nasredin.blogspot.com


As everybody knows by now, Timur the Lame was also one-eyed and with a crippled wrist. In Samarkand where he set court and erected his blue palaces, dream gardens and lavish tents, the mighty Emir fancied his painted image to be made for the wonder and joy of generations to come. A portrait to last and to show who he was. The court painter, brought from China, displayed his finest art. For thirty days he ravished into the spitting image a perfect reflection, the very twin of the living Timur, the incomparable emir, looking straight at you from the canvas. The thirty-first day, the ruler ordered the portrait to be uncovered, looked at it and said: "This is true, but it is ugly. Take this worm out and bring me back his head, to rest my shorter leg and my blind eye on it!" The second painter of the court tried his luck. With shaking limbs, he presented his own work to the brow rising emir. Timur admired the picture for a while before he decided: "This image is beautiful but it is not true. Take him out of my presence and let him be beheaded! You can leave his head outside, by his feet." No third painter gathered enough courage to try again, so that it was, as often before, Nasrudin's time to be summoned and offered to choose between brush and blade. Hoca chose the brush and worked hard (with some help from paid artists, too shy to claim their merit at that time). Now the day of showing could not be delayed any more. Timur uncovered the portrait with his own hand. He looked, and looked, scratched his head, frowned, turned his eye skywards, smoked a whole narghileh and then put a large smile on his imperial face: "Not so bad", he said. "I'm not handsome but seen from such distance I look proud. On horseback, who could notice that I'm lame? And from one side, as I am taking aim with my bow, nobody sees that I have only that eye and my wrist is deformed. Let this witty painter be showered with a thousand gold dirhams. He knows how to show the truth to the people."

(c) Copyright 1998-2004 Ioan Tenner