Or how shuld he be gladde or jocounde
Agayne his wylle, that ligthe in chaynès bounde?”
“But let me out,” the bird goes on to say, “so that I may perch again on the laurel-tree, and then I will sing to thee, and moreover,
“I shal the yeve a notable gret gwerdoun,
Thre grete wysdoms according to resoun,
More of walewe, take hede what I do profre,
Thane al the golde that is shet in thi cofre.”
The three “great wisdoms” are the same as those in other versions, and then the little bird says that the churl by setting him free has missed gaining a rare treasure, for in his inside is a stone, fully an ounce in weight, which has many wonderful properties: making its possessor victorious in battle; he should suffer no poverty or indigence but have abundance of wealth; all should do him reverence; it would reconcile foes, comfort the sorrowful, and make heavy hearts light.[304] The churl is beside himself with vexation, and the bird calls him a fool for believing such a rank impossibility.[305]
Husain Vá’iz has re-told the apologue in his Anvár-i Suhaylí, or Lights of Canopus, a Persian rendering, in prose and verse, of the celebrated Fables of Bidpaï with additions, of which this is one. Here, however, the nightingale—having been entrapped by the gardener, because it destroyed his roses—does not, when liberated, give the gardener three maxims, but tells him that beneath such a tree is a vessel full of gold. The villager digs and finds the treasure, and then asks the bird how it was that he could see a vessel full of gold under the earth, yet not discover the snare above ground; to which the nightingale replies, like a good Muslim: “Hast thou not heard that ‘when Fate descends caution is in vain’?”[306]