THE I sm LOS THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GULISTAN OR FLOWER- GARDEN : TRANSLATED, WITH AN ESSAY, BY JAMES ROSS : AND A NOTE UPON THE TRANSLATOR BY CHARLES SAYLE. LONDON : WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE. ' Be thou ware where Sadi dwells ; Wisdom of the gods is he, Entertain it reverently. Gladly round that golden lamp Sylvan deities encamp, And simple maids and noble youth Are welcome to the man of truth. Most welcome they who need him most, They feed the spring which they exhaust : For greater need Draws better deed: But, critic, spare thy vanity, Nor show thy pompous parts, To vex with odious subtlety The cheerer of men's hearts. " Emerson. College CONTENTS. PAGE SHAIKH SADI I TRANSLATOR'S NOTF. ^ FOR FULL LIST of the Volumes in this series, see Catalogue at end of book. CHAP. V. OF LOVE AND YOUTH .... 208 CHAP. VI. OF IMBECILITY AND OLD AGE . . 234 CHAP. VII. OF THE IMPRESSIONS OF EDUCATION . 244 CHAP. VIII. OF THE DUTIES OF SOCIETY . . .272 1656654 " Be thou ware where Sadi dwells; Wisdom of the gods is he, Emerson. College CONTENTS. PAGE SHAIKH SADI ........ I TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ...... 59 THE MOCADDAMAH ; OR, INTRODUCTION TO THE GULISTAN OF SHAIKH SADI . , . 6 1 CHAP. I. OF THE CUSTOMS OF KINGS . . . 77 CHAP. II. OF THE MORALS OF DARWESHES . .126 CHAP. III. OF THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CONTENTMENT 167 CHAP. IV. OF THE BENEFIT OF BEING SILENT . 2OO CHAP. V. OF LOVE AND YOUTH . . . . 208 CHAP. VI. OF IMBECILITY AND OLD AGE . . 234 CHAP. VII. OF THE IMPRESSIONS OF EDUCATION . 244 CHAP. VIII. OF THE DUTIES OF SOCIETY . . .272 NOTE UPON THE TRANSLATOR, JAMES Ross, son of Alexander Ross, a burgess of Aber- deen, was born in that city, 2ist June 1759. He was a student at Marischal College from 1774 to 1777, in which year he graduated as Master of Arts. After studying medicine he was appointed successively to the Vesuvius in 1782; acting-surgeon to the Enterprise at Woolwich till the return of the Galatea; assistant surgeon to the Bountiful; and in 1783 proceeded to Fort St. George and Calcutta; in 1784-5 to Barrackpur and Burhampur; and in 1785 to Lucknow. In 1786 he marched from Lucknow to Midnapur, and in 1789 was stationed at Dinajepur, on the Bengal Establishment. In 1797 he returned to England on furlough, the voyage taking eleven months. In 1801 he was acting-surgeon to the i8th Regiment of Native Infantry, and afterwards senior surgeon to one detachment. From the year 1802 up to the time of his death, he was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society. He retired, owing to ill-health, in 1804, and returned to England, residing at various places in the South of England before he finally settled, in 1810, at Exeter, where, at his residence in Summerland Place (now 2 Higher Summer- lands), he died, 2 2nd July 1831. viii NOTE UPON THE TRANSLATOR. The translation of the Gulistan was dedicated to the Chairman and Directors of the East India Company; and was published in 1823. In a memorandum prefixed to it, the translator stated his intention of supplementing his work by (i) a rendering of the Bustan; (2) a volume containing one of the Heroic Poems of Firdusi, and selections from Nizami, Anwari, Hafiz, etc. ; (3) a volume of Introductory matter, and a rendering of the two first books of Anwari Sohaili, with an essay on the Persian Apologue and Bidpai's Fables ; (4) a Dictionary of pure Persian words. Of these, the first was advertised, in 1832, as among the forthcoming publications under the Oriental Translation Fund, but the work now reprinted was the only one which eventually was produced. A fine medallion portrait of James Ross is in existence, in the possession of his niece, Miss Bridget Ross Ross, of Hope House, Topsham, near Exeter; to whom I am indebted for the greater part of the foregoing facts. c. s. SHAIKH SADI. THIRTY years ago, when I first devoted myself to the study of the Oriental languages, it was my custom to translate into English any classic which my Munshi had recommended for my perusal ; and, among other Persian books, I had in this way made translations of the Gulistan and Bustan of Sadi : and now, with much diffidence, publish that of the Gulistan, with an abridgment of a larger work, being an Essay on the Life and Genius of the Author, intending to follow this up next year with my translation of the Bustan, with a prefatory critique on Sadi's works, and making a volume equal in size to this ; but each will otherwise be a distinct work. Sadi has ever been with me a favourite Persian classic ; and after many and diligent perusals of his Kulliat, or works, I flatter myself with having not only mastered the comparatively easy task of fully- appreciating his intellectual faculties, but also the more difficult one of portraying the features and passions of his mind. In this sketch of Sadi's life I shall duly avail myself of my Asiatic authorities ; as, however, Oriental notions of biography differ so essentially from ours that little is to be gleaned from them that can interest the European reader, I am 743* 2 SHAIKH SADL fortunate in finding that anecdotes of the temper, manners, and habits of so excellent a moralist and writer are constantly occurring in his own works ; and I have only to quote them to give a perfect insight into his character. Silghur, a Turkish officer in the service of the Saljuc Sultans, usurped the government of Pars, and was the origin of that dynasty of Atabaks, or Attabegs, who reigned there A.H. 543, 668. And of them Atabak Toklah, or Toglah, reigned A.H. 57 !> 59 1 ) an< 3 was succeeded by his brother Atabak Saad-bin-Zungi, who reigned A.H. 591, 623, and was succeeded by his son Atabak Abubakr, A.H. 623, 658, and he again was succeeded by his son Saad-bin- Abibakr, who died within a twelvemonth, and after a few and feverish reigns of women and infants, con- sisting altogether of nine years, the dynasty became extinct A.H. 668 ; all these reigns are included within the first three-fourths of Sadi's life ; but Dowlat Shah must mistake in dating Sadi's death under one of this Silghur, or Silaghur dynasty, or there must have been a second dynasty of them. Dowlat Shah, in his Tuzkirrah-ashshaara, or Lives of the Persian Poets, says that Sadi's father held some office at the Shiraz court, and from what Sadi himself says, in a Kitah, or fragment of his book of Sahibayah, more immediately under the Diwan, or prime minister, speaking in eulogy of him "My father was thy old domestic ; he passed his whole life in thy service. Thy born slave, when he first saw the light, naturally cast his eyes up to thy countenance, SHAIKH SADI. 3 I can never seek the patronage of another, who have been the nurtured child of thy bounty." In the first year of Atabak Toklah's reign, or A.H. 571, A.D. 1194, Sadi was born at Shiraz, the capital of Pars, or Persia proper ; and the epithet of Shirazi applies equally to him and Hafiz, as much honoured natives of that Dar u'lilom, or seat of learning. Dowlat Shah says that his proper name was Moslih u'd-din, or the Umpire of the faith ; but he was better known afterwards by that of Shaikh Sadi Shirazi : Shaikh properly signifying the head of an Arabian tribe ; and among Mussulmans it was anywhere con- ferred upon a senior, who commanded the love and esteem of his neighbours from authority, age, genius, or piety ; and, on account of the two last virtues, is among the Persians more especially applied to Nizami and Sadi ; and it is no small compliment that though the former is the senior and, next to Firdausi, the best Persian heroic poet, yet Sadi is appropriately called the Shaikh ! Again Sadi, or Saadi, signifying felicity, is his Tokhullus, or poetical name, and was, according to Dowlat Shah, given to him by Atabak Saad-bin- Zungi. This is probable ; but he is wrong in saying that Sadi was born in that prince's reign. This mode of appellation a writer in the East does not affect till he has established his character as a poet, when, after being confirmed to him, like a title of nobility, by some sovereign prince, he takes the first opportunity of introducing his Tokhullus into the Shah-bayit, or last stanza of a ghazal, or other poem, and 4 SHAIKH SADI. seldom omits to use it thus afterwards ; and Cowley among ourselves has happily adopted this Oriental custom " The wise example of the heavenly lark, Thy fellow-poet, Cowley, mark ; Above the clouds let thy proud music sound, Thy humble nest build on the ground ! " Jami calls Sadi Sharf-u'd-din Mislah, son of Abdullah ; and an Alowi, or descendant of Ali. Sadi's father and mother were alive within his own recollection, for he often mentions the first (Bust. ii. 2; ix. 13, 15, etc.); and his mother, very feelingly (Gul. vi. 6) ; but, from his calling himself an orphan, both must have died while our Shaikh was yet a stripling, for he says (Bust. ii. 2) " If the orphan come to cry, who will soothe him ? if he be pettish, who will put up with his ill-humours? take heed, that he weep not ; for the throne of the Almighty is shaken to and fro when the orphan sets a crying. Once my head was lofty, as that which wears a crown, for then I could lay it upon the bosom of a father ; had a fly but dared to settle on my body, it would have been enough to alarm a whole family ; but were my enemies ready to make me now their captive, none of my friends would come to my rescue : I can feel a sympathy for the helplessness of infancy, because in my childhood I lost my father" In his Nafhat-u'1-ans, or Memoirs of the Sufis, Jami says that he was descended from the Sharif, or SHAIKH SADL 5 noble house of Abdullah Hafaif ; but however dignified his birth, or lucrative his station at court, both advan- tages must have died with the father; otherwise we should not find Sadi using his interest with Shamsud- din to exempt his brother from some extortion in his mean occupation of retailing figs. This prime minister, then, it would seem, viceroy on the part of Abaca-an, at Shiraz, acted handsomely on the occa- sion by laying a thousand gold dinars at Sadi's feet, as a compensation to his brother, but would not, as the story adds, think of offering any money-compliment to a darwesh like himself. In the Risallah, or tract on the questions of the Lord Diwan, this same generous friend sends him five hundred dinars under the pretence of supplying food for his birds, of which the servant, considering himself as one of Sadi's birds, purloins a hundred and fifty, being, like the Irishman, not aware that the letter, which accompanied this gift, and its answer, would detect him. On ascertaining this knavery, the messenger is forthwith sent back with an order for Sadi on the Shiraz treasury for 10,000 gold dinars ! And on another occasion he and his brother Ula-ud-din, joint ministers of that son and successor of the Tartar emperor, Halaku Khan, sent Sadi, then an old resident in his hermitage at Shiraz, a bag of 50,000 dinars, or about 24,000 of our money, which he was to lay out in building a Caravan-saray under the citadel of Cohindar, near Shiraz, and which Sadi had much at heart in com- pleting. By the mother's side Sadi's relations were some of them eminent for learning, and Mola Cut'b 6 SHAIKH SADI. Alamah, his maternal uncle, is noticed as his first master in science. Jami says that Sadi was a Sufi of profound learning, or master in every branch of science, and accomplished in the polite arts, for, according to Dowlat Shah, "he commenced his studies at the Nizamiah college of Baghdad," which, during five centuries, had been the chief seat of Oriental learning, and the magnificent residence of the Khalifs ; and there he held an Idrar, or fellowship" (Bust vii. 14), having had for his tutor in science the learned Ab'ul Firah-ibin-Jozi (Gul. ii. 21), and in theology Abd-u'1-cadir the Gilani ; and with the last he made his first pilgrimage to Mecca, which he repeated fourteen times, and chiefly on foot ; and he often makes his adventures on such occasions the subject of an apologue (Gul. ii. 25, 26, etc.). Being a classical, as well as a spoken idiom and court dialect, the Tazi, or modern Arabic, under the illustrious patronage of the Khalifs, reached as great perfection as has ever been the lot of any human tongue. Sadi knew and wrote it well, and carried the practice of deluging the Persian language with it to a greater length than any of his predecessors had done. In his Gulistan v. 21 he refers with fondness to it? currency in A.D. 1256, at Baghdad, little thinking that in the course of two years he should have occa- sion to pen it in a casidah, or elegy, on its being sacked by Halaku the Tartar, its palaces and colleges plun- dered, and the Khalif Mustasim, the last of the Abissites, and all that were dignified and learned, with a million and a Jialf of its inhabitants barbarously SHAIKH SADI. 7 murdered. Sadi wrote a book of Tazi elegies ; but that city and its university were his alma mater, the seat of the religion he revered, and the muses he adored ; and he consequently felt a pathos on this horrible event ; and all that understand it must relish its propriety and elegance, Sadi mentions himself to have been twice married. Of his first marriage, at Aleppo, he tells a pleasant story, to which (Gul. ii. 30) I beg to refer the reader, desiring him to recollect that though Sadi, as a Mussulman, had like the Jews a legal right to repudiate his troublesome wife, yet, in that case, he must have repaid her dowry, and he was all his life too improvident, if not poor, to do that ; besides, a sense of family honour will deter one of the orthodox from idly parting with the woman of his former affections ; also he is obliged to give three notices of his intention to the Cazy ; and though during the heat of passion instances occur of a first, and perhaps a second, notice, after twenty years' intercourse with them I never heard of a third, which was to complete it. Of his other wife at Sanaa, the capital of Yamin, he makes no mention, but in Bustan ix. 25 laments their loss of an only son with the feelings of a parent " If despair overwhelm thee in this abode of gloom, be wise and prepare for thyself a place of greater cheerfulness ; wishest thou the night of the grave to be luminous as day, carry along with thee ready trimmed the lamp of good works." Thus could Sadi reconcile himself to a heavy loss; the duties of his religion inculcating the sin of complaining, and his 8 SHAIKH SADI. philosophy teaching him that it were fruitless to repine for what he could not recall. Two such trials terrified a man of Sadi's disposition from another such connection. He thought, perhaps, like Cicero, who being, after his divorce from Tullia, invited to a second marriage, replied he could not " simul amare et sapare be wise and in love at the same time ! " or, as Sadi's old friend answered, " I do not like to marry an old woman ! " " Why," said his adviser, " do you not, now you are rich, choose a young one?" " Because," he replied, " when I was young myself, I did not love old women, and cannot hope, that now I am old, a young woman can love me " (Gul. vi. 8). Instead of the comforts of a family circle Sadi was doomed to pass the sixty or seventy last years of his extreme long life in the cell of a hermit, and latterly seems to have imbibed a reprehensible portion of that ancient Grecian, as well as Oriental contempt for the fair sex, and to have entertained a prejudiced and strange notion about our posterity and the marriage duty (Gul. vi. 5)- 1 Gulistan viii. 55 he says " Consilium fceminis invalidum : it be bad to hold counsel with women," or, as he adds on another occasion, " take your wife's opinion, and act opposite to it ! " And again (Bust. vi. 24), " Choose a fresh wife every spring or new year's day, for the almanack of last year is good for nothing!" According to the Mussulman creed, prayers five times a day bring the good believer half-way towards the Deity, and in this, as absolutely necessary to corporal purification, ablution is each time included, but with women certain SHAIKH SADL g physical impurities (Bust ix. 13), prevent this ceremonial for some days monthly ; yet Sadi adds those do not, according to our European vulgar notion, exclude women from Paradise. Nor, though he recommends selfishness (Bust. ii. 7) " Because the property of my father descended to me, it needs not be left to descend to my children. Eat and drink, spend and enjoy it thyself, for why shouldst thou trouble thyself about those who are to succeed thee ; " yet he carries not this misanthrophy so far as our prince of existing fashionable poets has done. " But amidst the crowd, the hum, and shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along the world's tir'd denizen, With none who biess us, none whom we can bless ; None with kindred consciousness endued : This is to be alone, and my lov'd solitude ! " That he was not a domestic man and had no surviving family, was no fault of Sadi. Like Socrates he put wedlock to the double ordeal of a trial ; and if he enjoyed not the social retirement of a Solon, he felt not the misanthropic celibacy of a Thales. After those experiments he prided him in his tempered kinaat or contentment, and