The Tales of a Parrot collection by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi is in some ways a different version of 1001 Nights, but instead of a woman telling stories to stay her execution, a parrot is telling stories to stop his master's wife from cheating on him. This story, Khojisteh and the Parrot, is how the wife finds herself with an eye wandering to a different man, and how the parrot decides to try and subtly stop her from doing anything.
Reading Notes:
- Miemum, the husband and owner of the parrot, must leave to go on political business, apparently (I'm assuming so since he's a prince).
- His wife, Khojisteh is very sad about this and won't eat or sleep
- For the next six months, the parrot tells her pleasant stories to make her feel better.
- But, at the six month mark, Khojisteh looks out a window and sees another prince who's visiting the area.
- Both find the other attractive, and the prince sends Khojisteh a message asking her to privately meet him that night.
- That evening, Khojisteh puts on her finest clothes and jewelry and decides to tell the sharuk about what's happening, assuming the sharuk will basically give Khojisteh her blessing.
- On that note, I have no clue what a sharuk is. The only thing Google gave me was a mythological bird that apparently rescued Sinbad the sailor, which doesn't really fit with the story.
- But apparently the sharuk is a bird, because the sharuk chastises Khojisteh for her actions and Khojisteh ends up pulling the sharuk from her cage and killing it.
- Khojisteh then goes to the parrot, who, not wanting to die like the sharuk, placates Khojisteh and subtlety mentions the parrot of Ferukh Beg, which gets Khojisteh's attention; she asks for the parrot to tell the story.
Khojisteh talking to the Parrot (Source: Wikipedia)
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