At once he heard a voice say: “Be thou the King.”
Then in a moment Hashnu found that he was no longer the stonecutter, sitting beside the highway with a heavy mallet in his hand, but the King, dressed in armor, riding in the midst of soldiers and courtiers, and all about him doing homage.
He rode very proudly for a while, and his subjects bowed low before him. But the armor was heavy, and the helmet pressed hard upon his brow, and his head throbbed with the weight of it. He was indeed weary and faint with the heat, because, though a King, the sun beat hot upon him!
And he said to himself: “Lo, I am the King, and yet the sun can make me faint and weary. I had thought that to be a King was to be stronger than anything else, but the sun is stronger than the King!”
And as they rode further, and the sun still beat hard upon him, he said:
“Ah me, ah me,
If Hashnu only the sun could be!”
Then he heard a voice say: “Be thou the sun.”
And in a moment he was no longer the King, riding among his courtiers, but the sun, blazing high in the heavens, shining hot upon the fields and the meadows. As he did not know how to shine, he allowed his rays to fall too fiercely upon the world, and grass and grain were dried up and withered, and men lamented because of the cruelty of the heat. But Hashnu thought he was doing great things, and was very proud, until a cloud came between him and the earth, so that his rays no longer fell upon the fields and the cities of men.
And Hashnu said: “Lo, I am the sun, and my rays fell upon the fields and the cities, and all acknowledge my power. But the cloud is stronger than the sun, for it shuts off my rays from the earth.”
Then, because the cloud would not go, but became heavier and blacker, Hashnu lamented, and said: