28. "Now don’t you believe me? Isn’t the king great in his authority? Don’t all countries fear to touch him?
29. I once saw the king and Apame his mistress, the daughter of the eminent Bartacus, sitting by his right side.
30. She took the crown from the king’s head and put it on her own head, and slapped the king with her left hand.
31. At this the king would stare at her with his mouth wide open. If she smiles at him, he laughs; but if she should get angry with him, he humors her so that she may be reconciled to him.
32. Gentlemen, aren’t women powerful, since they can do such things?"
33. The king and the officials looked at each other, and the third young man began to speak about truth:
34. "Gentlemen, aren’t women strong? The earth is great, heaven is high, and the sun is swift in its course, for it circles the heavens and returns again to its place in a single day.
35. Isn’t the one who does these things great? Yet truth is also great and superior still to all of these things.
36. The whole earth calls on truth, and heaven praises it. All of heaven’s works move and tremble at the sight of it, and there’s nothing wrong with truth.
37. You can’t trust wine; you can’t trust the king; you can’t trust women. No human beings are trustworthy. Everything they do is wrong. There is no truth in them. They will perish in their lies.