When he passed through the villages the children mocked him, and threw stones at him. The farmers did not let him sleep even in the byres, because he was very foul. The workers drove him away, and there was none who had pity on him. Nor could he hear anywhere of the beggar-woman who was his mother.
During three years he wandered over the world, and often saw beggars on the road. But he met his mother nowhere.
He wandered over the world, and in the world there was neither love nor kindness nor charity for him. It was such a world as he made for himself in the days of his great pride.
One evening he came to the gate of a city that stood by a river. He was weary and footsore and tried to enter. But the soldiers who stood on guard dropped their halberts[14] across the entrance, and said roughly to him,
‘What do you want in the city?’
‘I look for my mother,’ he answered, ‘please let me enter in, she may be in this city.’
But the soldiers mocked at him. One of them wagged a black beard, and set down his shield and cried,
‘Truly, your mother will not be merry when she sees you, because you are uglier than the toad of the marsh, or the adder that crawls in the fen. Get away! Your mother does not dwell in this city.’
And another soldier, who held a yellow banner in his hand, said to him,
‘Who is your mother? Why are you not together with her?’
The Star-Child answered,
‘My mother is a beggar as I am. I treated her evilly. Please let me pass that she may give me her forgiveness, if she lives in this city.’
But the soldiers pricked him with their spears.
As he turned away, one whose armour was with gilt flowers, and on whose helmet couched a lion with wings, came up and asked the soldiers who it was. The soldiers said to him,
‘It is a beggar and the child of a beggar. Let him go away.’
‘No,’ he cried and laughed, ‘but we will sell the foul child for a slave and buy a bottle of sweet wine.’
An old and evil-visaged man[15] who passed by, said,
‘I will buy him for that price.’
He paid the price and took the Star-Child by the hand and led him into the city.
After that they went through many streets and came to a little door in a wall that was covered with a pomegranate tree. The old man touched the door with a ring of graved jasper and it opened. They went down five steps of brass into a garden with black poppies and green clay jars. Then the old man took from his turban a scarf of figured silk, and bound with it the eyes of the Star-Child. Then he pushed him forward.
When the old man took the scarf off the Child’s eyes, the Star-Child found himself in a dungeon. The old man set before him some mouldy bread on a trencher and said,
‘Eat,’ and some brackish water in a cup and said, ‘Drink.’
Then the old man went out, locked the door behind him and fastened it with an iron chain.
The old man was indeed the magician of Libya and learned his art from one who dwelt in the tombs of the Nile. In the morning, he came in to the Star-Child and frowned at him, and said,
‘In a wood that is nigh to the gate of this city of Giaours there are three pieces of gold. One is of white gold, and another is of yellow gold, and the gold of the third one is red. Today you must bring me the piece of white gold. If you don’t bring it, I will beat you with a hundred stripes[16]. Get away quickly! At sunset I will wait for you at the door of the garden. Remember to bring me the white gold, or I will punish you. You are my slave, I bought you for the price of a bottle of sweet wine.’
And he bound the eyes of the Star-Child with the scarf of figured silk, and led him through the house, and through the garden of poppies, and up the five steps of brass. Then he opened the little door with his ring and pushed him in the street.
The Star-Child went out of the gate of the city, and came to the wood.
This wood looked very nice, it seemed full of birds and of flowers. The Star-Child entered it gladly. But soon its beauty disappeared, and wherever he went harsh briars and thorns shot up from the ground and encompassed him. Evil nettles stung him, and the thistle pierced him with daggers. And he could not find the piece of white gold anywhere, though he sought for it from morn to noon, and from noon to sunset. At sunset he wept bitterly and decided to go home, for it was time to return.
But when he reached the outskirts of the wood, he heard from a thicket a cry. The Star-Child forgot his own sorrow and ran back to the place, where he saw there a little Hare in a hunter’s trap.
The Star-Child had pity on it, and released the Hare, and said,
‘I am a slave, but I can free you.’
The Hare answered him:
‘Surely you gave me freedom. What can I give you in return?’
The Star-Child said to it,
‘I look for a piece of white gold, but I can’t find it anywhere. If I don’t bring it to my master he will beat me.’
‘Come with me,’ said the Hare, ‘and I will lead you to it. I know where it is, and for what purpose.’
So the Star-Child went with the Hare, and lo! In the cleft of a great oak-tree he saw the piece of white gold. He was filled with joy, and seized it, and said to the Hare,
‘You rendered back my service and repaid the kindness many times over!’
‘As you deal with me,’ answered the Hare, ‘so I deal with you.’
The Hare ran away swiftly, and the Star-Child went towards the city.
Now at the gate of the city there was a leper. Over his face hung a cowl of grey linen. Through the eyelets his eyes gleamed like red coals. When he saw the Star-Child, he struck upon a wooden bowl, and clattered his bell, and called out to him, and said,
‘Give me a piece of money, or I must die of hunger. They thrust me out of the city, and there is no one who has pity on me.’
‘Alas!’ cried the Star-Child, ‘I have but one piece of money in my wallet, and if I don’t bring it to my master he will beat me, because I am his slave.’
But the leper entreated him, and prayed of him, till the Star-Child had pity, and gave him the piece of white gold.
And when he came to the Magician’s house, the Magician opened to him, and said to him,
‘Do you have the piece of white gold?’
The Star-Child answered,
‘I don’t have it.’
So the Magician beat him, and set before him an empty trencher, and said, ‘Eat,’ and an empty cup, and said, ‘Drink’. After that he pushed him again into the dungeon.
In the morning the Magician came to him, and said,
‘If today you don’t bring me the piece of yellow gold, I will surely keep you as my slave, and give you three hundred stripes.’
So the Star-Child went to the wood, and all day long he searched for the piece of yellow gold. But he could find it nowhere. At sunset he sat down and began to weep. Soon the little Hare came to him.
The Hare said to him,
‘Why do you weep? And what do you seek in the wood?’
The Star-Child answered,
‘I