II MINGRELIAN TALES MINGRELIAN TALES1 I The Three Precepts
Marjory Scott Wardrop translation
At the end of a year’s service, the clever man said to the youth: ‘Whatever thou seest outside thy yard, throw it into the yard.’ When the second year had passed, he again spoke to the youth, and said: ‘Lend nothing to anybody unless thou art much pressed to do so.’ The third year came to an end, and it was time for the young man to depart; the clever man called him and said: ‘Tell not thy secret to a woman.’ Then he bade him farewell, blessed him, and sent him home. The youth set out: he went, he went, he went by day, he went by night, over land, over water, and when he reached home he began to establish himself, he made a fence round his yard and, as he had been instructed, threw into the yard all he found outside the yard.
When he was in this state, a certain man came and asked him for the loan of a knife. Of course, being utterly cast down with grief and sorrow, he remembered not the words the clever man had spoken to him, and lent the knife. May it happen to thine enemy as it happened to him! It happened that this wretched man was a thief. When he had got the knife he went and broke into a house to steal; there he thrust the knife into the belly of a sleeping man, slew him, and left the knife in the dead man’s body, then pillaged the house. Afterwards an enquiry was made into the matter. They found the knife in the man who had been killed and robbed, and it turned out to be the knife of the young man. Of course he was taken and bound, all his goods were seized, and he was treated as a thief ought to be treated. Thus did it happen to the wretched youth who disobeyed the instructions of the clever man.
Yester eve I was there,
This evening I am here....
May God send thee,
Ripe in thy hands.
The tale, the tale is ended....
Thou hast drunk bad, stale wine,