At the first of the class we were to go through and pick out some reading that interested us. I enjoyed the overview of Tales of a Parrot by Ziya’al-Din Nakhshabi so, for my reading this week I finally got to learn more about these tales. I was surprised in the second story Khojisteh and the Parrot that the wife kills the other bird, the sharuk, for telling her it is wrong to cheat on her husband. This story explains why the parrot tells the wife stories each night, he wants to help but is afraid for his life. Each story after begins with the wife, Khojisteh asking the parrot for leave so that she can go cheat of her husband who is away. An important point to each story is that the parrot offers a little comment that compares to the wife’s situation as he is telling her she may leave, and every night the wife asks to hear the story from the comment. I think this shows how uncertain the wife is about cheating on her husband. Instead of blowing off the comment, she wants to know the story. I also keep picturing the parrot as a guy best friend who knows that his friend is making a bad decision but afraid the friend might lash out at him for telling her the truth. So, to save himself and help his friend he comes up with cleaver stories to keep her in for the night. So far, the story that the parrot tells in Four Rich Persons Who Became Poor is my favorite. The lesson from that story is “whosoever will not listen to the advice of friends will suffer like this unhappy man”. I think this story could be recreated to a modern tale but keep the same lesson for the end.
A beautiful tropical parrot. Source: Pixabay by Skeeze
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