Chapter 5
When the day arrived for the slaughter of the male infants, no more than a thousand mothers appeared at the place of execution with their infants, the others having risen in the previous night and departed out of the gates, more than eighty-nine thousand mothers!
When the king went to the place of execution, having set aside the day as a holiday, and finding only a thousand infants present, he inquired the reason, and, having been told, he said: Can it be that mothers love their offspring more than they respect the decrees of the king? Asha was standing near, having stripped himself ready for execution, and he answered the king, saying:
Because they love their offspring, is it not the love of the flesh? And does the law not stand above all flesh? In this matter, then, because they have evaded the law, they have also adjudged themselves to death.
Then came Betraj, the king’s wife, bringing the infant. Betraj said: Here is your son, O king, ready for the sacrifice. Asha reasons well; there must be an All Highest, which never errs; which is the law of the king. Take your flesh and blood and prove your decrees. What! Why hesitate? If you swerve the tiniest bit, then you shall open the door for all men to find an excuse against the law. Does the sun not blight a harvest when he will? Yes, and strike dead our most beloved? Are you not descended from the Sun Gods? Who will obey the laws if you, yourself, do not?
The king said: Behold, it is yet early morning; let the officers go fetch all who have escaped beyond the walls, and both mothers and children shall be put to death. Till then, let the proceedings be suspended. || Now, a vast multitude had congregated, anxious to witness the slaughter; and when the king suspended matters, there went up cries of disappointment. And many said: When a thing touches the king, he is a coward.
The king departed for his palace, leaving Asha standing stripped for the execution. And the multitude cried out: Asha is more like a king than So-qi. Let us make him king. (As to) King So-qi! We will not have a sheep for a king! || And none could restrain them, or be heard above their noise; and they ran after the king and slew him with stones, and they made Asha King of the Sun. And not one infant was slain according to the decrees.
God said: Do not think, O man, that things happen without a cause, or that all things are left to chance. In my works I plan the way ahead of time, even more carefully than a captain lays siege to a city. Before Zarathustra was born I sent out ashars to choose my personages. Do not think that Asha made his own arguments; but by virtue of the presence of my ashars, whom he did not see, he spoke and behaved in my commandments, all the while not knowing it. And it was the same with the king’s wife; my angels also inspired her to speak before the king. And those who fled out of the city, were inspired by my hosts of angels.
God said: Yet with the king’s decree I had no part, for I foresaw he would do this of his own will; and with the multitude in slaying the king I had no part, for I saw they would do this on their own account. Nor would the multitude hear my voice, even though I had spoken to every man’s soul; for in them tetracts were the ascendant power.
God said: The multitude slew the king because he had gone so far from me he no longer heeded me. And I made Asha king because he came so near me, that my power was with him through my ashars.