Zadig

Beside a stream in Syria, Zadig discovers a fisherman lamenting his misfortune: He has lost his house, his wife, and his business selling the best cheese in Babylon. Now he is unable even to catch fish and moves to throw himself into the water. Zadig is astonished that there is a man as unhappy as he and saves the man. According to Zoroaster’s law that like attracts like, the two men console each other with their mutual despair

Prompted by Zadig (who does not identify himself), the fisherman explains he was once respected as the best cheesemonger in his village near Babylon. While delivering to his biggest clients, Astarte and the minister Zadig, the man discovered both had fled. Finding no one to pay him, he sought his customer Lord Orcan for help. Orcan agreed to protect the man’s wife but not him, and his wife left him. The man bankrupted himself trying to reclaim his wife legally. Then, the Prince of Hyrcania pillaged Babylon, destroying the man’s house. He retreated to fish but failing at that began starving.

Throughout the story, Zadig questions the man about Astarte. He knows nothing except that neither the queen nor Zadig paid him. Zadig assures him he will be paid; he has heard Zadig is an honest man.

Zadig instructs the man to seek Cador in Babylon and gives him half of his money. The man is overjoyed and questions whether Zadig is truly as unhappy as he is because he is so generous. Zadig responds he is a hundred times unhappier (156). The man is confused, wondering why “the man who gives should be in greater need of pity than the man who receives” (156). Zadig replies his unhappiness is rooted in emotion whereas the other man’s is simply material. The man asks whether Orcan has taken Zadig’s wife too. Zadig says Orcan deserves punishment but laments that fortune seems to favor men like him. The two men part, the fisherman rejoicing in his luck and Zadig questioning when Ormuzd (the chief deity in Zoroastrianism) will have someone alleviate Zadig’s misfortune. 

In a meadow, Zadig finds several women searching for a cockatrice (a dragon with a rooster’s head) for a potion for their master Lord Ogul, who is ill and has promised to marry the slave who finds one. Zadig discovers another slave nearby who instead of searching is sitting nobly on the bank of a stream, tracing letters in the sand. Zadig is surprised to see this veiled woman spelling his name. He questions her, and she unveils herself as Astarte. Zadig wonders whether the powers that determine human fate have truly reunited them or whether he is dreaming. He prostrates himself in the dust in front of her before she pulls him up, wiping away his tears. Zadig explains how he ended up in the meadow, and then she tells her story.

After Cador aided Zadig in his escape from Babylon, he hid Astarte under a statue in the Temple of Ormuzd. Learning of his wife’s escape, Moabdar sent four men toward Memphis based on Cador’s lie that she had fled there. The men only knew Astarte from a sketch because she had always remained veiled in public, resulting in them returning with the similar-looking Missouf, the woman Zadig saved from her lover. This enraged Moabdar before he saw Missouf’s beauty. True to her name, which means “the pretty wanton” in Egyptian, Missouf convinced Moabdar to marry her and then exploited her power to indulge her cruel whims. For example, she forced her horse master to bake a tart and fired him for underbaking it.

During the Festival of the Sacred Flame, the king prayed for Missouf at the statue under which the queen hid. Still concealed, Astarte spoke as the gods back to her husband: “The Gods reject the vows of a King turned tyrant, who has plotted the death of a sensible wife to marry a madcap!” (166). This pronouncement combined with Missouf’s caprice drove Moabdar mad.

People interpreted the king’s madness as divine punishment and cause for revolt. A civil war began, and Astarte emerged to lead a faction. Hearing of the war, the Prince of Hyrcania marched on Babylon, killing Moabdar and capturing Missouf and Astarte. The prince consigned both women to his harem, promising to return to Astarte after the war. She responded with a noble air, believing that the gods invested nobility with the power to shame barbarians such as the prince for their disrespect. The prince ignored her and ordered her beautified for his return. She vowed to kill herself, but he laughed off her threat, calling her bluff.

Zadig and Astarte commiserate before she continues. Astarte deduced from Missouf’s story that Zadig was in Memphis. She persuaded Missouf to help her escape, arguing it would free her of a rival in the harem. Near Memphis, Argobad captured Astarte and sold her to others who sold her to Lord Ogul, who was unaware of her identity.

Zadig returns to Ogul’s castle with Astarte and the other slaves, who did not find a cockatrice. Zadig presents himself as a doctor and offers to cure Ogul in exchange for Astarte’s freedom. He offers himself as a replacement slave if his cure fails. Ogul accepts and Astarte and Zadig share a tender goodbye before she departs for Babylon with Zadig’s servant. Zadig convinces Ogul that instead of eating the remedy, he must absorb it by repeatedly hitting an inflated bladder containing it. After a week of this exercise, Ogul returns to youthful health. Zadig reveals there was no medicine: Ogul regained his health by exercising and moderating his diet. Zadig proclaims the outsize value of this simple precept of moderation, arguing that it “is as fantastic as the philosophers’ stone, or astrology, or the theology of the mages” (174).

Ogul’s physician feels threatened by Zadig and plots to have him poisoned at dinner. Before eating the poisoned food, Zadig receives a message from Astarte and leaves the castle. The narrator relates one of Zoroaster’s sayings: “When a man is loved by a beautiful woman [...] he always gets out of trouble” (176).