法律和立法

几百年前，有个伟大的国王，他是个贤明的人。他要给他的子民制订法律。

他从一千个不同的部落，邀请一千个贤人，到他的京城来制订法律。

这一切都照办了。

然而，写在羊皮纸上的一千条法律，呈送到国王面前，国王——一审阅之时，内心深处倒辛酸地哭泣了，因为他不曾料到，在他的王国之内，竟有一千种犯罪的勾当。

于是国王召来他的书吏，嘴角边带着微笑亲自口授法律。国王制订的法律只有七条。

却说那一千个贤人愤愤地离别国王，带着他们自己制订的法律回到他们各自的部落里去了。每个部落都实施它自己的贤人所制订的法律。

因此，他们直至今天都有一千条法律。

这是一个大国，但它有一千个监狱，狱中充满了触犯一千条法律的男男女女。

这确实是一个伟大的国家，然而，这个国家里的人民，乃是一千个立法者和仅仅一个贤明的国王的后裔。

Laws And Law-Giving

Ages ago there was a great king, and he was wise. And he desired to lay laws unto his subjects.

He called upon one thousand wise men of one thousand different tribes to his capitol and lay down the laws.

And all this came to pass.

But when the thousand laws written upon parchment were put before the king and he read them, he wept bitterly in his soul, for he had not known that there were one thousand forms of crime in his kingdom.

Then he called his scribe, and with a smile upon his mouth he himself dictated laws. And his laws were but seven.

And the one thousand wise men left him in anger and returned to their tribes with the laws they had laid down. And every tribe followed the laws of its wise men.

Therefore they have a thousand laws even to our own day.

It is a great country, but it has one thousand prisons, and the prisons are full of women and men, breakers of a thousand laws.

It is indeed a great country, but the people thereof are descendants of one thousand law-givers and of only one wise king.