Three young men apprenticed themselves to King Solomon for three years. When the term ended they approached the king, disappointed. They had seen wonders at court but believed they had learned nothing worth carrying home.

Solomon offered them a choice. Each could leave with one hundred gold pieces, or each could leave with three wise maxims. They conferred. They chose the gold — three hundred pieces split between them — and set off.

The youngest brother, partway down the road, stopped. He turned back. Something in Solomon's face had suggested the wiser choice. He returned to the palace and asked for the three maxims.

Solomon taught him. "First: start early on your journey with the dawn, and stop at nightfall. Second: do not attempt to cross a swollen river; wait until the waters subside. Third: do not reveal your secrets to any woman, not even your wife."

The young man caught up to his brothers on the road. They asked what Solomon had taught him. He refused to tell. They mocked him.

Evening came. The youngest stopped, made a fire, and slept. His brothers pressed on in the dark, impatient. A snowstorm overtook them in the night and they froze to death. The youngest found them the next morning, took their money, and buried them.

He continued. The snow melted and the river ahead swelled into a torrent. He waited. Two of Solomon's own servants, riding horses laden with gold, tried to cross the flood. They drowned. When the waters subsided, he collected their money too and went home.

He bought land. He built palaces. When his wife asked where the fortune had come from, he refused to tell her — remembering the third maxim. One day they quarreled. In her anger, she shouted that after murdering his two brothers, he now wanted to kill her as well. The widows of the drowned servants, overhearing, denounced him to Solomon. He was arrested and condemned to death.

Before the sentence was carried out, he asked to speak with the king. He told Solomon the whole story. Solomon recognized his old apprentice — and the wisdom of his own three maxims come back to him — and set him free.

Gaster's Exempla #402 preserves the tale. The gold is spent on burials. The three sentences, kept quiet, buy a life.