is a shame that we are not
sitting down to the feast along with the rest! I should like to treat
the king as ill as he has treated us." "How can we?" said the lame
man. "You know his garden," said the other; "let us go and spoil it!"
"All very well," said the lame man, "but how are we to get there?
I cannot walk." "Neither can I see; but we will contrive a way." So
they devised a plan. The lame man plucked the grass that he could
reach, and plaited it into a string, and threw one end to the blind
man, who guided himself by it to the lame man. Then he took the lame
man on his back, and carried him to the king's garden, and there they
did all the mischief they could, trampling down and tearing up plants
and flowers; and they went back to their houses and remained there.
When the rest of the people came out from the banquet into the
garden, they were appalled at the sight of the damage, and were much
perplexed, saying, "Were not all the soldiers of the king bidden to
the feast? and is not every man in the kingdom a soldier? Whence
then are these tracks in the garden, and who has wrought this
mischief?" After a while the king bethought him of the blind and the
lame man; they were brought before him, and he said to the blind man,
"Have you been into my garden?" He answered, "Alas, sire! you see my
infirmity, and that I have no eyes wherewith to find my way!" Then
said the king to the lame man, "And you, have you been into my garden?"
And he answered, "Surely my lord has forgotten my infirmity; it
cannot be that he desires to hurt my feelings by mocking me!" So the
king was perplexed, and went apart to consider how the two could have
contrived the business--for he was sure that they were guilty. At
last a thought came to him, and he set the lame man on the blind
man's shoulders, and scourged them both together. Then indeed did
they cry out, and the lame said to the blind, "Did you not lend me
your feet to take me to the king's garden?" And the blind to the
lame, "Did you not lend me your eyes to show me the way?" And in like
manner at the judgment the soul will say to the body, "I could not
have sinned if you had not given me the limbs with which I did evil."
And the body to the soul, "But it was you who thought of the evil
which I carried out." Thus one will try to throw the blame on the
other; but is either of them free from guilt?

Others of these apocryphal books are designed to show how important
some special virtue, or