The King Who Transferred His Kingdom To His Son During His Lifetime
I’ll tell you how they once made themselves happy amid depression.
Once there was a King who had an only son. The King wanted to transfer the kingdom to his son during his lifetime, so he threw a grand party (which they call a “ball”). Now, when the King throws a ball there is certainly great merriment, so especially now that he was transferring the kingdom to his son during his lifetime, there was certainly a very great celebration. And there at the ball were all the royal officers and all the dukes and gentry, and people were very merry at the ball. And the country too was enjoying this — the king’s transferring his kingdom to his son in his lifetime — for it is a great honorific event for the King. So a very great celebration took place there, and there were all types of festivities there: song groups, drama groups and so forth, as well as everything useful just for merriment — it was all there at the ball.
And when they had waxed very merry, the King got up and said to his son, “Being that I am a stargazer, I see that you will at some time fall from the kingship. Therefore see to it that you have no sadness (that is, no grief) when you fall from reign; just be happy. And if you will be happy, I will also be happy. Even if you will have sadness I will still be happy that you are not king, since you are not fit to be king if you cannot keep yourself happy. (In other words, if you are the kind of man that you cannot keep yourself happy even when you fall from reign then you aren’t fit to be any sort of king). But when you will be happy then I will be extraordinarily happy.”
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From Wikisource.
Ponder well.