The Boasting Traveler

A MAN who had traveled in foreign lands boasted very much, on returning to his own country, of the many wonderful and heroic feats he had performed in the different places he had visited. Among other things, he said that when he was at Rhodes he had leaped to such a distance that no man of his day could leap anywhere near him as to that, there were in Rhodes many persons who saw him do it and whom he could call as witnesses. One of the bystanders interrupted him, saying: “Now, my good man, if this be all true there is no need of witnesses. Suppose this to be Rhodes, and leap for us.”

外国を旅してきた男が、国に帰ると、訪れたあちこちの土地でやってのけた、数々のすばらしい英雄的な手がらを大いに自慢した。いろいろな話のなかで、男はこう言った。ロドス島にいたとき、自分はものすごく遠くまで跳んだので、当時だれひとりとしてその近くまで跳べる者はいなかった。それについては、ロドス島には自分が跳ぶのを見た人が大勢いて、証人として呼ぶことができるのだ、と。すると、そばにいたひとりが口をはさんで言った。「いやいや、あんた、それがみんなほんとうなら、証人などいりませんよ。ここをロドス島だと思って、跳んでみせてください」