supported himself, with unaffected indifference, on the casual charity of his admirers during the two last third parts of his life, either as a wandering mendicant or solitary recluse. " Never," does . he honestly exclaim (Gul. iii. 19), io SHAIKH SADL " did I complain of my forlorn condition but on one occasion when my feet were bare and I had not wherewithal to shoe them. Soon after meeting a man without feet, I was thankful for the bounty of Providence to myself, and with perfect resignation submitted to my want of shoes." Many such anecdotes, incidents, and adventures, that occurred to him during his travels, we meet in his works, and, whether creditable or not, told with the same ingenuousness. Crimes, vices, and misfortunes chiefly occupy the narratives of such adventurers among ourselves, but even in romance the hero's life generally concludes in his first wedlock. Our rigid law would construe Sadi's adventure with the Brahmin at Sumnaat (Bust. viii. 15), and Moses' slaughter of the Egyptian into murder ; otherwise, however unfor- tunate, his personal adventures seldom have the stain of crime, or even vice. Nay, after he had ceased to be a married man and enterprising traveller, his life continues to interest and himself to be useful, for, as an Ascetic, he was visited by the first characters of his time, and consulted by his contemporary princes and kings. Dowlat Shah says "that the first thirty years of Sadi's long life was devoted to study and laying up a stock of knowledge ; the next thirty, or perhaps forty, in treasuring up experience and disseminating that knowledge during his wide-extending travels ; and that some portion should intervene between the business of life and hour of death, -and that with him chanced to be the largest share of it, he spent the SHAIKH SADL u remainder of his life, or seventy years, in the retire- ment of a recluse, when he was exemplary in his temperance and edifying in his piety." Even when a boy he confesses himself to have been overmuch religious (Gul. ii. 7), and ingenuously mentions this reproof of his father "You had better," said that sensible parent, " have been yourself asleep than to be thus calumniating your neighbours." In Gul. v. 1 8 he says " that on the death of a young friend, and himself still a young man, he had vowed to pass a life of retirement, and to fold up the carpet of enjoyment" And in the preface of the Gulistan he is enticed by another friend to quit such a state of abstraction and retirement. He would seem to have been sincere and affectionate in his friendships ; and many such disappointments, and an habitual love of seclusion, had often disgusted him with social life, and early inured him to the habits of a hermit (Gul. ii. 30). However, real want, I fear, had often brought him back into the busy world, for he positively tells us, " Paupertas impulit audax Ut verses facerem," that he wrote for his bread. Bustan vi. $ : " The belly puts manacles upon the wrists, and fetters upon the ankles ; the bounden slave of the belly is constrained in his devotions ; had Sadi's belly in any shape resembled his back that is, been tolerant of its load, nobody would at this day have 12 SHAIKH SAD I. been criticising his writings." And, in Bustan vii. 6, he alludes to his having commenced to write at a late period, and that having once begun, he had no alternative but that of proceeding. Jami relates "that Sadi had travelled much and far, and visited many strange countries. He had often made the pilgrimage of Mecca on foot, and once penetrated so far as the pagoda, or bot- kadah, image-temple, at Sumnaat, on the Malabar coast, were he overthrew, and broke in pieces, the great idol. He had much religious and moral inter- course with Shaikh Shohab-ud-din and other reverend gentlemen. For a length of time he led the life of a sacayi, or water-drawer, in the Holy Land, and was thus administering to the thirsty traveller, till found worthy of an introduction to the prophet Khizr, Elias or the Syrian and Greek Hermes, who moistened his mouth with the water of immortality. A descendant of Ali disputed the truth of this with Sadi, and got reproved in a dream by the prophet for his incredu- lity. Another gentleman had also doubted it, and next night had a dream, or rather vision ; for it seemed to him as if the gates of heaven were thrown open, and a host of angels descending with salvers of glory in their hands. On asking one of them for whom those were intended, he answered for Shaikh Sadi of Shiraz, who has written a stanza of poetry that has met the approbation of God Almighty," as follows : " To the eye of the intelligent the foliage of the grove displays, in every leaf, a volume of the Creator's works " SHAIKH SADI. 13 " The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, and skies, To him are opening paradise ! " "On recovering from his reverie, that holy man forthwith proceeded to the door of Sadi's cell, in order to apologise for his incredulity, and to con- gratulate him upon this auspicious vision. He found the Shaikh sitting up, with a lighted taper before him, and chanting to himself; and, on listening attentively, found that he was singing the above stanza." Incredible as this is, one of the fathers of our church, St Chrysostom, tells us " that, on consecrating the element of bread and wine, he has instantaneously seen a multitude of white-robed angels surrounding the altar, and bowing their heads, as soldiers do in making their homage to the sovereign ! " In his Life of Khosraw of Delhi, Jami tells us that this poet also asked Khizr for a mouthful of this inspiring beverage ; but he told him that Sadi had got the last of it Yet Hafiz, who is on this account called Sadie sani, or a second Sadi, tells us in one of his ghazals " Yesterday, at dawn, God delivered me from all worldly affliction ; and amidst the gloom of night presented me with the water of immortality ! " Sadi states himself to be at Delhi during the Patan Aglamish's time, who, after a reign of twenty-six years, died A.H. 633, or in Sadi's sixty-second year; and if Amir Khosraw, descended from the Amirs, or i 4 SHAIKH SADL princes, of the noble tribe of Lachin in the province of Balkh, was, as Jami says and is generally believed, the youth Sadi, in Gulistan v. 17, got so much enraptured with at Cashghur, and who died at Delhi, A.H. 715, in his seventy-fourth year ; allowing Khosraw to have been fourteen when they met, Sadi was still a traveller in A.H. 641, or his seventieth year I In the course of reading his works, I have re- marked that he mentions himself to have visited in person Europe, Barbary, Abyssinia, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Armenia, Asia Minor, the three grand divisions of Arabia, and every province of Iran and many parts of Turan, or of Persia and Tartary, from Busrah and Baghdad to the Scythian Wall, and at Rudbar, Deilman on the Caspian Sea, Cashghur beyond the Jihun, or Oxus, across the Sind'h, or Indus, and into many parts of Hindustan, etc. ; and, from a poem in his book of Fragments, it appears that he had a practical knowledge, for he quotes a line in each, of eighteen idioms, dialects, and languages, as spoken in the many regions into which he had thus travelled. Engelbert Kcempfer, who visited Shiraz A.D. 1686, says of Sadi, " that videt Egyptiam et Italiam ; and that he was much skilled in the Oriental languages ; nay, that he had studied the Latin tongue, and had diligently perused the works of Seneca ! " But any partiality for the blemishes of this Roman meta- physician would better apply to Jami than to Sadi. A man of Sadi's character and fame was recol- lected with fondness and veneration in the many SHAIKH SAD I. 15 regions he thus visited ; and few of them, especially those under Mussulman governments, but retain some local memorial of him ; and in their collec- tions of Persian anecdotes, and these, like our Joe Miller's jests, abound all over the East, their writers accommodate him with a niche, as he had himself complimented an ^Esop or Lucman, Socrates or Plato, Hippocrates or Galen, and even St. John the Baptist and our blessed Saviour ! Two examples I shall here translate from his Badaya, or book of rhetorical ghazals ; and first " No man can in this world listen to the lamentations of Sadi that must not bear testimony to his complaints, as originating in the very extremity of pain. If Plato in his wisdom is mysterious in defining love, the veil shall ultimately be withdrawn from the face of his hidden secret" This alludes of course to the Platonic love, which was not so much a doctrine of Plato as of his refining followers, and which the followers of Sadi construed into downright sufiasm and mystery 1 Again " It is the vernal season ; for the heart is every moment longing to walk in the garden, and every bird of the grove is melodious in its carols as the nightingale. Thou wilt fancy it the dawning zephyr of an early spring, or new year's day morning; but it is the breath of Isa, or Jesus ; for in that fresh breath and verdure the dead earth is reviving ! " Of our blessed Saviour Sadi and all the best Persian poets often speak, and always with respect and reverence ; and here, as on many other occasions, he admits of his power of working miracles, if not his 1 6 SHAIKH SADI. divinity ; and I wish I could speak as well in the converse of our Christian missionaries in the East ! And in Gulistan ii. 10 we find Sadi praying at St. John the Baptist's tomb at Damascus, and asked by the prince of that province to intercede for him in his supplications. In fact, Sadi was not only inspired by Khizr with the faculty of poetry, but also with that of working miracles ; for Dowlat Shah tells us " that, when finally settled as an Ascetic, the middling and common orders of his neighbours supplied him with a daily and plenteous stock of dressed provisions, the only charity he would receive, of which he would himself sparingly partake ; but the best part he hung in a basket from the balcony of his cell, that the poor wood-cutters might take it home on returning with their faggots from the wilderness. One day a thief, disguised like a wood-cutter, made free with the basket, when his arm became instantly blasted, and, with a lamentable noise, he called on the Shaikh to relieve him. He answered him in reproach : 1 If you are a wood-cutter, where are the callousness and scars of your business ; and if a robber, where that hardihood that would deaden your feelings to sp trifling a wound?' He then prayed for, and healed him, and dismissed him with a portion of his provisions." Nor was he on all occasions an idle traveller, for he had fought against the enemies of his faith ; and, in the holy wars with the Christians and Hindus added to the name of Haji, or a pilgrim to Mecca, SHAIKH SADL 17 the epithet of Ghazi, or a holy warrior. Dastards are scurrilous ; but the generous speak well even of their foes. In Bustan vii. 18, Sadi asks a brother recluse, who was railing at the Christians, " whether he had ever been engaged in the holy wars with the Franks ? " Yet he can confess that, any more than Horace or Otway, he was no warrior by pro- fession, for he and another gay youth, tricked out in all the habiliments of war, submitted to be plundered of them by two Hindu robbers in the territory of Balkh, rather than risk their lives in defending them (Gul. vii. 13). Ibrahim Khan of Banares, in his Sohofi Ibrahim, says : " A few of the illustrious results of Sadi's extensive travels were the sight of strange cities and territories, the detail of marvellous adventures, the vicissitudes of life, conversation of enlightened sages, the acquisition of science and knowledge, and, above all, a mouthful of the prophet Khizr's water of immortality ! " Or, as he says himself, in his Bustan vi. 16 : " Was not this globe shaken to its centre before it came to rest ? Was not Sadi obliged to travel before he obtained science and knowledge, the objects of his heart ? " On his worldly experi- ence I refer the reader to Gul. iii. 28, where a father dissuades his able-bodied son from roaming from home, and anticipates his disappointments abroad. And of his own unsettled state, whether from neces- sity or habit, he speaks with his usual philosophy (Bust v. 2) : " Fortune so ordained that I should leave Ispahan, for I had no means of subsisting any 744 i8 SHAIKH SADL longer at that place : my destiny removed me from Irac into Syria, and in this happy land I made a pleasant sojourn : the cup of my allotted abode in Syria again overflowed, and a longing desire to see home drew me thence ; and chance again ordained that, on my return, I should pass through the pro- vince of Irac." The following story must be familiar with the Persian tyro of Bengal, being an extract of the Travels of Hatim Tayi, and the first Persian book put into his hands, and is no doubt the prototype of that wonderful German romance of Leonora, which some twenty years ago was popular in two or three able translations into English. " On one occasion Sadi had made a long enough stay in Armenia to unite himself in the bonds of friendship with a youth of his own age. In that country people then died not the natural death they died elsewhere, but on a particular day, once a year, they met on a plain by their chief cities, where they occupied themselves in recreation and amusement ; in the midst of which individuals of every age and rank would suddenly stop, make a reverence to the west, gird up their loins, and, setting out full speed towards that quarter of the desert, were no more seen nor heard of. Sadi had often remarked that this was the lot of many who were fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of some or other of his acquaint- ance ; but these seemed indifferent to the event, and were reserved in explaining it. At last, on such an anniversary, he saw that friend of his affection SHAIKH SAD I. 19 preparing to set off, when he seized upon his girdle, and insisted upon knowing what it meant The youth solemnly enjoined him to let him go, for that the Malic-al-mo-at, or Angel of Death, had already called dn him twice, and on the third call his destiny would drag him on, whether he would or not. Yet Sadi kept his hold, and found himself carried along with such a velocity as soon deprived him of all power of knowing whither they went. At last they stopped at a verdant plain in the midst of the desert, when the youth stretched himself upon the earth, and the turf opened like a grave and swallowed him up ! " After throwing dust over his body, Sadi sat for some days by the head of the grave ; and of his manifold lamentations the following is one : " On the day when thy foot was pierced with the thorn of death, would to God that the hand of fortune had clove my head with the sword of annihilation ! that my eyes might not this day have seen the world without thee ; such am I seated at the head of thy dust, as the ashes are on my own head ! " After this he had his way to find back over rivers of molten gold, silver, and copper, through deserts and wilder- nesses, and over mountains of snow, which he accom- plishes after many other adventures. During his many years of travel Sadi had to traverse a sufficiency of clime, and encountered a diversity of adventure without driving us to the shift of carrying him thus into fairyland, and making him the hero of one of his own fables ; and amidst the real distress of poverty, and the dissipation of 20 SHAIKH SADL a wandering and unsettled life, he rose to eminence in wisdom and learning ; for, ill supplied with the gifts of fortune, the most precious part of that life was a continued sojourn from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom, first perhaps led by a hope of patronage and preferment, and afterwards through choice and habit. During this period, though he began them late in life, his Kulliat, or works, were composed ; and amidst a roving activity he contrived to write more than another might, in a like condition, have managed to read. Dowlat Shah says " The learning and wit of Sadi have been the continued theme of the eloquent ever since his time : his works contain much variety of poetry and prose, and of the former there are nearly twenty thousand verses." Dowlat Shah lived two hundred years after Sadi, when Persian literature was upon its decline, and speaks of his fame in Asia ; and in the course of 480 years more, Europe is getting a relish for him. Kcempfer, speaking of Sadi and Hafiz, says "that both are held in such esteem throughout the East that he can scarce be considered as a respectable character who has not read their works, and treasured up their wisdom, so as to make them the rules of his future life." And Jami and Ibrahim Khan both tell us " that men of genius have called the Diwan, or poetical works of Sadi, the Namakdan, or Salt-cellar of Poets ; and reputable writers have declared that Sadi was inspired," in confirmation of which, Molana Hatifa, the nephew of Jami, and his superior in genius, penned the follow- SHAIKH SAD I. 21 ing stanza : " Notwithstanding what the prophet Mohammed has said, that after me no prophet can come, yet there are among the poets three men endowed with divine inspiration namely, Firdausi in heroics, Anwari in elegy, and Sadi in the ghazal or ode." Mulowi Mohammed Rashid, the able and learned collator of the printed Calcutta edition, in two folio volumes, A.D. 1791-2, says in his Persian introduc- tion : " It must not be omitted that the original collector and editor of Shaikh Sadi's Kulliat, or Works, was Aliben- Ahmad of Bisitun ; and in the preface, which he composed at the same time, and which has ever since been the constant antecedent of the Works, he accounts for the occasion of this compilation, and gives the date of A.I-I. 726 and 734, or 33 and 41 years after Sadi's demise." Bisitun, the birthplace of this friend of Sadi, and the site of the statuary Farhad's operations, lies in the southern part of Irac Ajim, and on the high road from the city of Ramadan to Gilanac and Baghdad. D'Herbelot, as in many of his other Oriental statements, leads Sir W. Jones astray in making the Works of Sadi to consist of only three books namely, the Gulistan, Bustan, and Mulumaat ; and even Major Stewart, in his late catalogue of Tippoo Sultan's library, makes them to consist only of seventeen books ; but Ali-ben- Ahmad more correctly enumerates twenty-two ; to wit ist, Rasallah, or Tract. 