Tuesday, April 07, 2009

The Parable of the Greedy Man and the Envious Man

Jewish Parable, The Seven Deadly Sins, Solomon Schimmel, 1992. 

A greedy man and an envious man met a king. The king said to them, "One of you may ask something of me, and I will give it to him, provided I give twice as much to the other." The envious person did not want to ask first for he was envious of his companion who would receive twice as much, and the greedy man did not want to ask first since he wanted everything that was to be had. Finally the greedy one pressed the envious one to be the first to make the request. So the envious man asked the king to pluck out one of his eyes. 

4 comments:

Patrick said...

Sounds like a Kafka story, don't it?

ba said...

If it were a kafka story, the first man would ask for life...soul-sucking, ennui-filled life, knowing that the next guy would kill himself.

I, of course, would ask for an orgasm.

Christian O. said...

There's a joke iteration of it as well. The punchline is "beat me half to death."

sara d. reiss said...

my people are just a laugh riot.