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Updated: July 5, 2025
"Sir," continued the Grecian king's vizier, "to return to the physician Douban, if you do not take care, the confidence you put in him will be fatal to you; I am very well assured that he is a spy sent by your enemies to attempt your majesty's life. He has cured you, you will say: but alas! who can assure you of that?
Welcome, Douban!" he said, "whose medical skill is sufficiently able to counterbalance the weight of years which hang upon him." "Your Highness is gracious," said Douban but what he would have farther said was cut off by a violent fit of coughing, the consequence of his age, of his feeble habit, of the damps of the dungeon, and the rugged exercise of descending the long and difficult staircase.
"O King," said Douban, "is this my reward from thee? Thou returnest evil for good?" The King replied, "It boots not: thou must die and that without delay."
"'Twas a mistake of the dungeon-keeper, the inhuman villain, who should not go without his reward," continued the Emperor, "had not Heaven already bestowed it by the strange means of a sylvan man, or native of the woods, who yesterday put to death the jailor who meditated the death of his prisoner Yes, my dear Douban, a private sentinel of our guards called the Immortal, had wellnigh annihilated this flower of our trust, whom for a time we were compelled to immure in secret.
Presently, the physician Douban presented himself and kissed the earth before the king and repeated the following verses: The virtues all exalted are, when thou art styled their sire: None else the title dares accept, of all that men admire.
The physician Douban rose up, and after a profound reverence, said to the king, he judged it meet that his majesty should take horse, and go to the place where he used to play at mall. The king did so, and when he arrived there, the physician came to him with the mace, and said, "Exercise yourself with this mace, and strike the ball until you find your hands and body perspire.
When the physician Douban, or rather his head, saw that the poison had taken effect, and that the king had but a few moments to live; "Tyrant," it cried, "now you see how princes are treated, who, abusing their authority, cut off innocent men: God punishes soon or late their injustice and cruelty."
At this the King marvelled greatly and shook with delight and said, "O physician, will thy head indeed speak to me, after it is cut off?" And he answered, "Yes, O King." Quoth the King, "This is indeed wonderful!" And sent him under guard to his house, where Douban spent the remainder of the day in setting his affairs in order.
"If you be so minded," replied Douban, "I shall only repeat to him your stipulation, and you must swear to him that you will strictly observe it. Without this being done, it must be difficult, or perhaps impossible, to settle the league of which both are desirous."
When the Grecian king had finished the story of the parrot, he added, "And you, vizier, because of the hatred you bear to the physician Douban, who never did you any injury, you would have me cut him off; but I will beware lest I should repent as the husband did after killing his parrot." The mischievous vizier was too desirous of effecting the ruin of the physician Douban to stop here.
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