Storia do Mogor : or, Mogul India, 1653-1708 / by Niccolao Manucci, Venetian ; tr., with introduction and notes, by William Irvine.

Storia do Mogor, or, Mogul India, 1653-1708 / by Niccolao Manucci, Venetian ; tr., with introduction and notes, by William Irvine.

Manucci, Niccolò, 1639-approximately 1717.

Date:: 1907-08

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Storia do Mogor, or, Mogul India, 1653-1708 / by Niccolao Manucci, Venetian ; tr., with introduction and notes, by William Irvine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$that Mahomed’s religion was the true one, he would force him either to adopt Mahomedanism or lose his life. In that last case he would become master of all his goods. The Jew, perceiving the force of the argument, sharpened his wits, and asked permission to tell the story of what had happened some time before. There was a father, said the Hebrew, who had three [4] sons, heirs to the whole of his great riches, and among his jewels there was a precious stone of an unusual size, and therefore greatly valued.^ The three sons knew that their father had this precious stone ; they also knew that it was beyond price, and that it could never be sold for its proper value. Thus each of them hoped to inherit it on his father’s death. The latter, knowing his children’s thoughts, and desirous of pleasing them all, so that at his death there should be no discord among them nor dispute, sent for a lapidary, and, showing him the stone, gave an order to make two imitation stones of the same size, and the same in every detail as the true one. The lapidary made these two stones so perfectly that when the three were placed together, it was impossible to tell which was the true one. When he was at the point of death, the father sent for the best-beloved of his children, and made over to him the true stone, enjoining him to preserve secrecy, so that neither his brothers nor the governor of the town should trouble him. He acted in the same way with the other two sons, telling them to keep it a secret, and delivering to each an imitation stone, which he declared to be the true and only one. By this means all three were contented, each being persuaded that he had the true stone which he coveted. In the same manner, said the Hebrew to the Bassa {pasha), the Lord our God has sent forth three laws : one to the Jews, one to the Christians, and another to the Turks. Of these one is true, and the others false; but as to which is the true one we know nothing, each believing that it is the one he holds. God alone, who gave them, knows which it is, just as the father, who bestowed the stones, knew ^ This story of the three precious stones is found, with variations, in Lessing’s ‘Nathan der Weise,’ in Boccaccio, in the ‘Gesta Romanorum,’ and in Hebrew literature.$