Mandane. "Because," answered the boy, "before I left home my master
thought I had learnt enough to decide the cases, and he set me to try
the suits. Yes! and I remember once, said he, "I got a whipping for
misjudgment. [17] I will tell you about that case. There were two
boys, a big boy and a little boy, and the big boy's coat was small and
the small boy's coat was huge. So the big boy stripped the little boy
and gave him his own small coat, while he put on the big one himself.
Now in giving judgment I decided that it was better for both parties
that each should have the coat that fitted him best. But I never got
any further in my sentence, because the master thrashed me here, and
said that the verdict would have been excellent if I had been
appointed to say what fitted and what did not, but I had been called
in to decide to whom the coat belonged, and the point to consider was,
who had a right to it: Was he who took a thing by violence to keep it,
or he who had had it made and bought it for his own? And the master
taught me that what is lawful is just and what is in the teeth of law
is based on violence, and therefore, he said, the judge must always
see that his verdict tallies with the law. So you see, mother, I have
the whole of justice at my fingers' ends already. And if there should
be anything more I need to know, why, I have my grandfather beside me,
and he will always give me lessons." [18] "But," rejoined his mother,
"what everyone takes to be just and righteous at your grandfather's
court is not thought to be so in Persia. For instance, your own
grandfather has made himself master over all and sundry among the
Medes, but with the Persians equality is held to be an essential part
of justice: and first and foremost, your father himself must perform
his appointed services to the state and receive his appointed dues:
and the measure of these is not his own caprice but the law. Have a
care then, or you may be scourged to death when you come home to
Persia, if you learn in your grandfather's school to love not kingship