2nd, Rasallah, or Tract 22 SHAIKH SAD I, 3rd, Rasallah, or Tract. 4th, Rasallah, or Tract 5th, Rasallah, or Tract 6th, Rasallah, or Tract 7th, Gulistan, or Flower-garden. 8th, Bustan, or Fruit-garden. 9th, Arabian Casaids, or Elegies, roth, Persian Casaids, or Elegies. nth, Mirazi, or Dirges. 1 2th, Mulumaat, or mixed poems of Persian and Arabic. 1 3th, Turjiyat, or poems with burthens. 1 4th, Taybaat, or plain and less mystical ghazals. 1 5th, Badaya, or rhetorical and more mystical ghazals. 1 6th, Khowatim, or what Sadi wrote in his old age. 1 7th, Kudim, or what he wrote in his younger days. 1 8th, Sahibiyah, or poems of eulogy and admoni- tion, chiefly addressed to his patron Shams-ud- din. I9th, Macaittaat, or fragments. 2Oth, Khubisaat, or prose and poetry on impure and ludicrous subjects. 2 1st, Robiayat, or tetrastics with regular rhymes. 22nd, Muffridaat, or distiches with regular rhymes. Of these two-and-twenty books, the six books of Rasallahs, the Gulistan, and part of the Khubisaat, are prose, and all the rest poetry : the Bustan con- sists of couplets, or the heroic line of Firdausi and SHAIKH SADI. 23 Nizami, of ten and eleven syllables, and correspond- ing with that of Pope and Addison in English : the rest are chiefly casaids, or elegies, and ghazals, or odes, the first two lines forming a couplet of eleven to seventeen syllables, and the alternate lines throughout the poem rhyming to this, and in a manner peculiar to Persian and Arabic poetry. The fourteenth book, or that of Taybaat, forms of itself nearly a Diwan, or collection of ghazals ; the two first lines of the first four of them terminate in an Alif, and the others in succession in each letter of the alphabet Ibrahim Khan says "That it must not be concealed from the decorators of the poetical grove that the ghazal bower was first reared by Sadi ! " But in this he was mistaken ; for Khacani, Jabali, and many others, his seniors, write ghazals ; and indeed the word Chamah in old Persian has the same signification as the Arabic word ghazal, as Chaghanah has of Casidah ; and poems of these two forms, of the ode and elegy respectively, must have been common with the Persians from time im- memorial. Now, whatever Hafiz may be, can I subscribe to Dowlat Shah's opinion "of Amir Khosraw being superior to Sadi in the ghazal." In the library at the India House, London, there is a curious copy of Sadi's Kulliat, of a date previous to the collated copy of Ali-bin-Ahmad : it had been deposited there by my old shipmate, Sir Harford Jones, who had received it, I think, as a present during his last embassy to Persia. I had it for a few minutes in my hand in 1814; and, from the little I 24 SHAIKH SADI. could thus see of it, should esteem it a valuable reference to any future publisher of Sadi's text. I had myself a personal knowledge of the Calcutta printed edition of Sadi's works, in two small folio volumes, being collated with much skill and diligence by Mulowi Mohammed Rashid, from four valuable MS. copies, some of which I also recognised in that library ; but the text one, once honoured with a place in the library of the mighty and great Moghul Shah Jihan, is now in my possession. Of that printed copy the text of the Gulistan occupies nearly a third of the first volume, or a sixth of the whole, and from that I made my collated translation, and should still prefer it; but Mr. Gladwin chose, as the basis of his Calcutta edition, the text of Gentius ; and a reprint of that having been made in London, 1809, under the superintendance of Sir Gore Ouseley, and patronised by the professors of the East India Company's colleges, and my chief view in this translation being to facilitate the studies of their Persian pupils, I was under the necessity of modelling it to their taste. Any particulars I shall specify in a memorandum at the conclusion of this Essay. Sadi had a personal acquaintance with some of the principal poets and literary characters of his time : some, however, and particularly he and Jilal-ud-din Rumi, commonly known as the Mulowi Manowi, or mystical doctor, and equally patronised by Shums- ud-din, the prime minister of Abaca-an, make no mention of each other. Hakim Nizari and Sadi meeting accidentally in the market-place at Shiraz, SHAIKH SADL 25 and having some conversation, each soon recognised a mutual poet in his wit ; and Sadi having of course invited him to his dwelling, and happening to be flush of cash, most sumptuously entertained him. Some time after they met in Khorasan, where Nizari in turn received Sadi as his guest ; and, as a satire on his prodigality, the first day treated him with a pot of boiled milk and bread, the second day with a dish of fish, and the third with a joint of roast meat, observing to him at the same time " I can afford to entertain you thus for years ; but the expensive style in which you entertained me could not have lasted many days." Yet Nizari was in fact an epicure, drunkard, and debauchee ; whereas Sadi was habitually tem- perate, sober, and chaste. When Sadi met him at Shiraz, he asked whether he recollected any of Nizari's verses ; and he answers him by quoting the Motla, or first stanza, of one or his own ghazals " It was rumoured abroad that I was penitent, and had forsaken wine ; but this is a gross calumny, for what have I to do with repentance ? " Swift, Sterne, and other wits of our last and the preceding age, could relish indecency and nastiness ; and it is creditable perhaps to the present generation that it has no taste for such grossnesses. This was not, however, the case in the age and country in which Sadi flourished, any more than it was in the early and best parts of our own literary history. The works, not only of Sadi, but of many other Persian poets and moralists, afford too many examples of coarseness and indelicacy, both of thought and 26 SHAIKH SAD I. expression ; and, what is singular, Firdausi, Nizami, Khacani, and all their best heroic poets have scarcely any of them. Nor is it in his Khubisaat, or book of professed impurities, that Sadi thus violates decency ; for even the morality of the Gulistan and Bustan is occasionally tarnished with such indecorus allusions : but, in this way, of all the Persians Sozni, a vigorous writer otherwise, is the greatest culprit ! On my way to Europe, having occasion to pass the months of December and January 1796-7 in Cal- cutta, I put my translation of the Gulistan into the hands of my friend Mr. Gladwin, wishing to have his opinion of it ; when he told me he had also projected a translation of it, and meant to obviate another indelicate allusion, particularly in the fifth chapter, by changing the male for the female character. That I see he has done ; and he has otherwise endeavoured, by castrating the English of it, to purify Gentius's text. But he has overlooked the occasional instances of grossness and indelicacy of sentiment and expres- sion to which I allude above; and which I have obviated by the simpler process of leaving out the translation of a few words of the Persian text, the first example of this occurring in Gulistan i. 40. However, in all such instances, it has been my en- deavour to preserve, as much as common decency will permit of it, the English of Sadi's text, that the college student may not be disappointed ; particularly as the author would seem here alone to indulge in obscurity. For such passages " Nudi enim sunt, recti, et venusti, omne ornatn orationis tanquam veste SHAIKH SADL 27 detracto" the best apology I would offer is the simplicity of heart and nakedness of diction of Oriental writers, examples of which occasionally occur in our Old Testament ; and them the profound scholars of James's reign, conscious of purity them- selves, translated into downright and intelligible English ; and, if I am in any instance, with the view of being intelligible in like manner, coarse, let the reader skip over it, as some of our queasy clergy do in reading the morning and evening lessons. Yet horresco referens I must not overlook another pro- pensity to which Sadi is accused of alluding with a reprehensible levity. An example of this nature occurs in Gulistan v. 20, where the Cazi of Ramadan, a character in the East equally venerable and sanc- tified as a Judge or Bishop with us, is in the first instance sentenced to condign death and annihilation, but afterwards his abomination is made the subject of wit and repartee. But whatever levity he may sport, it in no instance appears that he criminally countenanced, and still less, as some, who have slightly inspected his works, suspect, practised this vice ; for on other occasions he speaks of it, and its abettors, with all due scorn and abhorrence a notable example of which occurs Gulistan iii. 14. In the Kholasah-u'1-Ashaar, from which I also copied the above story of Nizari, it is related "that Kh'ajah Humam-ud-din of Tabreiz, or Tauris, had a son exquisitely handsome ; and that Sadi, who was a great admirer of human beauty, travelled to Tabriez that he might see him. He was one day in the 28 SHAIKH SADI. public bathing-room at Tabriez, when the Kh'ajah entered, accompanied by this son ; and as he always concealed him from public view, he was offended at meeting Sadi, and asked him, " Whence come you ? " Sadi answered, " From Shiraz ! " " It is singular," said Humam, " that in my city the Shirazians should be more than the dogs and cats ! " " In my city," replied Sadi, " it is the reverse ; for there the Tabrie- zians are less /" Like many of his townsmen, Sadi was bald. Humam turning the ewer he was using, as is customary in Oriental ablution, upside down, asked Sadi, " How comes it that the head of a Shirazian should resemble this utensil ? " Sadi promptly answered him by presenting his own ewer with the empty mouth upwards, and saying, " Why is the head of a Tabriezian so very like this?" The Kh'ajah, who was himself a poet, and gentleman of consider- able eminence and fortune, was vexed at these two smart replies ; and, making his son sit down behind him, asked Sadi, " Have you ever heard of any of Kh'ajah Humam's poetry at Shiraz?" Sadi answered, " Yes ; " and repeated this fragment " Humam is a veil between me and my beloved ; but the hour is fast approaching when that too shall be removed." The Kh'ajah was now made aware that this could only be Sadi ; and, having made him the usual compliments of marked respect, took him home to his mansion, where he continued for a length of time absorbed in contemplating the charms of the son. D'Herbelot, in his Bibliotheque Orientals, 414, quotes Lamai's Duftar-u'1-Lataif, or record of SHAIKH SADL 29 witticisms in the Turkish language, as his authority for one of the above repartees, and says " The veil here alluded to is the human body, which prevents our seeing God ; and that by this verse he namely, Humam intimated his approaching death." And in Ibrahim Khan's relation of it there is a play upon the word Kun, no uncommon thing among modern Persian scribblers, but which decency again forbids me to translate. We are told in the Sayr-u'1-mota-kharin, or modern history, of Gholam Hosain " That among other men of rank and education who fled from Persia in Sadi's days, in order to escape the rapacity and cruelty of the illiterate Jinghiz Khan and his Tartar successors, were Amir Khosraw and Amir Hasan, both poets of genius and learning ; when they found an elegant and literary retirement with that accomplished prince Sultan Mohammed, the son of Giyath-ud-din Boltan, the Guri King of Delhi, who in his father's life-time held a sort of sovereign authority over Multan, and other Hindustani provinces bordering on Persia ; in defence of which he afterwards, A.H. 683, A.D. 1284, fell fighting gloriously in battle. One day those noble exiles were holding forth, in the presence of their munificent patron, on the wit and erudition of Shaikh Sadi of Shiraz, which both were so liberal in praising, as to induce the Shahzadah, or heir apparent, to depute a special messenger with many valuable gifts to the Shaikh, and an invitation to come and reside at Multan, where he engaged to build him a monas- tery, and endow it with villages and lands ; but Sadi, 30 SHAIKH SADL because of his extreme age and feeble frame, being then in his ninty-second year, declined this friendly offer. However, in return for the prince's handsome attention, he sent him a volume of pleasant and elegant verses, and the Bustan and Gulistan copied with his own hand ; and like a man of real learning himself, he had the generosity of availing himself of this opportunity, ' to recommend Amir Khosraw to the prince, and bestow a candid approbation on his works,' which, by-the-bye, are very voluminous, for his poetry alone consists of between 400,000 and 500,000 verses ! " I shall quote one more instance of the respect in which Sadi was held from the sixth Rasallah of his own works, where it is called his interview with Sultan Abaca-an, then king of Persia. Sadi tells us, saying " When on my return from a pilgrimage to the holy Mecca, I arrived at that seat of sovereignty Tabriez, and had enjoyed an inter- course with some learned and pious men, whose society did me much honour, I got desirous of seeing those two illustrious noblemen, Kh'ajahs Ula-ud-din and Shums-ud-din, as many claims of friendship had of old subsisted between us ; and having set out one day with the view of calling on them, I chanced to meet them on my way, riding on horseback, in com- pany with Abaca-an, the sovereign of the universe. Seeing them so engaged, I did not judge it proper to intrude upon them with a friendly visit ; and was in the act of taking myself aside, when they both dis- mounted, and, following me on foot, bowed themselves SHAIKH SADI. 31 to the earth ; and, on coming close up to me, kissed my hands and feet ; and, congratulating this wretched creature on his safe arrival, said this was not just that we had not been apprised of the auspicious approach of our august and venerable father ! After attending to this ceremony, Sultan Abaca-an re- marked ' How many years has Shums-ud-din been in my service, and has known me as the sovereign of the universe, yet he never made me such homage and respect, as he has shown this man ? ' And on the two brothers rejoining him, and remounting their horses, he turned round to Shums-ud-din and said, ' Who is that person whom you accosted so humbly, and received so civilly ? ' Shums-ud-din answered, ' O Sire ! this was our father ! ' Then the Sultan said, ' Oftentimes have I asked after your father, and you were answering me, he is dead ; and now you said, this was our father ! ' He replied, ' He is our father and our Shaikh ; possibly the renowned name of Shaikh Sadi of Shiraz may have reached his royal highness's ear, for his sayings are celebrated all over the world.' Abaca-an commanded them, saying, ' You must introduce me to him.' They replied, ' We have heard and shall obey.' " Accordingly, after associating with the Shaikh for some days, they asked him to attend the king ; but he was declining their invitation and saying, " Relieve me from this ceremony, and make my excuses," They said, " You will assuredly go for our sakes, and shall be your own master in every matter else." The Shaikh adds, " For their satisfaction I agreed to accompany them ; and 32 SHAIKH SAD I. having attended at court, and had an audience of the king, when about to take my leave, his majesty was pleased to say, ' Give me a maxim of advice.' I replied, 'You can take along with you, from this world into the next, nothing but reward or punish- ment ; now, or in this world, be thou charitable and righteous ! ' ' ; Abaca-an said, " Put the purport of this sentiment into verse;" and the Shaikh uttered this extemporary fragment on Equity and Justice " That king who is the pastor of the people, let his revenue be sacred, for it is the hire of the shepherd ; but if not the people's guardian, let it be his deadly poison, for whatever he exacts is an imposition on the faithful." Abaca-an