about a master who tells his servant
that food or drink has been poisoned
selected and edited by
D. L. Ashliman
© 1998
folktales from Asia
about a master who tells his servant
that food or drink has been poisoned
selected and edited by
D. L. Ashliman
© 1998
Return to Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts.
There was a rich man who had a passion for rice wine, but he never gave any to his servant. Not even a small cupful at Tet.
He had to be away from home one day, so he gave instructions to the servant: "While I'm absent you must watch over the rooster in the cage, and that fine piece of pork in the kitchen. Don't let the cat or the dog go near them." He pointed to a bottle of his favorite rice wine on the shelf and warned, "That's a bottle of poison I bought to kill the rats. Whatever you do, don't drink it."
As soon as the rich man had departed the servant killed the rooster, and cooked it and the pork for his lunch. He washed it down with the rice wine and had the most splendid meal he had ever tasted.
The master arrived home and found his servant in a drunken sleep on the kitchen floor. He shook him awake and demanded to know what had happened to the rooster and the pork, and why he had drunk from the bottle.
"Oh, great lord," sobbed the servant, "I did my best to guard your food but the cat managed to steal the pork and the dog killed the rooster. I was so afraid of your anger that I decided to kill myself and drank the poison. Oh, unlucky me, I am still alive."
A Buddhist priest once kept a big store of dried persimmons in a cupboard in his room. He planned to eat them all himself, and so he told his young disciple, "These are deadly poison. If you eat even the smallest part of one you will die within the hour. See that you leave them well alone."
But one day the young disciple went and ate all the persimmons in the cupboard. Then he broke the holder of his master's inkstone, which was his most highly prized possession. Then he went and lay on his bed and covered himself with blankets.
A little later the priest returned. When he saw his disciple he cried, "Whatever is the matter with you?"
His disciple answered, "Through my miserable clumsiness I dropped the holder of your inkstone and broke it. I realized that that was an unpardonable crime. The only thing left for me to do was to put an end to my life and so I went to your cupboard and ate all the poison you keep there. Now I lie here waiting to breathe my last."
The priest was so tickled by his disciple's ingenuity that he could not help laughing and said no more about the matter.