Episode Details

Ten more anecdotes of the Hodja, and this time the court is his stage. Led in as a witness, he asks whether the lying must be about barley or about corn; he buys his ruling with a jug of earth under a finger's breadth of honey, and when the Kadi protests that a mistake has crept into the document, answers that it can only have crept in in the honey; he wins his own case with a sign — stones in his bosom for the skull of any judge who rules him wrong; he prices a slap at one pul and collects it off the Kadi's own neck; he hears a drunken Kadi excuse his wine-stained beard by his trembling hands, and a whole lawsuit settled out of two bribes — the Kadi having already eaten the ox; and he watches a peasant outbid the morning prayer, for twenty must surely be better. Then the great answering: three monks who have travelled the world put their questions — where the centre of the world is, how many stars there are, how many hairs in a beard — and every answer stands at a donkey's hoof, in a donkey's hair, in a donkey's tail. And at Tamerlan's table he gives thanks for every green fig thrown at his face — praised be God they were not quinces — and trades rudeness for rudeness, under the cushion, in the sneeze, and in a language where it means nothing at all.

From Der Hodscha Nasreddin by Albert Wesselski (1911), public domain; told in a fresh in-house rendering.

KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.

Chapters: 0:00 Opening 0:05 Barley or Corn 0:35 The Mistake Was in the Honey 1:33 The Stones in My Bosom 2:09 Keep the Pul for Yourself 3:38 If My Hands Did Not Tremble 4:19 The Kadi Has Eaten the Ox 5:10 Twenty Must Be Better 5:41 The Centre of the World 9:16 Thank God They Were Figs 10:39 Your Majesty and the Cushion