wept, and repeatedly asked, "Am I that pastor or not?" And the Shaikh each time answered, " If you are, the first couplet is in favour of your case, otherwise the second literally applies to it" The Shaikh adds that, "On taking my final leave, I repeated these few verses : ' A king is the shadow of God, and a shadow should be the image of its principal ; the disposition of the subject is not capable of good unless it be restrained by the sword of the sovereign. Any peaceable demeanour that is found in this world originates in the justice of its princes. That sovereign's government never can be just whose entire judgment is founded in wickedness.' " Which met Abaca-an's fullest concurrence. Ali-bin-Ahmad adds, " That in his days pious and learned men would not venture to admonish even a common shopkeeper after this manner, and that in matters of right the times had degenerated to what they then were." SHAIKH SADL 33 Thus have moralists in all ages complained of the degeneracy of their own days ; and occasionally ventured on such advice. Agatho, the poet and friend of Euripides, admonished Archelaus, king of Macedon, saying " A prince should keep in mind three maxims : ist, that he rules over men ; 2nd, that he ought to rule according to law ; and, 3rd, that he cannot rule for ever ! " Also, it is proper to warn the reader that there must have been two Shums-ud-dins one the minister of a king of the Atabak Dynasty, who reigned at Shiraz, and patronised Sadi's father, and another the Diwan, or prime minister of Abaca-an A.H. 663, 680, by whom he was employed in offices of great trust, but was put to death, A.H. 683, by the son and successor, Sultan Arghun Khan, on the strange charge of having poisoned his father Abaca-an, and such a circumstance must have tended to embitter the latter days of Sadi. Yet why should he regret the death of his illustrious friend and patron, who if a good man only went before him to be happy, where he, as a good man himself, and long dead to life's enjoyments, might hope, nay, wish, soon to join him. Early or late we must all go ; and the heartiest and most sanguine of us is as much dead to that part of his life that is gone as that friend then was, and must soon be to what remains of it. Sadi's life was unusually long, but the latter part of it was, I fear, too unhappy for him, like the old Persian (Gul. vi. i) he was called upon to visit at Damascus, to regret his at last parting with it. And, at its best, the longest life is but a drop of 745 34 SHAIKH SADL rain falling from a cloud into the ocean of eternity, where it is swallowed up and lost in this immensity, unless it find the body of a Sadi to nurture it into that pearl the Gulistan in its original classical Persian. This I have attempted to translate into English; but it is a translation, and, in order to make it useful, necessarily a literal one ; therefore the reader must not be disappointed if he find the bright water of Sadi's pearl again evaporated into the clouds, and little else left but the shell that once contained it Yet will my object be obtained if this translation shall enable the young student to understand Sadi's Persian text, and, by relishing such a classic, recover that pearl which I was forced to drop. However much his biographers vary in the specific number, they all agree in making him above a hundred ; and Dowlat Shah and Ibrahim Khan say that Sadi lived a hundred and two years. But Jami, who was Dowlat Shah's contemporary, and as a brother poet more interested in the exact truth, states him as having been born at Shiraz, A.H. 571, or A.D. 1194, and as having died at the same place, A.H. 690; by which it would appear that he reached the very advanced age of one hundred and twenty lunar, or one hundred and sixteen solar years ! This date of his death Dowlat Shah also confirms; for he says "that Sadi departed this life at Shiraz, in the reign of Atabak Mohammed Shah, the son of Muzuffar Silaghur Shah-bin-Saad-bin-Zungi, and that a dear friend records the date of that noble personage's demise as follows : It was on the evening of Friday, SHAIKH SADL 35 or the Mohammedan Sabbath, in the month Showal, of the Arabian year 690, that the eagle of the immaterial soul of Shaikh Sadi shook from his plumage the dust of his body." This sublime senti- ment was no doubt borrowed from the following two lofty couplets of Sadi's own (Bust. vi. i): " Now that the falcon of his soul would tower into the zenith of the sky, why hast thou burthened his pinion with a load of covetousness ? Hadst thou released his skirt from the talons of carnal desires he would have soared on high into the angel Gabriel's abode." In fact, a dozen equally appropriate and beautiful epitaphs might be selected from his works. As in some parts of Scotland, it is customary with the people in the East to plant rose-bushes and other flowering shrubs round the plain graves of their defunct friends, in allusion to which Sadi says (Gul. vii. 1 6): " 'Alas ! ' I said, ' how grateful didst thou prove to my heart so long as the verdure of thy existence flourished in the garden.' ' Have patience,' he replied, ' O my friend ! till the return of the spring, and thou mayst again see verdure and flowers shooting from my bosom.'" Or, as my own master in rhetoric, Doctor Beattie, beautifully expresses it " Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn, Kind nature the embryo blossoms will save ; The roses shall bloom round my mouldering urn, And spring again dawn on the night of my grave." But these last couplets of Bustan, iv. 16, are still more appropriate " Take heed ye that tread on my 36 SHAIKH SADL ashes ; by the dust of the generous I crave your remembrance, that though Sadi be mouldered into dust, what has he to apprehend who during his life- time had also been humble as the dust? In helpless- ness he laid his body prostrate on the earth, and then he encompassed the globe like the wind (by travelling over it). It may soon happen that the earth shall consume him, and the wind may again whirl him like dust round the universe! Behold, while the rose- bower of mysticism blossomed in it no nightingale warbled so melodiously ; now it were strange, when that nightingale is dead, if roses did not spring from its bones." Dowlat Shah says that Sadi's tomb is situated in a charming spot, in the midst of fountains and buildings, and is held in much estimation as a place of pilgrimage; and Ibrahim Khan speaks of it under the name of Sadiyah, but he means, I fancy, that gate of Shiraz which formerly led to it. Kcempfer mentions those buildings to be the numerous cemeteries of other great and learned men, and among them that of Hafiz ; but the whole was in his time, A.D. 1686, rather neglected and dilapidated. My friend, Colonel W. Franklin, found it, in A.D. 1787, "just in the state it was in when Sadi was buried," and as Kcempfer had found it, with the sides engraved with many sentences in the old Noskhi character, which neither of those gentlemen thought of copying. The Colonel visited it in Karim Khan's time, a great adorner of Shiraz and that neighbourhood, who built a new monument for Hafiz, but left Sadi's as it was ; how- SHAIKH SADL 37 ever, he needs no such frail support, for in his literary works he erected a monument which, like that of Horace, must outlast the pyramids ! With respect to the externals of Sadi's person, from some pictures of him in a richly-emblazed copy of his works, now in the library at the India House, and one of the four I mentioned above, his head is represented as bald, and illuminated with rays of glory. From different passages of his Bustan and Gulistan we may judge that his stature was low, and habit of body spare and slim ; and from a carelessness of dress, too common with literary men, a person naturally compact, carried, from its smallness, a mean and perhaps shabby look (Bust. iv. 6). In order to cover such defects with the least trouble to himself, he wore over his inner garments the Kharcah-moshayakh, or long blue gown of the Darweshes (Gul. iv. 19) ; and, in the picture adjoining to his tomb, Colonel F. found him represented in this dress, with a pastoral staff in his hand, another emblem of a pilgrim and hermit. Like the Menippian and Varronean satire, of which Petronius, Seneca, and Boetius were the chief Latin composers, and Colonel Forrester's Polite Philosopher is an example in English, the Gulistan is written partly in prose and partly in poetry. Better than twenty years ago I sent to our Asiatic Society at Calcutta an Essay on the Coincidences of the Oriental and European Apologue, the former chiefly extracts of Sadi's works, and particularly of the Gulistan. To the Apologues of this I give a more 38 SHAIKH SADL epigrammatic form by leaving out the poetry, which is in fact only a repetition in most instances of the sentiment as expressed before in prose. Part of that Essay appears in the Asiatic Annual Register, xii. 403, 416 ; part, or the whole majlis and fifth sermon in the Bombay Literary Transactions, i. 146, 158; and part in the Asiatic Journals of April and June 1817, April and June 1818, and December 1821. The MS. copies of the Gulistan, used throughout the East India Company's Empire of Hindustan as a common school book, three of which I have in my possession, are perhaps a sixth part larger than what is there called the Balaat, or the Calcutta printed text of 1791 ; partly in consequence of absurd insertions of many corresponding passages of Sadi's other works, and partly from foreign interpolations. The Rosarium Politicum of Georgius Gentius, published at Amsterdam A.D. 1651, with a Latin translation, I had in my possession for some years, and found its Persian text agree more with the Calcutta printed copy than with any of the common Bengal manuscripts. A few small additions and corrections, which indeed I have made in the margin of my own copy of it, would improve it much ; and if there should be a demand soon for a reprint of this text-book, as used in the Company's colleges, I am also ready to superintend it, and prevent such frequent errors as the two last lines of the first page, or a fitrat of prose being mistaken and written as SHAIKH SADL 39 poetry ; and the second line of the next bayit, or couplet, having three feet of its text omitted! The Persianischer Rosenthal of Olearius (Schleswig, 1654) I never saw. Commentaries and keys of the Gulistan, after the plan of our Clavis Homerica, have been composed both in Persian and Arabic. One of them, called the Sharahi-Gulistan, I also had once in my pos- session, and Mr. Gladwin showed me one in Arabic ; likewise he gave me a MS. copy of the notes, as numbered for Gentius's Rosarium, but omitted in my copy ; all of them, however, seemed to me equally bald and uninteresting. Few authors are more original in their composi- tions, more just in their conception of a subject, or more fortunate in their choice of an expression than Sadi. Yet he is a mannerist sui generis ; not as implying a servile imitation of any preceding admired model in Persian, but as constantly recurring to a manner of deliverance peculiarly his own. Perhaps Firdausi is the only Persian author exempt from this charge of either copying others in his characters, or of being the mannerist of himself. He has as many distinct warriors, for example, as Homer and Virgil have put together ; yet his Zal-zar and Rostam, his Sohrab and Ispindiyar, have their appropriate charac- teristics and epithets, and are distinguished from the warriors of all other poets, and from each other ; and so it is with his females, for no critic would think of confounding Rudabah, Tahiminah, the Gord-afrid, or Shirin with each other ; and in expressing himself, 40 SHAIKH SADL his favourite mode is either pathos or sublimity, with an unaffected hardness, the special gift of real inspira- tion, whereas Nizami, whose favourite mode is energy and strength, combines withal a brevity and obscurity which act as a constant drawback otherwise on the vigour of his language and philosophic justness of his reflections ; and Mulowi Manowi, whose favourite mode again is enthusiasm and rapture, has such a perpetual medley of carnal and divine love, and ten- dency to a re-union with the Deity, as resolves everything into sufiasm and mystery. On the other hand, Sadi's favourite mode is a simplicity and tenderness of heart, a delicacy of feeling and judg- ment, and that exquisitely natural vein in which he relates his many apologues and parables with a sort of sententious and epigrammic turn. Where, how- ever, like the Greek epigram, the point is so very fine that, in order that his European reader may perceive and feel it, his translator must give it some substance, otherwise this manner, constituting the very essence of his original, shall entirely escape him. This I have in my translation endeavoured to catch ; and if I have transgressed in one part of it more than in another, it is in making my author appear more sententious than he really is. Engaged in such a task, a translator finds consider- able difficulty in transferring this real manner of his author with spirit and fidelity, even from one language of Europe into another, and still more from an Oriental language, having the additional obstacles of a change of manners, customs, laws, and SHAIKH SADL 41 religion to encounter by the way. There are two ways of turning the sentiments of an author from one language into another namely, translation and imitation, and Pope with ourselves tried both ; and, in his imitations of Horace's Satires and Epistles, is thought to have succeeded ; but, as Bentley told himself, his translation of Homer, though a very pretty poem, can, to a person that does not under- stand the original Greek, give no idea of Homer. Cowper says it is impossible to give in rhyme a just translation of any ancient poetry of Greece or Rome ; and still more of Arabic and Persian. Cowper tried his hand at Homer in blank verse, and was still more unfortunate than Pope. A translation, to succeed, must not violate simplicity on the one hand, nor sink into tameness on the other ; and, for this purpose, a prose translation, even of poetry, is preferable either to rhyme or blank verse. But a perfect idea of any author can be formed only by understanding him in his original, and for this purpose all such translations and imitations as those of Pope, and we have an abundance of them done out of all foreign languages into English, are of little or no use ; and as my chief object is to assist the young student at the East India Company's colleges in his translations, this translation of the Gulistan is rendered as literal as the idioms of the English and Persian language will admit ; and, for- tunately, I have found a greater similarity in their idioms than our European critics are aware of. I shall not say how many translations I have made 42 SHAIKH SADL of the Gulistan, but I have now five lying by me, each done at a distant interval from another, and I am surprised how little they differ. True trans- lation is in composition what expression is in painting ; and by thus seizing the various attitudes, gestures, and looks of my Persian text, I think I have embodied them into an uniform and general design, and after frequent inspections am not dis- pleased with my English result. During the sixteenth and seventeenth Christian centuries, with the view of translating the Scriptures, our English doctors turned their minds to Oriental learning, many of them became proficients in the sister dialects of Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic ; but, finding the Persian so different from those three in idiom, though otherwise much the simpler and easier language, they had little or no knowledge of it. Accordingly, Bishop Walton's first edition of the polyglot scriptures, which he dedicated to Cromwell, has no Persian text, the four Ingil, or Evangelists, in this dialect having been added afterwards to the edition dedicated to Charles the Second. When the great Moghul Acbar, A.D. 1580-90, applied to the Pope for a copy of our Scriptures, he asked only for the Tawrit, or Pentateuch, having already, he said, copies of the Psalms and Evangelists in Persian, and this last was what Bishop W. or some of his coadjutors had got through the Germans. But it is not so well known in Europe that copies of the Zabur, or Psalms, were also common at that time in the East, in the Pahlowi dialect, in which SHAIKH SADI. 43 Nizami specifically states David to have written them ! Nor is it generally known among us that no two languages differ more in idiom and words than the Persian and Arabic ; yet when Persia was subdued by the immediate successors of Mohammed, they made a special point of forcing their language, as well as religion, upon their new subjects ; but after three centuries of this unnatural tyranny, on the decline of the Khalifat, the Persians, under native princes, re- covered not the Pahlowi, which had been the court dialect during the Sasan dynasty, but the Parsi, which had been the dialect of the Kayan dynasty, and I fancy all along the current dialect of Persia ; and, in the Gulistan, Baharistan, Nagaristan, and other popular prose Persian classics, the Parsi and Arabic are, as Sir W. Jones observes, so blended " that one period often contains both languages, wholly distinct from each other in expression and idiom, but per- fectly united in sense and construction, not as Roman and Saxon words are in this sentence : " " The true law is right reason, conformable to the nature of things, which calls us to the duty by commanding, deters us from sin by forbidding ; " but as the Latin and English are in this : " The true lex is recta ratio, conformable natures, which by commanding vocat ad officium, by forbidding a fraude deterreat." And a striking instance of this occurs in Sadi's panegyric of the prophet in the preface of his Gulistan, the three last lines of the second page of the Persian text being a prose medley of Persian and 44 SHAIKH SADL Arabic ; the next two lines at the top of the third page a couplet of pure Arabic ; the next two lines a couplet of pure Persian ; and the next four lines a tetrastic of pure Arabic ! Mr. Gladwin, in his occasionally idle way, makes four distinct sentences in his English of this passage ; but it is all one sentence, or, more properly, only part of one; for the same sentence also includes the parable, of which I recognise that of the importunate widow (Luke xviii. 