Once, from my city, two young men
went journeying towards another town. Each in his travelling pouch had made
his own provision for the way.
One was named Good, the other Bad; each one was like his name in deed.
They spent some days upon the road; from those provisions which they had, Good ate of his, while Bad his kept;
one sowed his corn, the other reaped. Then, travelling side by side, at last
they reached a boiling desert waste:
A fiery furnace, whose fierce heat
would make the hardest iron grow soft.
It was a hot and arid land
which turned the north wind to simoom. Bad knew well that that blasted waste was vast, of water there no trace.
Slyly his waterskin he filled,
and hid it in his bag, like pearls.
‘There’s water on the way,’ Good thought, not worrying, and knowing not
There was none, but a pit. So they
sped through that desert hot and dry. When seven days they’d travelled on, Bad still had water; Good’s was gone. Bad, who from Good his water hid,
said nothing either good or bad.
When Good found that that evil man, ill-natured, had some water hidden,
And secretly from time to time
drank of it, as of scented wine.
