Here’s a little story from medieval Spain that I translated, and it has a moral and a punch line. It comes from El Conde Lucanor [Count Lucanor], a book written in 1335 by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348), nephew of King Alfonso X of Castile.

The book is filled with “exemplary stories” to help the fictitious Count Lucanor deal with his concerns. This one, Exemplum XLIII, was cribbed from a popular story at the time. The Count asked how much he should tolerate from bad people. His advisor recounts this story, and the final line became a refrain.

(Photo: A bath at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain.)

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A good man owned a public bath, and a madman came into the bath when people were bathing. He hit them with buckets and stones and sticks and everything else he could find, so no one in the world dared to go to the bath that belonged to the good man, who lost his income.

When the good man realized that the madman was making his business fail, he got up early one day and went to the bath before the madman came. He took off his clothes as if he were a customer and got a bucket of boiling water and a large wooden club. Then the madman who had been attacking people arrived at the bath.

The naked good man, who was waiting, saw him and ran at him with fierce anger. He threw the bucket of boiling water at his head and grabbed the club and began to strike him again and again on his head and body. The madman was afraid he would be killed and thought that the good man was mad.

He ran out screaming, and when he met a man who asked him why he was running and yelling, the madman told him:

“My friend, beware, because there is another madman in the bath.”