2-8) as the prototype. Every classic scholar admires the address with which Virgil introduces his apostrophe of " tu Mar- cellus eris ;" and this is a happy example of the same figure of rhetoric : indeed his commencement of this graceful preface with a thanksgiving to the Deity, this praise of his prophet, his panegyric of the King, his encomium on the heir-apparent, and eulogy of the prime minister, are all felicitous instances of that manner which I have noted as characteristic of Sadi in his Persian and Arabian compositions. The chief difficulty in translating any such Arabian quotation is its being in common a text of the Koran, or a tradition of the prophet, which though ready in the memory of a pious Mohammedan gentleman and however much our flippant travellers and even learned doctors choose to declaim on his ignorance, a believer in the Koran can applicably quote it as the record of his law and the guide of his morals yet, to a translator like myself, such a passage is often obscure even when complete, and still more so when only a portion of it is thus noticed, as, for example, SHAIKH SAD1. 45 in the Gulistan, i. I, where the well-disposed Vizier says " suck as are restraining their anger, and for- giving- their felloiv-creatures : and God will befriend the benevolent', 1 without using the explanatory pre- liminary of " Paradise is for such as are" which I am, I fancy, the first who has correctly supplied by a reference to the whole in the Koran ; and there we see a striking imitation of Matthew v. 3-11, where are enumerated the successive orders of good doers, for whom paradise is designed, as their ultimate and blessed place of residence ! And another constant source of trouble to a trans- lator is the ambiguity of the Arabian moods and tenses ; for not only the same tense, for example, answers for the present and future, but he is often obliged to give the preterite tense a present significa- tion: and, if he had its immediate context, this might be managed ; but with such fragments of sentences as that I have quoted, if I am obliged to adapt the Arabian quotation to the Persian context, the scholar who is capable of detecting this will I doubt not be also liberal enough in overlooking or admitting the necessity of it What our travellers and doctors thus assert of Mussulmans considering Marafat, or the divinity of the Koran, as comprehending all necessary know- ledge, might have been true, as far as respected Mohammed himself, and his four immediate suc- cessors, as residents at Madainah ; for we can all recollect the Khalif Omar's reply, when Amru, the conqueror of Egypt, asked him what was to be done 46 SHAIKH SADL with the library at Alexandria, he answered " What is contained in these books you mention is either agreeable to what is written in the Koran, or book of God, or it is not ; if it be, then the Koran is sufficient without them ; if otherwise, it is fit they should be destroyed." But on the establishment of the Khalifat at Damascus, and still more of the Abassi dynasty at Baghdad, the Tazi, or modern Arabic, was gradually enriched with words, so as to admit of its technically expressing the terms of the arts and sciences, which a Harun Rashid had trans- lated into it from the Persian, Coptic, and Greek ; and modern Europe owes chief part of what it derived from the first two, and even more of its Greek knowledge, to translations through the Arabic, than immediately from the originals of them, or the Greek. Whereas the more ancient Greeks, as, for instance, Hippocrates in physic, we now find copied their knowledge direct from the Persians, for all his medicines have pure Persian names ; and down to the times of Galen and Dioscorides, those Greeks and their copyists, the Romans, were content with simples, which are hence called Galenicals. Kimiya, signify- ing art, trick, imposture, chemistry, etc., is also a pure Persian word, which the Arabs borrowed with the art from the Persians ; and the manufacture and use of chemical medicines and drugs, as applied to physic and the other arts, modern Europeans owe imme- diately to the Arabs. Nay, the chemical preparations of quicksilver, now found so serviceable in all visceral SHAIKH SADI. 47 obstructions, was first adopted into European practice, within my recollection, by Dr. Peasely, of Madras, in the case of Lord Pigot ; and as a simple, meadow saffron root has been used lately and successfully for the gout ; and I could mention a dozen other articles, each of the most active and best medicines, either for internal or external use, that have of late been intro- duced into our physical and surgical practice from that of the Hakims and Cub-rajes of our English empire in the East. In the writings of Michael Servetus, who lived a century before Harvey, there is a hint respecting his curious discovery of the circulation of the blood ; but the following distich of Sadi's Bustan, viii. 3, contains one more pertinent " The venal system of thy body, O well-disposed man ! is a meadow through which are flowing three hundred and sixty rivulets." And the two distichs, Bustan viii. 14, contain our most correct, and what we fancied modern, theory of respiration and digestion " Were not the fresh air to pass by respiration into the lungs, the intestine heat would throw the body into a ferment ; and did not the pot of the stomach duly concoct the food, the fair and plump form of the body would get shrunk and withered." The Persian word Khun, or blood, has also the idiomatic signification of the soul and life, as existing in the blood ; did the ingenious John Hunter borrow his idea of the life of the blood from this? On the subject of aerostatics, I offer the following curious extract of my copy of the Persian dictionary, 48 SHAIKH SADL the Farhangi Jihangiri, the manuscript being itself upwards of one hundred and fifty years old : it is in explanation of the compound idiomatic word "Tasht- wo-Khayah, the basin and egg, or the exhibition of filling the membraneous coat of an animal's testicle with Shobnim, or night-dew, and after tying up the vent, placing it on a brass vessel heated in the sun, or over the fire ; and as the air within it gets warm, the vapour will rarify and expand it ; when, raising itself on one end, it will hop up and down for a while, as if dancing, and at last mount into the air, and fly out of sight!" I remember the late Doctor Black, in his Chemical Lectures at Edinburgh, 1777-78, when on the subject of factitious air, suggesting this precise experi- ment ; but the French some years afterwards had the credit of putting it in practice on the large scale of balloons. Also, Sadi alludes to this same pheno- menon in his Bustan, iv. 14. " Why should that befall you, which befalls the fierce-burning torch ; that you should fly from yourself, as the bubble flies up from the water." Likewise, in the Farhangi Jihangiri, in its idiomatic sense, the Fanus-khiyat, another supposed modern invention, is mentioned namely, " A magic lantern, with which they show off images and figures, and with a sort of phosphorus, or artificial fire, give them the appearance of being in a flame;" and a couplet of the Persian poet Ghazali is quoted, signifying as follows " The celestial sky is a magic lantern ; and this globe is on its progress moving through it, while mankind are wandering over the globe, like the SHAIKH SADI. 49 figures of a magic lantern." And would not the bulk exceed all reasonable bounds, I could quote many such sound, and what we in Europe consider as modern, hints of philosophy immediately from Sadi. The detailed minutiae of the arts and sciences are lost in the changes and translations of languages, and in such revolutions of government as Persia has been specially subject to ; yet its remaining monuments are sufficient to prove, to the latest posterity of Adam, the originality and superiority of Persian knowledge; and the value in this sense of such books as the Gulistan, in which glimpses remain of that knowledge. Of the sublime and stupendous, we have in Europe no monuments of human structure that can compare with the Chihl-minar, or palace of many columns, at Istikhar, the Persepolis of the Greeks ; the statues of Khosraw and Shirin, and other massy works of the statuary Farhad at Bisitun, in Irac Ajem ; the still more ancient images of the Sorkh-bot and Khing-bot, so called from being one of a red and the other of a grey-coloured stone, and said to be each fifty-two gaz, or yards, high, and believed by the Persians to represent their first King Gayumars and his wife at Bamiyan, near the city of Balkh, and in that part of Cabul bordering on Badakhshan ; and the many sculptures and excavations in the contiguous rocks and mountains ; the tower of Babel ; the aqueducts of the Tigris and Euphrates ; the wall of the Darband, supposed to be built by Alexander, and repaired by Nushirowan : but above all in that mode 746 So SHAIKH SADL of subterraneous irrigation peculiar to Persia, and managed most ingeniously by sinking Karezes, or shafts, and connecting these with Mings, or under- ground canals, where springs are found at the foot of mountains, and extending for fifty or sixty miles over the contiguous champagne country. In mechanism the ancient Persians no doubt ex- celled us ; for even now we are at a loss to explain how such massy buildings were reared, otherwise than like our forefathers, when they first discovered many of them during the dark ages, and ascribed them to Kimiya, or magic. In the modern and more comparative architecture of the East I would refer to the mausoleum of Taj-Mahal, the favourite Sultana of the great Moghul Shah Jihan, at Agra, a building equal in extent to Saint Paul's, London, including the churchyard ; and the meanest material which enters its composition is the purest white marble. Had that magnificent sovereign concluded his reign in peace, he had projected a similar one for himself on the opposite side of that noble river the Jumma ; and to unite the two with a bridge of the same valuable materials : " Her bed is India ; there she lies a pearl;" but the last seven years of his life he was, by that hypocrite Aurangzib, his son, doomed to pass in honorary confinement ; and having, in 1803, visited the apartments he had in that durance occupied in the palace of Agra, I had some of the plaster chipped SHAIKH SADL 51 off, and found the walls richly gilded ; for, as his memoirs tell us, he had them done over with common mortar, as more suitable to his humbled condition. The centre dome had some years before been injured by a cannon-ball, and a peepil tree, one of the most destructive for such buildings, was growing out of it ; but Marquis Hastings has, with much taste and at a great expense, had it since repaired, and it is now as fresh as the day, one hundred and eighty years ago, it was built. Also, the Jamai Masjid, at Delhi, is another specimen of the many elegant and modern Oriental structures which, even in the present de- generacy of the arts, rival any buildings of modern, and perhaps ancient Europe, whether we regard the symmetry of the parts or sublimity of the whole. Recent from viewing those, before I took my last passage to Europe, I had an opportunity of com- paring the Governor-General's palace at Calcutta, then finished, at an enormous expense, by Marquis Wellesley, which, notwithstanding its marble hall and other pompous apartments, I found a heavy and clumsy mass of brick and mortar ! In their taste for gardening, specimens of which often occur in the beautiful descriptions of their poets, the Persians much excelled us. Milton, who travelled over the East in books, and had a judgment which qualified what he read, availed himself of those descriptions in laying out his Paradise ; and Addison gave the English nation a taste for Milton, nature, and good gardening which modern Europe has since been endeavouring to copy. 52 SHAIKH SADL The Persians have a saying, that it was as absurd for a person ignorant of geography to write history, or for a person ignorant of algebra to write upon astronomy, as for one ignorant of grammar to write poetry. In moral philosophy they excel, and par- ticularly in what we call polite literature ; no bad specimens of which are the two works of Sadi, which I have undertaken to translate namely, the Gulistan and Bustan, and Pilpay's Fables, which are ready to follow. And as I have said, in this favourite depart- ment of literature we have frequent glimpses of their skill in the more abstruse branches of natural and experimental philosophy, of mathematics, algebra, decimal notation, and ciphering in arithmetic, of whose characters ' the ancient Persians were no doubt the inventors ; of the phenomena of light and colours ; of electricity, of which they specify many facts besides the attractive power of amber as it is detailed by our European ancients ; of printing ; of gunpowder and fireworks (the last is noticed by Sadi, Gul. vii. 14) ; of gems, of which they give the most rational classification we yet have, and detail some particulars in their composition of which Sir H. Davy has lately availed himself, and of their treatise on this last we have lately recovered a copy ; and however vague their hints may seem at knowledge which we have not yet attained, we are from time to time obliged to give them credit for things that once appeared incredible, and which they certainly derived from sources still more ancient than themselves, and perhaps antediluvian. It is curious that what happened SHAIKH SADL 53 to the Israelites, in their conquest of the Holy Land, and the idolatrous nations they dispossessed of it, also happened to the Persians under Gayumars when they descended from the Kordistan mountains and dispossessed the Dives of Persia ; and Firdausi tells us that those Dives taught the arts to their conquerors; but what is still more curious, the Brahmins of India admit themselves to be those Dives, and that they came into India from Persia. Among the smaller articles of Persian taste I would mention three in particular: ist The wool, or rather hair, of a species of goat found in many parts of Persia, as well as in Tibet, from which they have from time immemorial manufactured that beautiful fabric the shawl ; and to which our best staple broad cloth is so much inferior. 2nd. The murrhine vase so highly esteemed by Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxxvii. 