Part One

Even kings should have other motives than merely to wear fine clothes.

There was once a king who was so proud of himself that he thought all the earth was just made for him to live on. He called himself the emperor, and lay awake at night thinking how great he was. Of course everybody agreed to this and that made him worse than ever.

One day while the proud king was bathing in a great lake, a man who looked exactly like him came along and took the king’s clothes, and left his own poor clothing in its place. When the king came to the shore he found his own clothes gone, and all his attendants ridden away. He was in a great rage, but he had to put on the poor clothing he found on the banks of the lake, and walked like any ordinary man up to a knight’s castle.

He beat on the gate and called aloud. The porter opened the gate and said:

“What do you mean by all this noise? Get away from here, you dirty fellow!” This put the king in a great rage, and he called out:

“You rascal! I am the emperor himself, and I shall have you put in prison for your insolence. Go! summon your master at once.”

The porter laughed in the king’s face and flung the gate shut and went off to the servants’ quarters to tell them the story of the old man in rage who claimed to be the emperor. At this they all laughed and thought it was a good joke.

The king then went away and came to the house of a duke. He knocked at the duke’s gate three times. The porter opened it and said:

“What do you wish here? Why do you not go to the servant’s gate?” The king said:

“Tell your master the emperor awaits without and would speak with him.” The porter was amazed at this, but being a duke’s servant he went at once and called his master to the gate to hear what the man said.

The duke came to the gate. The king cried out:

“Duke, do you not know me? I am the emperor. This morning I was bathing in the lake and some one stole my clothes, and left these I have on. Open the door that I may come in!”

But the duke shook his head: “You are a madman to say that; the emperor is now in my castle and is at dinner. He was in bathing, but he came out and joined us afterwards. Now you must be gone or I shall lock you up in my prison.”

The king was so angry that he jumped at the duke to choke him, but the attendants seized him and soon had him locked up in prison to think over the change that had come over his fortune by a mere change of clothes.