The Condition
When the adjutant came and communicated the royal message, the shepherd asked him: “Is there any trade with which the royal prince is familiar?” The adjutant was amazed at such a question. “Lord forbid, foolish man!” he exclaimed, “how could you expect the heir-apparent to know a trade? People learn trades in order to earn their daily bread; princes possess lands and cities, and so do not need to work.”
But the shepherd persisted, saying: “If the prince knows no trade, he cannot become my son-in-law.”
The royal courier returned to the palace and reported to the king his conversation with the shepherd, and great was the astonishment throughout the palace when the news became known, for all expected that the shepherd would be highly flattered that the king had chosen his daughter’s hand for the prince in preference to the many royal and imperial princesses who would have been willing to marry him for the asking.
The king sent again to the shepherd, but the man remained firm in his resolution. “As long as the prince,” said he, “does not know any trade, I shall not grant him the hand of my daughter.”
When this second official brought back to the palace the same answer, the king informed his son of the shepherd’s condition, and the royal prince resolved to put himself in the way of complying with it.
His first step was to go through the city from door to door in order to select some simple and easy trade. As he walked through the streets he beheld various craftsmen at their work, but he did not stay until he came to the workshop of a carpet-maker, and this trade appeared to him both easy and lucrative. He therefore offered his services to the master, who gladly undertook to teach him the trade. In due time the prince obtained a certificate of efficiency, and he went to the shepherd and showed it to him, together with samples of his hand work. The shepherd examined these and asked the prince: “How much could you get for this carpet?” The prince replied: “If it is made of grass, I could sell it for threepence.” “Why, that is a splendid trade,” answered the shepherd, “threepence to-day and another threepence to-morrow would make sixpence, and in two other days you would have earned a shilling! If I only had known this trade a few years ago I would not have been a shepherd.” Thereupon he related to the prince and his suite the story of his past life, and what ill fate had befallen him, to the greatest surprise of all. You may be sure that the prince rejoiced to learn that his beloved was highly born, and the worthy mate of a king’s son. As for his father, he was especially glad that his son had fallen in love, not with the daughter of a simple shepherd, but with a royal princess.
The marriage was now celebrated with great magnificence, and when the festivities came to an end, the king gave the shepherd a fine ship, together with a powerful escort, that he might go back to his country and reassume possession of his royal throne.