2, and which, as he correctly supposes it to be, is also the produce of Persia, and what is called with us the Portland vase is a specimen of it ; and of this the late ingenious porcelain wareman, Mr. Wedgewood, energetically remarked " that the composition of it implied a knowledge of chemistry, of which modern Europe has not yet reached the elements." Indeed our boasted chemical improvements can neither produce the materials of those sculptured and coloured vases, cups, gems, and rings, now collected by our curious travellers in Persia, nor supply any instruments of a sufficiently hard temper to cut and carve them. And, 3rd, the Sohaili, or what Europeans call Morocco leather, which forms the binding of most of the old 54 SHAIKH SADL Persian MSS., and has a fragrance and quality in it that preserves them from being destroyed by insects. This is a distinct article from the Kaimakht, another preparation of the hides of animals made in Persia into a sort of shagrin, and used for the handles of swords, dirks, etc. To prove that all those three articles are indigenous to Persia, in the Persian dictionaries they have each perhaps a dozen of names, all of them pure Persian words. And besides them I may mention the glossy smoothness of the Yizd silks, the delicacy of the fabric of cotton into Tuz muslin and flax into Tattah cambric ; their embroidery on satin, leather, and other stuffs, at Ispahan ; their glass of Shiraz, or cutlery of that place and of Khorasan ; their Nisham- pur filigree of gold and silver; their penmanship of manuscripts ; the animalism at Hirat of coloured silk and cotton stuffs ; the carpets of that city ; the richness of their dies, and the freshness and durability of their paints, a bright and beautiful azure specimen of which I have often admired, while, in 1803, ascending into the fort of Gwalior, where it has remained on the face of the palace for centuries exposed to the open air. Persian horsemanship and archery have been pro- verbial from time immemorial ; and the breed of horses, camels, asses, mules, sheep, and other domestic animals, are superior to any other. Sadi, in his Bustan i. I, says he met a person riding on a lion and using a snake as a whip ! But, seriously, who ever thought of taming elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, SHAIKH SADL 55 tigers, and serpents, but the patient and ingenious Asiatic ? But the best use of education is that of instructing a fellow-being, which gives dignity to the creature, and enables him properly to know and respect his Creator ! And what is more simple than that useful system of educating the poor which Dr. Bell has the credit of adopting from the Asiatics and applying to the European charity schools at Madras, and Mr. Lancaster of bringing into practice for the cheap and easy instruction of the illiterate of all denominations in England, and since that very generally over the continent of Europe. (See Gulistan vii., passim?) These are a few of many positive facts which readily suggest themselves to any Oriental scholar, and which I, who passed twenty of the most precious years of my life in India and in familiar and daily intercourse with all descriptions of natives, and am well read in their books, set in opposition to the trifling remarks of idle sojourners and the dogmatical censures of some superficial travellers who have lately visited the East and have presumed to disgorge their ill-digested opinions upon the European world, with- out possessing either language or intuition to instruct it in the history and antiquities, in the laws, manners, customs, and religions, or in the literature and arts of past or present Asia. Mankind, emerging from barbarity, fall into some regularity of government, and, getting ashamed of their ignorance, feel desirous of literary information and improvement in the arts ; but before they reach 56 SHAIKH SADL any superior excellence they too often exchange the elegance of nature for the gorgeousness of art. Nor could Persia, in its many revolutions, escape such transitions ; but though it suffered temporary eclipses from the barbarity and envy of such conquerors as Zohhac, Afrasiyab, Alexander, Omar, Jingiz Khan, Timur, Nadir Shah, and Mohammed Aga, yet the basis was so broad that the column of true taste has never been totally overthrown, and has during such reigns of barbarity stood amidst a waste of apathy a monument of what had been magnificent, and served as a copy for the native dynasties of a Firedown, Kai- cobad, Ardishir Babigan, Saboctagin, Alap Arselan, the Atabaks of Syria and Faristan, a Shah Abbas, Acbar, and Shah Jihan, and a Karim Khan, and Fatah-Ali Shah-shahan, to patronise and imitate. We should recollect that the Persian is not only the sole language of the many and extensive pro- vinces of Persia, but the medium of official and polite intercourse of the rich and populous regions of Hindustan, Turkey, and the wide domains of Tartary. Versed as many Oriental scholars among ourselves now are in the literature and poetry of Persia, and some of them inclined like myself to communicate their knowledge, we cannot but lament that obstinacy in our English critics of taking every direct and collateral occasion of peremptorily degrading its language, as that only of conceit and false thoughts, and of rating us as admirers of tinsel instead of gold. In charity to their knowledge and their judgment, we must conclude that they speak rather of Jami SHAIKH SAD I. 57 and his imitators than the host of Persian poets who adorned the long period of 500 years previous to his time. If Athens had its Periclesan, and Rome its Augustan, Persia also had its classic age, not ter- minating in a solitary or short reign, nor confined to the narrow limits of one city or province, but extend- ing to ten ages, and embracing places within herself a thousand miles apart. The taste, words, and style of the language of every polished nation must suffer in the vicissitudes of time and fortune, and bad poetry will be engen- dered. But is Persia alone to be called to so rigid an account for the extravagance and folly of the dregs of her poets ? Nay, I will admit that examples of hyperbole may be quoted from the pages of Firdausi, Nizami, Jabali, Khacani, Jilal-u'd-din Rumi, and Sadi ; but if thus nice in marking every devia- tion from propriety of sentiment and metaphor, what would become of Shakespeare and Milton among ourselves, of Dante and Ariosto with the Italians, or perhaps of even Homer and Virgil ? A company of British merchants have established an empire of the finest provinces of Asia, nearly equal in population and extent to all Europe, where Persian is the language of law, religion, commerce, and in fact of all civilised usages ; and instead of falsifying and abusing this language, our duty, as well as interest, as Englishmen, point out the justice of righting and supporting it ; and let our scholars, now brought up to a classical knowledge of it at the East India Com- pany's colleges, endeavour to weed what they will 58 SHAIKH SADL find the current language of Hindustan of its vicious metaphors, immoderate hyperboles, silly conceits, prettinesses, bombast, and idle verbiage of the last three centuries, or since A.D. 1450, and restore it to the sublime and pathetic imagery, and the just diction of its golden age from Dakiki and Rodaki, A.D. 950, to Jami and Hatifa ; and rescue it from being mangled by men learned and respectable in their knowledge of Greek and Latin, but vulgar and illiberal in their ignorance and prejudices in what- ever respects the languages and literature of the East, and in particular of this scientific, diplomatic, financial, legislative, and commercial dialect of a hundred millions of our fellow-subjects ! With some diffidence, I repeat that I offer the following translation of a prose Persian classic, who flourished in the era of its greatest purity; and if there is anything for- bidding in the baldness of its literality, it will thus, at all events, enable perhaps the student more per- fectly to understand the original ; and it is only by reading that with a knowledge, that he can relish and enjoy it JAMES ROSS, 1st January 1823. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. I. In the following Translation of the Gulistan, the poetical passages of the original text, whether Persian or Arabic, are distinguished from the prose by being included within inverted commas. II. And as the sentiment of the poetry is often only a repetition of that of the prose, in order to enforce and give it a more marked emphasis, the personal pronoun and verb are used in the singular number in the poetical passages. III. Pure passages of Arabic, whether poetry or prose, are distinguished by being printed in the Italian character. IV. Any additional words that are not warranted by the Persian text, but are necessary in the English translation, are enclosed in crotchets, unless where so evident an interpolation that they cannot be mistaken. THE MOCADDAMAH; OR, INTRODUCTION TO THE GULISTAN OF SHAIKH SADI. In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful I THANKSGIVING be to a Deity of majesty and glory ; for submission [in prayer] conciliates his presence, and a sense of gratitude towards him increases his munificence. Every breath that is inhaled is an elongation of life, and when it is exhaled it exhilarates the spirits ; accordingly, in every single breathing two benefits are forthcoming, and for each benefit a thanksgiving is owing "Whose hand and tongue can so enact that he shall acquit himself of this obligation of gratitude" be zealous, ye sons of David! with thanksgiving, for small is the grateful portion of my servants " that servant is approved who, conscious of his fault, sues for mercy at the threshold of God ; otherwise no person can presume to offer anything as worthy his supreme presence." 62 SHAIKH SADL The shower of his infinite mercy has been sprinkled upon all, and the table of his all-comprehensive bounty is spread forth everywhere. He will not remove the veil from the reputation of his servants because of their egregious iniquities, nor withdraw the daily bread of the poor on account of their impious idolatries "All-gracious Providence! who from a secret hoard art supplying the Guebre and Infidel with food, how canst thou exclude thy friends [the orthodox], thou 1 who wilt look with compassion on thy foes ? " He directed his chamberlain, the breeze of dawn, to spread abroad an emerald carpet ; and he ordered his handmaid, the vernal cloud, to nurse the daughters of vegetation [or young herbage] in the cradle of the earth. As a new year's day garment he covered the bosoms of the trees with mantles of verdant foliage ; and on the approach of the spring season he crowned the infant twigs with garlands of smiling flowers ; through his mighty power the juice of the sugar-cane reed waxed sweet as virgin honey ; and by his fostering care the kernel of the date grew into a stately palm "The clouds, wind, moon, sun, and sky act in co-operation ; that thou mayst get thy daily bread, and not eat it with indifference : all revolve for thy sake, and are obedient to command ; it must be an equitable condition that thou shalt be obedient" It is in tradition [or a saying] of the prince of the universe, glory of creatures, mediator of both worlds, most immaculate of men, the consummation of SHAIKH SADI. 63 revolving time [or last of the prophets], Mohammed Mostafa, upon whom and his be God's blessing and peace " accepted intercessor, and liberal-minded pro- phet, gracious, portly, smiling, and sealed ; " " how can the rampart of that faith totter which has thee for its prop? What can he fear from the billows of the sea who has Noah for his pilot?" "he reached the pinnacle of glory {during his Mara/] through his perfections ; he illuminated the gloom of chaos by his splendour ; all his habits were elegant ; peace be upon him and his followers ! " that, at any time, when a sinful and distressed servant shall raise the hand of repentance with the hope of forgiveness before the tribunal of a just, glorious, and sublime being, the most high God will not notice him : he will reiterate his suit, and be a second time disregarded ; he will again supplicate with mortification and humility ; then will the glorified and sublime judge deign to say Verily, my angels ! I was abashed on account of my servant, who had no Providence but me ; therefore did I pardon him I granted his prayer and satisfied his desire ; for I am ashamed of the importunate supplication and complaint of a dependant " behold the benevolence and condescension of the Lord [Paramount] ; the servant was in fault, and he the master is ashamed ! " The assiduous residents at the fane of his glory [or temple at Mecca] confess a negligence of piety, and say, We did not worship thee commensurately with the worship of thee; and the mystical encomiasts of the attributes of his charms, rapt in an ecstasy, cry, 64 SHAIKH SADL We knew thee not suitably to the knowledge of thee ! " Were any person to ask me to detail his attributes, helpless as I am, how shall I describe what is without a parallel ? Lovers fell the devoted victims of the mistress [God], but no tidings are returned of such victims." A good and pious man reclined his head on the bosom of contemplation, and was immersed in the ocean of reverie. At the instant when he awaked from this vision, one of his friends by way of pleasantry said, What rare gift have you brought us from that garden where you have been recreating? He replied, I fancied to myself and said, when I can reach the rose-bower I will fill my lap with the flowers, and bring them as a present to my friends ; but when I got there the fragrance of the roses so intoxicated me that the skirt dropped from my hands. " O bird of dawn ! learn the warmth of affection from the moth, for that scorched creature gave up the ghost and uttered not a groan ; these vain pretenders are ignorant of him they seek after, for of him that knew him we never heard again. O thou ! who towerest above the flights of conjecture, opinion, and comprehension, whatever has been reported of thee we have heard and read ; the con- gregation is dismissed, and life drawn to a close ; and we still rest at our first encomium of thee ! " The Panegyric of the Prince of Islamisni, or Reigning King ; may God perpetuate his Reign. The handsome mention of Sadi, which is current in every mouth; the fame of his sayings, which has SHAIKH SADL 65 spread all over the wide extent of the earth ; the amicable writing reed of his narrations, which man- kind are devouring as they would sugar-cane; and his newest literary fragments, which have the credit of bills of exchange [and bank-notes] all this cannot be ascribed to any superiority of his learning and wit; but that the Lord Paramount, Axis of revolving Time, confirmed Successor of Solomon, Defender of the Faithful, mighty King and potent Sovereign, Mozuffar-u'd-din Abubakr, son of Saad, son of Zungi, the Shadow of the most high God on earth, approve of him, O Providence, and gratify his wishes ! has regarded with him an eye of patronage, has bestowed upon him his exalted commendation, and has shown him unfeigned attachment ; consequently, everybody, for his sake, whether noble or plebeian, is well inclined, for mankind readily adopt the faith of their princes : " Ever since thou didst deign to look graciously on wretched me, my merits are become manifest as the sun. Verily, were this servant covered all over with blemishes, every vice that the King might approve of would become a virtue. Engaged one day in the public bath, I had a piece of scented clay handed me by my mistress. I addressed it, saying : Art thou ambergris or musk, for I am charmed with thy grateful odour? It replied, I was a worthless piece of clay; but for a while associated with the rose: thence I partook of the sweetness of my companion ; otherwise I am that vile piece of earth I seem. " My God ! benefit Mussulmans, or the faithful, by 747 66 SHAIKH SADL prolonging his life ; augment the reward of his virtues and perfections; exalt the states of his friends and allies; and confound his foes and ill-wishers, according to the texts, as recorded in the Koran. My God ! protect his domain, and be the guardian of his son : " as, in truth, the happiness of this world originates with him, let his happiness last for ever; and succour him, thou most high ! with the ensigns of victory. In like manner let the seedling, or son, flourish, of which he, tJie king, is the root; for the excellence of the earths produce sources in generous seed'' Let the most high and mighty God preserve till the day of judgment the pure territory of Shiraz in secure peace through a dread of a righteous magistracy and a deference for an industrious people. " Know ye not why I went abroad and stayed some time in a foreign country? I left home because of the anarchy I saw occasioned by the Turks, for the world was fallen into disorder, like the hair of an Ethiopian ; they were all human beings, but had sharp claws smeared with blood, like those of wolves : within the city walls a people well- disposed as angels ; without a host of warlike tygers. When I returned I found the country at peace ; the tygers had laid aside their tygerish dispositions ; such it was when I first saw it, a country overrun with contention, anarchy, and famine ; and thus it became during the reign of a just sovereign, Atabak Abubakr bin-saad Zungi." " The Persian territory has nothing to apprehend from the buffetings of fortune, so long as its head can find the shelter of such a godlike shadow as thou art. Throughout the expanse of the SHAIKH SADJ. 67 globe none in these days can afford such an asylum of resignation as that at the threshold at thy gate : it is thine to comfort the afflicted ; our duty to be grate- ful ; and it rests with God the Creator to notice and reward us. So long, O Providence ! as earth and sky shall endure, preserve the land of Persia from the storm of anarchy and mischief ! " Sadi's Reason for writing the Gulistan. One night I was thinking upon my past time ; reflecting with regret upon my prodigal use of life ; boring the flinty mansion of my heart with the diamond of my tears ; and repeating these verses, as applicable to the state of my affairs : " Every moment a breath is expiring of my life ; when I curiously inspect it, I find that only a little is left. O man ! fifty years of thy life are gone, and thou art still in a dream ; perhaps thou mayest avail thyself of the remaining five days. Shame on him who departed, and had not finished his task ; the call of march was beaten, and he had not made up his baggage ; the fascinating drowsiness of the morning of departure arrests the traveller from setting out on his journey. Every man that came, projected for himself a new house ; he went and left his dwelling to another, and that other in like manner gratified his vanity; but none of them put a finishing hand to this building. Set not thy affections on so fickle a mis- tress ; a being so capricious merits not thy attachment. 