Reading Notes: Tales of a Parrot Reading B

Tales of a Parrot: A King Falls in Love and the End of Khojisteh

The King's Wife in the Parrot's Story: Web Source

• Characters: A King, his wife, their son, murder, the parrot's owner, the parrot, Khojisteh
• In this story, the parrot is still telling khojisteh stories to try and save his life and prevent her from visiting her lover. The whole reason the parrot started telling the stories was to spare his own life, and it turned into keeping khojisteh home. You see in the very beginning of the story there were actually two birds, the parrot and a sharuk, whom khojisteh killed when she told her not to meet her lover and that it was wrong. The parrot watching the sharuk die, knew he must agree with the wife and began telling stories to try and make her do the right thing. This story the parrot tells is about a King who falls in love with a girl, and as it turns out this girl has a son from another marriage. When the girl marries the king and goes to live with him, her son, whom she is ashamed of does not go and she misses him greatly. She decides to go to the king and make her son out to be a jeweler, the King still does not know this is her son. When her son comes to the castle a servant sees her kissing his forehead and thinks she is having an affair, and the king orders him to be beheaded, however the executioner spares his life after the son tells the truth. The king notices the wife's sadness and she finally tells the truth and comes to find out he is not mad. The king orders the executioner to tell him the location of the body and he reveals he didn't kill him. This story has happy ending. The real story continues and Khojisteh's husband returns. When he find the Sharuk is gone, he orders the parrot to tell him what happened and the parrot tells him everything, the husband kills his wife. I think telling this story in Khojisteh's perspective would be cool. Maybe convey her thoughts as the Parrot tells the final story. Even though the story the parrot tells does not really relate to Khojisteh's story maybe it could teach her some kind of lesson.
• Bibliography: Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi.The Tooti Nameh or Tales of a Parrot:A King Falls in Love and the End of Khojisteh. 1801. Web Source.