The King and the Pirate
There once was a poor man who went
along day after day saying, “If anyone gives me a ship, I will sail the seven seas
and give to them half of my riches that I scavenge.” So this poor man
would go along day after day saying, “If anyone gives me a ship, I will sail the
seven seas and give to them half of my riches.”
One one day the poor man was
passing by the palace and the king happened to be there. The poor man repeated,
“If anyone gives me a ship, I will sail the seven seas and give them half of my
riches found in my voyages.” The king with a sense of honesty told the poor man, “That usually does not happen with the forgetfulness and greed in the
hearts of men nowadays.”
The poor man answered, “I shall not be one of those
men and I will not forget the actions of kindness done to me.” So the man went
on still in high spirits repeating the same thing he had said many times before. On another day the poor man came across one of the king's naval admiral and told him, “If anyone gives me a ship, I will sail
the seven seas and give them half of my riches.”
The admiral answered, “I have seen many of my crewmen be granted the
gift of a ship and all of them were filled with greed and instead they sought
to kill and steal from those who only granted them good."
The poor man answered,
“I will not be like those men. Instead I will remember the good acts of those who have
done them.” So the poor man continued
believing and repeating that he would sail the seven seas and give the half the
riches found to the person who would give him a ship. There the poor man came
across a merchant on the docks of the harbor and said, “If anyone gives me a ship, I will sail
the seven seas and give them half of my riches found in my voyages.” The merchant then responded, “That is not true. I gave one of my good sailors a ship once. In return he became a pirate and stole from me.”
So the poor man discouraged sought
the king once again. “Unfortunate man, will you ever forget the favors?” asked
the king. “Never will I forget a benefit,” answered the poor man.
"Then here is a
ship with a crew that will serve at your every command,” said the king. So the poor man was intrigued by a pirates life rather then that of a merchants life. So the poor man ventured off on voyages becoming a pirate and with that he became richer than ever before. When time came he did not give half of his
earnings to the king and the king let it pass. The king did this because he knew eventually the poor man would have to pay up.
One day the now ungrateful man saw
one of the king’s merchant ships that was carrying treasures of the king. So he
seized the king's vessel and took everything it had with him. As he looted the ship other royal ships had surrounded the ungrateful man's ship. The royal ships seized the ungrateful man's ship and left him and his men for dead. Together
with his crew the ungrateful man was left floating in the sea shipless and treasureless.
Author’s Note: This Story was inspired by the story
The Wizard and the Beggar found in Laos-Folklore by Katherine Neville Fleeson (1899). The story of the wizard and the beggar tells of a man who claimed that he would remember the benefit of the man who would give him all the food he could desire to eat. So the story goes and tell that man eventually forgets all the benefits given to him. The wizard then gives the beggar a jewel that grants him anything he wants and the wizard keeps a jewel that allows him to fly. The beggar then gets greedy and tries to kill the wizard and steal the other jewel form him and in the end is left with nothing. My story is pretty similar because I didn't change the fact that the beggar is a poor man. The big thing I changed was the fact that he wants a ship to sail the seven seas and become rich. I keep the fact that he does not pay up to his benefactor and in the end is left with nothing.
(Pirate Ship)