68 SHAIKH SADI. Since the good and bad are alike doomed to die, happy is he who carried off the prize of virtue ! Let the means of future enjoyment proceed thee to the grave; dispatch them before, for nobody can send them after thee ; life is like snow, and the sun is burning hot ; the vanities, O sir ! of the present day soon melt away ! The four contending and refractory temperaments may chime harmoniously for some few days ; but let one of them once get the upper hand and it will thrust the sweet soul from its dwelling ; consequently a prudent and upright man sets not his heart on the life of this world. Yes ! thou hast gone empty-handed to market ; I fear of thee that thou wilt not bring thy turban back ; that man who can eat up his crop of unripe wheat must be content at harvest to glean his neighbour's field. Listen with a willing ear to the admonition of Sadi ; such is the path, be resolute and follow it." After pondering on this mystery I saw its policy, and said, I will betake myself to the cell of retire- ment, withdraw my skirt from social enjoyment, erase from my tablets all vain compositions, and henceforth refrain from idle confabulations: "To have the tongue cut out and to be seated deaf and dumb in a corner were preferable to his condition who cannot govern his tongue": till at length one of my friends who had been the litter-companion of my travels and the chamber-chum of my studies entered my cell with his usual familiarity; but however much he indulged in pleasantry and mirth and spread abroad the carpet of social intercourse, I made him no return, nor raised SHAIKH SADI. 69 my head from the knee of pious abstraction. Offended at my behaviour, he looked wistfully at me and said : " Now that thou hast the faculty of speech, converse, O brother ! with cheerfulness and joy, for to-morrow that the messenger of death shall present himself thou must of necessity restrain thy tongue." One of my comrades made him aware of these events, saying, Such a person has firmly resolved and fully deter- mined to pass his remaining life in this world in contemplative devotion and to observe silence ; do thou also, if thou art able, keep thine own counsel and take thyself aside. He replied and swore, By our glorious faith and ancient friendship, I will neither breathe nor stir till he shall have answered me with his accustomed freedom and in his usual frank man- ner ; for it were savage to grate the hearts of friends, and it is easy to compromise an oath. Moreover, it is repugnant to good sense and an infringement on the policy of the wise that Ali's sword should rest in its scabbard and that Sadi's tongue should cleave to his palate. " What, O wise man, is the tongue in the mouth? It is a key to the casket of the intellectual treasurer ; so long as the lid remains shut how can any person say whether he be a dealer in gems or in pedlery ? Though in the estimation of the wise silence be mannerly, at the season of giving advice it were better to be explicit. Two circumstances cast a shade over the understanding that of silence when we should speak, and that of speech when we should be silent" In short, I could no longer reserve myself in 70 SHAIKH SADL answering him, nor see it generous to withhold being familiar, for he had ever been a most companionable and sincere friend. " If forced into a combat, with him be the fight whom thou hast strength to cope with or legs to escape from." As a matter of necessity I spoke, and went joyfully abroad during the spring, when the cold of winter was meliorated and the auspicious season of the roses had arrived : " The leafy vestments of the trees (from being green) resembled the holyday apparel of the orthodox or happy. On the ist of Ardebihist, or April, that charming month, the nightingales were carolling on their pulpits, the tree boughs, and the dew-fallen pearl on the damask rose rivalled the perspired drop on the cheek of our chiding mistress." I happened one night to fall into a nocturnal con- versation in a garden with a friend, a lovely and refreshing spot, and its heart-gladdening groves intertwining overhead ; its walks you might say were strewed with spangles of crystal, and clusters of fruit like the pleiades hung aloft from its boughs: " Meadows, the water of whose rivulets meandered like the links of a chain ; bowers, the melodies of whose aviaries were harmonious : those studded with flowers of various colours, and these loaded with fruits of divers kinds ; while the zephyrs in the moving (moonlight and) shade of the trees were spreading a carpet of variegated hues." At dawn, when the thought of going home over- came a wish for sitting still, I remarked that my companion had filled his skirt with roses, hyacinths, SHAIKH SADL 71 spikenards, and sweet-basils, and was desirous of returning to the city. I said, As you well know, the flower of the garden has no continuance, nor can we confide in the promise of the rose-bower, and philo- sophers have told us whatever is not lasting merits not our affection. He asked, What is our alternative ? I replied, For the gratification of beholders and recrea- tion of spectators I can write such a Kitabi Gulistan, or book of a Flower-garden, as neither the rude storm of autumn shall be able to lay the hand of usurpation upon its leaves, nor the revolution of the season convert the serenity of its summer into the gloom of winter. " What can a basket (or nosegay) of flowers avail thee? Pluck but one leaf from my Flower- garden ; a rose can thus continue five or six days, but this rose-bower must bloom to all eternity ! " So soon as I uttered these words he let the flowers drop from his lap and seized upon my skirt, saying : As the generous man promised, so he performed! That same day two chapters (vii. and viii.), one of them on the Accomplishments of Education, and the other on the Rules for Conversation, were recorded in my note-book in such a clothing as may come in practice with orators, and decorate the style of letter- writers. In short, roses yet continued to flourish in the garden when the book of the Gulistan was finished. And it really will be complete when it shall have met a favourable reception at court and obtained the indulgent perusal of that prince, the asylum of the world, shadow of omnipotence, ray of gracious 72 SHAIKH SADL providence, treasury of the age, refuge of the faith, fortified from above, victorious over his foes, arm of triumphant fortune, luminary of resplendent religion, most illustrious of mankind, glory of orthodoxy, Saad the son of the mighty Atabak, all-powerful emperor, ruler over the necks of the people, lord-paramount of Arabia and Persia, monarch of the sea and land, successor of the throne of Solomon, Mozuffar-zu'd-din, may God on high perpetuate the dominion of both father and son, augment their dignified state, and favour all their charitable enterprises. "If graced with the favour of his majesty the king, it will become the portrait gallery of China and picture portfolio of Mani ; none will, we trust, inspect it with dissatisfac- tion, for this reason, that a Gulistan, or flower-garden, is not the seat of chagrin, more especially as its auspicious preface is inscribed with the name of Saad Abu-bakr Saad-bin Zungi." The Panegyric of the mighty Lord, Fakhr-u' d-din Abu-bakr-bin-Abu Nasr. Again the bride of my intellect, conscious of her defective charms, dares not lift her head or raise the eye of solicitude from musing on the back of the foot of bashfulness, nor dares she come forward with all her glory into the assembly of the lovely till she can deck herself with that gem, the approbation of the mighty lord, intelligent, just, succoured from above, victorious over foes, prop of the imperial throne, counsellor of state, asylum of the indigent, resort of the stranger, patron of the learned, friend of the pious, SHAIKH SADL 73 glory of the Persian race, right hand of the empire, prince of favourites, glory of church and state, support of the faith and faithful, confidant of kings and sovereigns, Abu-bakr-bin-Abu Nasr. Prolong, O God ! his life, increase his power, exhilarate his heart, and multiply his rewards ; for he is celebrated among the grandees of the four quarters of the globe, and a compendium of laudable qualifications. " Whoever finds a shelter under the shadow of his patronage, his contumacy becomes obedience, and his foe a friend." Of the retinue of servants and dependants each has a special duty, and if in the discharge of their offices they may in any trifle be negligent and idle, they will somehow incur reprehension, and be taken to task, all except this tribe of Darweshes (like Sadi), whom it behoves to be grateful for the bounty of the great, and to offer in return a panegyric on their virtue and a blessing on their charity. However, the performance of this service is more commendable in private than in public, for this might border on the fulsome and specious, and that were less adulatory and ceremonious : " The crooked back of the sky (or fortune) became straight through joy that she gave a son like thee to the mother of the times. It is a choice instance of wisdom when the benevolence of the Creator selects a servant for the instruction of the people ; he obtained immortal fortune whose good fame survived him ; for after he is dead the report of his virtue makes his name live for ever ; it matters not whether the eloquent praise thee or not ; 74 SHAIKH SADL for the soul-deluding cheek requires not the tire- woman's art." The excuse for neglect in making court, and the reason for preferring retirement. Any backwardness and neglect that take place in my paying court at the levee of my lord (the prime minister) have this precedent : that a body of the sages of Hind were discussing the qualifications of Buzarchamahar, and could after all discover only this defect namely, that there is a slowness in his utterance; that is to say, he is making some consider- able hesitation, and it behoves his hearer to suspend his judgment till he can explain himself. Buzar- chamahar heard this and answered, It is better to deliberate what I am to say than to be ashamed of what I have said ! " The well-instructed orator, experienced from age, ponders over his words, and then gives them utterance. Waste not thy breath in speaking without thought, speak to the purpose, and what harm is there though thou may deliberate ? Arrange thy speech, and then deliver it ; but bring it to an end before they tell thee to have done. In the faculty of speech man excels the brute ; but if thou utterest what is improper, the brute is thy superior : " more especially in the sight of the eyes (or grandees) of his excellency the prime minister, dignified .in his service, as they are a compendium of the generous and pious, and a rallying point of the profoundly learned, for if I could make bold, I might have presumptuously intruded, and brought base SHAIKH SADI. 75 merchandise into his highness the Vizier's presence; and a glass bead were not worth a barley-corn in the mart of jewellers, a torch would glimmer in giving light before the face of the sun, and a lofty minaret would loom small at the foot of Mount Alwand. " Whoever may exalt his neck with arrogance, a foe will beset him on every side ; the generous-minded Sadi is humble and prostrate, no person will combat with him that is fallen (and asking for quarter). First use deliberation, then speech ; the foundation was laid, and then the wall raised. I am a gardener, but not in a garden. I am a charmer, but not such as Joseph was in Canaan." They asked Lucman, Of whom didst thou learn wisdom ? He replied, Of the blind, who put not their feet forward till they feel their ground. The Arabs say, Secure a retreat before you step forward to the assault: prove your virility, then venture on a wife ! " Though the cock be eager for the fight, what can he effect when opposed to the brazen-taloped falcon ? At seizing a mouse a cat is as bold as a lion ; but is herself a mouse when pitted with a tiger." Nevertheless, relying on the liberal disposition of the great, who will wink at the faults of the humble, and refrain from exposing the defects of their inferiors, I passed a portion of my precious life in reducing into a summary form, and comprising in this volume, the rare adventures, maxims, sciences, apophthegms, and customs of passed kings, on whom be God's mercy ! and such were my reasons for writing the Gulistan, or Flower-garden. "This 76 SHAIKH SADL arrangement and plan may endure for ages after every atom of my body is whirled into dust The design is a picture, which may remain as a memorial of me, for I cannot foresee any long continuance of this existence unless some good soul may, one day, in compassion, offer a blessing upon the work of a poor man." After mature consideration in planning this book, and arranging its chapters, I deemed it expedient to abridge its detail, that I might reduce this bower of resignation and sublime enclosure into eight mansions like those of paradise ; and it was thus made short of that it might not fatigue. A Schedule of the Chapters. Chapter I. Of the Customs of Kings. Chapter 2. Of the Morals of Darweshes. Chapter 3. Of the Preciousness of Contentment. Chapter 4. Of the Benefit of Silence. Chapter 5. Of Love and Youth. Chapter 6. Of Imbecility and Old Age. Chapter 7. Of the Impressions of Education. Chapter 8. Of the Duties of Society. The daU of publishing the book of the Gulistan. " At that season (the period between the two Eeds) which is with us Mohammedans a time of rejoicing, in the year six hundred and fifty-six after the Hijrah (A.D. 1258), my object was to give advice, which having offered, I left its fulfilment with God, and took my leave." CHAPTER I. OF THE CUSTOMS OF KINGS. I HAVE heard of a king who made the sign to put a captive to death. The poor wretch, in that state of desperation, began to abuse the king in the dialect which he spoke, and to revile him with asperity, as has been said ; whoever shall wash his hands of life will utter whatever he may harbour in his heart: " When a man is desperate he will give a latitude to his tongue, like as a cat at bay will fly at a dog " : " at the moment of compulsion when it is impossible to fly, the hand will grasp the sharp edge of a sword." The king asked, saying, What does he say? One of the Viziers (or nobles in attendance), and a well- disposed man, made answer, O my lord ! he is expressing himself and saying, (paradise is for such} as are restraining their anger and forgiving their fellow-creatures ; and God will befriend the bene- volent. The king felt compassion for him, and desisted from shedding his blood. Another noble- man, and the rival of that former, said, It is inde- corous for such peers, as we are, to use any language but that of truth in the presence of kings j this man 78 SHAIKH SADL abused his majesty, and spoke what was unworthy of him. The king turned away indignant at this remark, and replied, I was better pleased with his falsehood than with this truth that you have told ; for that bore the face of good policy, and this was founded in malignity ; and the intelligent have said, A peace-mingling falsehood is preferable to a mis- chief-stirring truth : " Whatever prince may do that which he (his counsellor) will recommend, it must be a subject of regret if he shall advise ought but good." They had written over the portico of King Firedowtts palace: "This world, O brother! abides with none. Set thy heart upon its maker, and let him suffice thee. Rest not thy pillow and support on a worldly domain which has fostered and slain many such as thou art Since the precious soul must resolve on going, what matters it whether it departs from a throne or the ground." II. One of the kings of Khorasan saw, in a dream, Sultan Mahmud, the son of Saboktagin, an hundred years after his death, when his body was decayed and fallen into dust, all but his eyes, which as heretofore were moving in their sockets and looking about them. All the learned were at a stand for its interpretation, excepting one darwesh, who made his obeisance, and said: He is still looking about him, because his kingdom and wealth are possessed by others ! " Many are the heroes whom they have buried under SHAIKH SADL 79 ground, of whose existence above it not one vestige is left ; and of that old carcase which they committed to the earth, the earth has so consumed it that not one bone is left Though' many ages are gone since Nushirowan was in being, yet in the remembrance of his munificence is his fair renown left. Be generous, O my friend ! and avail thyself of life, before that they proclaim it as an event that such a person is not left." III. I have heard of a king's son who was short and mean, and his other brothers were lofty in stature and handsome. On one occasion the king, his father, looked at him with disparagement and scorn. The son, in his sagacity, understood