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'Wait a little:
HE is with the ladies of the court,' until I have plagued and tormented
him as he torments me, keeping me away from you, grandfather, when
I want to come." [12] Thus the boy delighted his elders in the evening,
and by day if he saw that his grandfather or his uncle wanted anything,
no one could forestall him in getting it; indeed nothing seemed to give

him greater pleasure than to please them.
[13] Now when Mandane began to think of going back to her husband,
Astyages begged her to leave the boy behind. She answered that though
she wished to please her father in everything, it would be hard to leave
the boy against his will. [14] Then the old man turned to Cyrus: "My
boy, if you will stay with us, Sacas shall never stop you from coming to
me: you shall be free to come whenever you choose, and the oftener
you come the better it will please me. You shall have horses to ride, my
own and as many others as you like, and when you leave us you shall
take them with you. And at dinner you shall go your own away and
follow your own path to your own goal of temperance just as you think
right. And I will make you a present of all the game in my parks and
paradises, and collect more for you, and as soon as you have learnt to
ride you shall hunt and shoot and hurl the javelin exactly like a man.
And you shall have boys to play with and anything else you wish for:
you have only to ask me and it shall be yours." [15] Then his mother
questioned the boy and asked him whether he would rather stay with
his grandfather in Media, or go back home with her: and he said at once
that he would rather stay. And when she went on to ask him the reason,
he answered, so the story says, "Because at home I am thought to be the
best of the lads at shooting and hurling the javelin, and so I think I am:
but here I know I am the worst at riding, and that you may be sure,
mother, annoys me exceedingly. Now if you leave me here and I learn
to ride, when I am back in Persia you shall see, I promise you, that I
will outdo all our gallant fellows on foot, and when I come to Media
again I will try and show my grandfather that, for all his splendid
cavalry, he will not have a stouter horseman than his grandson to fight
his battles for him." [16] Then said his mother, "But justice and
righteousness, my son, how can you learn them here when your
teachers are at home?" "Oh," said Cyrus, "I know all about them
already." "How do you know that you do?" asked Mandane. "Because,"
answered the boy, "before I left home my master thought I had learnt
enough to decide the cases, and he set me to try the suits. Yes! and I
remember once, said he, "I got a whipping for misjudgment. [17] I will
tell you about that case. There were two boys, a big boy and a little boy,
and the big boy's coat was small and the small boy's coat was huge. So
the big boy stripped the little boy and gave him his own small coat,

while he put on the big one himself. Now in giving judgment I decided
that it was better for both parties that each should have the coat that
fitted him best. But I never got any further in my sentence, because the
master thrashed me here, and said that the verdict would have been
excellent if I had been appointed to say what fitted and what did not,
but I had been called in to decide to whom the coat belonged, and the
point to consider was, who had a right to it: Was he who took a thing
by violence to keep it, or he who had had it made and bought it for his
own? And the master taught me that what is lawful is just and what is
in the teeth of law is based on violence, and therefore, he said, the
judge must always see that his verdict tallies with the law. So you see,
mother, I have the whole of justice at my fingers' ends already. And if
there should be anything more I need to know, why, I have my
grandfather beside me, and he will always give me lessons." [18] "But,"
rejoined his mother, "what everyone takes to be just and righteous at
your grandfather's court is not thought to be so in Persia. For