sounded three times, so that everyone may hear and whoever wishes may come and watch. Why, even the forest will come to see one emperor put another to death.” The emperor agreed, chiefly because he wished to see whether it was true that even the forest would come to watch one emperor put another to death. So he bound Solomon, placed him on a common cart, and set off with his retainers and courtiers to put him to death in the open country. As they went along, Solomon gazed through the cart at the front wheels and suddenly laughed. The emperor, who was riding beside him, asked what he was laughing at, and he replied, “I am laughing to see how one part of the wheel’s rim goes into the mud while another comes out of it.” Then the emperor turned his head away and said, “God help us! People call him Solomon the Wise, and he is a fool!” Just then they reached the place where he was to be put to death, and the emperor ordered the trumpet to be sounded once. As soon as Solomon’s soldiers heard it, they set off. When it sounded a second time, they began to draw near, but the men themselves could not be seen, only the green boughs they carried before them, like a forest. The emperor marvelled greatly at this and was convinced that Solomon had told him the truth, so he ordered the trumpet to be sounded a third time. At that moment Solomon’s soldiers reached the spot and rescued him, then seized the emperor and all his retainers and courtiers and put them to death.