Now the two travel-companions of the prince - according to the plan of the two fathers of the king's son and the princess - were supposed to familiarize the king's son with the experience of sowing and reaping; for indeed all of nature moves on these lines.

“The three birds therefore demonstrated to the king's son this experience by rewarding the good with infinite accuracy and anchored it deep within his thinking.

For, what a fool he were as a king if he knew not clearly that the effect of all action returns to the actor by necessity - even if this happens over long periods of time and over vast spaces.

“And even if the actor has forgotten his action since long as was the case with the king's son and the three birds - and even if he does not attribute any importance to this action as again in his case: the real value of his action will reach the actor whenever the time has come.

“This was a kind of knowledge the ministers of his country unfortunately did not have; for how should it work out well when they mortgaged to the people their own land, just to get cash for their useless efforts from the savings of the citizens?

“The king wanted to spare his son from such ignorance and lack of prudence, and thus he gave him through the three birds a deep insight into the very causal functioning of nature - also in the moral-ethical field, if not particularly there.

“The ministers knew only so much as the foreseeable limit of their term in office or their limited life reached; beyond that they knew nothing, hence all their failure in action.

“The king knew more - he mastered the laws of eternity - and it was his duty to pass on this knowledge safely to at least his son; for all long-lived wealth is based also on this knowledge of the causal functioning of nature beyond all spaces and times.