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After William Saroyan
It is the opinion of my grandmother, God bless her, that all men should labour, and at the table, a moment ago she said to me: You must learn to do some good work, the making of some item useful to man, something out of clay, or out of wood, or metal, or cloth. It is not proper for a young man to be ignorant of an honourable craft. Is there anything you can make? Can you make a simple table, a chair, a plain dish, a coffee pot? Is there anything you can do?
And my grandmother looked at me with anger.
I know, she said, you are supposed to be a writer, and I suppose you are, but you must learn to make solid things, things that can be used, that can be seen and touched.
There was a king of the Persians, said my grandmother, and he had a son, and this son fell in love with a shepherd’s daughter. He went to his father and he said, My Lord, I love a shepherd’s daughter, I would have her for my wife. And the king said, I am king and you are my son, and when I die you shall be king, how can it be that you would marry the daughter of a shepherd? And the son said, My Lord, I do not know but I know that I love this girl and would have her for my queen.
The king saw that his son’s love for the girl was from the God, and he said, I will send a message to her. And he called a messenger to him and he said, Go to the shepherd’s daughter and say that my son loves her and would have her for his wife. And the messenger went to the girl and he said, The king’s son loves you and would have you for his wife. And the girl said, What labour does he do? And the messenger said, Why, he is the son of the king; he does no labour. And the messenger returned to the king and spoke the words of the shepherd’s daughter.
The king said to his son, The shepherd’s daughter wished you to learn some craft. Would you still have her for your wife? And the son said, Yes, I will learn to weave straw rugs. And the boy was taught to weave rugs of straw, in patterns and in colours and with ornamental designs, and at the end of three days he was making very fine straw rugs, and the messenger returned to the shepherd’s daughter, and he said, These rugs of straw are of the work of the king’s son.
And the girl went with the messenger to the king’s palace, and she became the wife of the king’s son.
One day, said my grandmother, the king’s son was walking through the streets of Baghdad, and he came upon an eating place which was so clean and cool that he entered it and sat at the table. This place, said my grandmother, was a place of thieves and murderers, and they took the king’s son and placed him in a large dungeon where many great man of the city were being held, and the thieves and murderers were killing the fattest of the men and feeding them to the leanest of them, and making a sport of it. The king‘s son was of the leanest of the men, and it was not known that he was the son of the king of the Persians, so his life was spared, and he said to the thieves and murderers, I am a weaver of straw rugs and these rugs have great value. And they brought him straw and asked him to weave and in three days he weaved three rugs, and he said, Carry these rugs to the palace of the king of the Persians, and for each rug he will give you a hundred gold pieces of money. And the rugs were carried to the palace of the king, and when the king saw the rugs, he was that they were the work of his son and he took the rugs to the shepherd’s daughter and he said, These rugs were brought to the palace and they are the work of my son who is lost. And the shepherd’s daughter took each rug and looked at it closely and in the design of each rug she saw in the written language of the Persians a message from her husband, and she related this message to the king.
And the king, said my grandmother, sent many soldiers to the place of the thieves and murderers, and the soldiers rescued all the captives and killed all the thieves and murderers, and the king’s son was returned safely to the palace of his father, and the company of his wife, the little shepherd’s daughter. And when the boy went into the palace and saw again his wife, he humbled himself before her and he embraced her feet, and he said, My love, it is because of you that I am alive, and the king was greatly pleased with the shepherd’s daughter.
Now, said my grandmother, do you see why every man should learn an honourable craft?
I see very clearly, I said, and as soon as I earn enough money to buy a saw and a hammer and a piece of lumber I shall do my best to make a simple chair or a shelf for books.
UNIT 3
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