him, and said, O father ! a short wise man is preferable to a tall block- head ; it is not everything that is mightier in stature that is superior in value : a sheep's flesh is wholesome, that of an elephant carrion. " Of the mountains of this earth Sinai is one of the least, yet is it most mighty before God in state and dignity" " Heard st thou not what an intelligent lean man said one day to a sleek fat dolt? An Arab horse, notwithstanding his slim make, is more prized thus than a herd of asses." The father smiled ; the pillars of the state, or courtiers, nodded their assent, and the other brothers were mortified to the quick. " Till a man has declared his mind, his virtue and vice may have lain hidden ; do not conclude that the thicket is unoccupied, per- adventure the tiger is gone asleep ! " 8o SHAIKH SADL I have heard that about that time a formidable antagonist appeared against the king. Now that an army was levied in each side, the first person that mounted his horse and sallied upon the plain was that son, and he exclaimed : " I cannot be that man whose back thou mayest see on the day of battle, but am him thou mayest descry amidst the thick of it, with my head covered with dust and blood ; for he that engages in the contest sports with his own blood, but he who flees from it sports with the blood of an army on the day of fight." He so spoke, assaulting the enemy's cavalry, and overthrew some renowned warriors. When he came before the king he kissed the earth of obeisance, and said, " O thou, who didst view my body with scorn, whilst not aware of valour's rough exterior, it is the lean steed that will prove of service, and not the fatted ox, or) the day of battle." They have reported that the enemy's cavalry was immense, and those of the king few in number; a body of them was inclined to fly, when the youth called aloud, and said, Be resolute, my brave men, that you may not have to wear the apparel of women ! The troops were more courageous on this speech, and attacked altogether. I have heard that on that day they obtained a complete victory over the enemy. The king kissed his face and eyes, and folded him in his arms, and became daily more attached to him, till he declared him heir-apparent to the throne. The brothers bore him a grudge, and put poison into his food. His sister saw this from a window, and flapped to the shutter ; and the boy understood the sign, and SHAIKH SAD I. 81 withdrew his hand from the dish, and said, It is hard that the virtuous should perish and that the vicious should occupy their places. "Were the homayi, or phoenix, to be extinct in the world, none would take refuge under the shadow of an owl." They informed the father of this event ; he sent for the brothers and rebuked them, as they deserved. Then he made a division of his domains, and gave a suitable portion to each, that discontent might cease ; but the ferment was increased, as they have said: Ten darweshes can sleep on one rug, but two kings cannot be accommodated in a whole kingdom. " When a man after God's heart can eat the moiety of his loaf, the other moiety he will give in alms to the poor. A king may acquire the sovereignty of one climate or empire ; and he will in like manner covet the possession of another." IV. A horde of Arab robbers had possessed themselves of the fastness of a mountain, and waylaid the track of the caravan. The yeomanry of the villages were frightened at their stratagems, and the king's troops alarmed, inasmuch as they had secured an im- pregnable fortress on the summit of the mountain, and made this stronghold their retreat and dwelling. The superintendents of the adjacent districts con- sulted together about obviating their mischief, saying: If they are in this way left to improve their fortune, any opposition to them may prove impracticable. 748 82 SHAIKH SADL "The tree that has just taken root, the strength of one man may be able to extract ; but leave it to remain thus for a time, and the machinery of a pur- chase may fail to eradicate it : the leak at the dam- head might have been stopped with a plug, which now it has a vent we cannot ford its current on an elephant." Finally it was determined that they should set a spy over them, and watch an opportunity when they had made a sally upon another tribe, and left their citadel unguarded. Some companies of able warriors and experienced troops were sent, that they might conceal themselves in the recesses of the mountain. At night, when the robbers were returned, jaded with their march and laden with spoil, and had stript themselves of their armour, and deposited their plunder, the foremost enemy they had to encounter was sleep. Now that the first watch of night was gone : " the disc of the sun was withdrawn into a shade, and Jonas had stepped into the fish's mouth :" the bold-hearted warriors sprang from their ambush and secured the robbers by pinioning them one after another. In the morning they presented them at the royal tribunal, and the king gave an order to put the whole to death. There happened to be among them a stripling, the fruit of whose early spring was ripening in its bloom, and the flower-garden of his cheek shooting into blossom. One of the viziers kissed the foot of the imperial throne, and laid the face of intercession on the ground, and said, This boy has SHAIKH SAJDL 83 not yet tasted the fruit of the garden of life, nor enjoyed the fragrance of the flowers of youth : such is my confidence in the generous disposition of his majesty that it will favour a devoted servant by sparing his blood. The king turned his face away from this speech ; as it did not accord with his lofty way of thinking, he replied : " The rays of the vir- tuous cannot illuminate such as are radically vicious ; to give education to the worthless is like throwing walnuts upon a dome:" it were wiser to eradi- cate the tree of their wickedness, and annihilate their tribe ; for to put out a fire and leave the embers, and to kill a viper and foster its young, would not be the acts of rational beings. " Though the clouds pour down the water of vegetation, thou canst never gather fruit from a willow twig. Exalt not the fortune of the abject, for thou canst never extract sugar from a mat or common cane." The vizier listened to this speech ; willingly or not he approved of it, and applauded the good sense of the king, and said : What his majesty, whose dominion is eternal, is pleased to remark is the mirror of probity and essence of good policy, for had he been brought up in the society of those vagabonds, and confined to their service, he would have followed their vicious courses. Your servant, however, trusts that he may be instructed to associate with the virtuous, and take to the habits of the prudent ; for he is still a child, and the lawless and refractory principles of that gang cannot have yet tainted his mind ; and it is in tradi- tion that Whatever child is born, and he is verily 84 SHAIKH SADL born after the right way of orthodoxy ', namely Islamism, afterwards his father and his mother bring him up as a Jew, Christian, or Guebre. " The wife of Lot asso- ciated with the wicked, and her posterity failed in the gift of prophecy; the dog of the seven sleepers [at Ephesus] for some time took the path of the righteous, and became a rational being." He said this, and a body of the courtiers joined him in intercession, till the king acceded to the youth's pardon, and answered : I gave him up, though I saw not the good of it. " Knowest thou what Zal said to the heroic Rostam : Thou must not consider thy foe as abject and helpless. I have often found a small stream at the fountain-head, which, when followed up, carried away the camel and its load." In short, the vizier took the boy home, and edu- cated him with kindness and liberality. And he appointed him masters and tutors, who taught him the graces of logic and rhetoric, and all manner of courtier accomplishments, so that he met general approbation. On one occasion the vizier was de- tailing some instances of his proficiency and talents in the royal presence, and saying : The instruction of the wise has made an impression upon him, and his former savageness is obliterated from his mind. The king smiled at this speech, and replied : " The whelp of a wolf must prove a wolf at last, notwithstanding he may be brought up by a man." Two years after this a gang of city vagabonds got about him, and joined in league, till on an oppor- tunity he murdered the vizier and his two sons ; and, SHAIKH SADL 85 carrying off an immense booty, he took up the station of his father in the den of thieves, and became a hardened villain. The king was apprised of this event ; and, seizing the hand of amazement with the teeth of regret, said : " How can any person manu- facture a tempered sabre from base iron ; nor can a base-born man, O wiseacre, be made a gentleman by any education ! Rain, in the purity of whose nature there is no anomaly, cherishes the tulip in the garden and common weed in the salt marsh. Waste not thy labour in scattered seed upon a briny soil, for it can never be made to yield spikenard ; to confer a favour on the wicked is of a like import, as if thou didst an injury to the good." V. At the gate of Oghlamish Patan, King of Delhi, I [namely Sadi] saw an officer's son, who, in his wit and learning, wisdom and understanding, surpassed all manner of encomium. In the prime of youth, he at the same time bore on his forehead the traces of ripe age, and exhibited on his cheek the features of good fortune : " above his head, from his prudent conduct, the star of superiority shone conspicuous." In short, it was noticed with approbation by the king that he possessed bodily accomplishments and mental endowments. And sages have remarked that worth rests not on riches, but on talents ; and the discretion of age, not in years, but on good sense. His comrades envied his good fortune, charged him with disaffection, and vainly attempted to have him put to 86 SHAIKH SADI. death : " but what can the rival effect so long as the charmer is our friend ? " The king asked, saying, Why do they show such a disinclination to do you justice ? He replied : Under the shadow of his majesty's good fortune I have pleased everybody, excepting the envious man, who is not to be satisfied but with a decline of my success ; and let the prosperity and dominion of my lord the king be perpetual ! " I can so manage as to give umbrage to no man's heart ; but what can I do with the envious man, who harbours within himself the cause of his own chagrin ? Die, O ye envious, that ye may get a deliverance ; for this is such an evil that you can get rid of it only by death. Men soured by misfortune anxiously desire that the state and fortune of the prosperous may decline ; if the eye of the bat is not suited for seeing by day, how can the fountain of the sun be to blame? Dost thou require the truth? It were better a thousand such eyes should suffer, rather than that the light of the sun were obscured." VI. They tell a story of a Persian king who had stretched forth the arm of oppression over the sub- jects' property, and commenced a system of violence and rapacity to such a degree that the people emigrated to avoid the vexatiousness of his tyranny, and took the road of exile to escape the annoyance of his extortions. Now that the population was diminished and the resources of the state had failed, SHAIKH SADL 87 the treasury remained empty, and enemies gathered strength on all sides. " Whoever may expect a comforter on the day of adversity, say, let him practise humanity during the season of prosperity ; if not treated cordially, thy devoted slave will forsake thee ; show him kindness and affection, and the stranger may become the slave of thy devo- tion." One day they were reading, in his presence, from the Shahnamah, of the tyrant Zohhak's declining dominion and the succession of Firedown. The vizier asked the king, saying : Can you so far com- prehend that Firedown had no revenue, domain, or army, and how the kingdom came to be confirmed with him ? He answered : As you have heard, a body of people collected about him from attachment, and gave their assistance till he acquired a kingdom. The vizier said : Since, O sire, a gathering of the people is the means of forming a kingdom, how come you in fact to cause their dispersion unless it be that you covet not a sovereignty ? " So far were good that thou wouldst patronise the army with all thy heart, for a king with an army constitutes a principality." The king asked : What are the best means of collecting an army and yeomanry ? He replied : Munificence is the duty of a king, that the people may assemble around him, and clemency, that they may rest secure under the asylum of his dominion and fortune, neither of which you have. " A tyrant cannot govern a king- dom, for the duty of a shepherd is not expected from the wolf. A king that can anyhow be accessory 88 SHAIKH SADL to tyranny will undermine the wall of his own sovereignty." The advice of the prudent minister did not accord with the disposition of the king. He ordered him to be confined, and immured him in a dungeon. It soon came to pass that the sons of the king's uncle rose in opposition, levied an army in support of their preten- sions, and claimed the sovereignty of their father. A host of the people, who had cruelly suffered under the arm of his extortion and were dispersed, gathered around and succoured them till they dispossessed him of his kingdom and established them in his stead. " That king who can approve of tyrannising over the weak will find his friend a bitter foe in the day of hardship. Deal fairly with thy subjects, and rest easy about the warfare of thine enemies, for with an upright prince his yeomanry is an army." VII. A king was embarked along with a Persian slave on board a ship. The boy had never been at sea, nor experienced the inconvenience of a ship. He set up a weeping and wailing, and all his limbs were in a state of trepidation ; and, however much they soothed him, he was not to be pacified. The king's pleasure- party was disconcerted by him ; but they had no help. On board that ship there was a physician. He said to the king, If you will order it, I can manage to silence him. The king replied : It will be an act of great favour. The physician so directed that they threw SHAIKH SADL 89 the boy into the sea, and after he had plunged repeatedly, they seized him by the hair of the head and drew him close to the ship, when he clung with both hands by the rudder, and, scrambling upon the deck, slunk into a corner and sat down quiet. The king, pleased with what he saw, said : What art is there in this ? He replied : Originally he had not experienced the danger of being drowned, and under- valued the safety of being in a ship ; in like manner, as a person is aware of the preciousness of health when he is overtaken with the calamity of sickness. " A barley loaf of bread has, O epicure, no relish for thee. That is my mistress who appears so ugly to thy eye. To the huris, or nymphs of paradise, Iraf, or purgatory, would be a hell ; ask the inmates of hell whether purgatory is not paradise. There is a distinction between the man that folds his mistress in his arms and him whose two eyes are fixed on the door expecting her." VIII. They asked Hormuz, son of Nushirowan, What fault did you find with your father's ministers that you ordered them into confinement ? He replied : I saw no fault that might deserve imprisonment ; yet I perceived that any reverence for me makes a slight impression on their minds, and that they put no implicit reliance on my promise. I feared lest from an apprehension of their own safety they might con- spire my ruin ; therefore, put in practice that maxim 90 SHAIKH SADL of philosophers who have told us. "Stand in awe, O wise man, of him who stands in awe of thee, notwith- standing thou canst cope with a hundred such as he. Therefore will the snake bite the herdsman's foot, because it fears that he will bruise its head with a stone. Seest thou not that now that the cat is desperate it will tear out the tiger's eyes with its claws." IX. In his old age an Arab king was grievously sick, and had no hopes of recovery, when, lo ! a messenger on horseback presented himself at the palace-gate, and joyfully announced, saying : Under his majesty's good fortune we have taken such a stronghold, made the enemy prisoners of war, and reduced all the land- holders and vassals of that quarter to obedience as subjects. On hearing this news the king fetched a cold sigh, and answered : These glad tidings are not intended for me but for my rivals, namely, the heirs of the sovereignty. " My precious life has, alas ! been wasted in the hope that what my heart chiefly coveted might enter at my gate. My bounden hope was gratified ; yet what do I benefit by that ? There is no hope that my passed life can return." " The hand of death beat the drum of departure. Yes, my two eyes, you must bid adieu to my head. Yes, palm of my hand, wrist, and arm, all of you say farewell, and each take leave of the other. Death has overtaken me to the gratification of my foes ; and you, O my friends, must at last be going. My days were blazed SHAIKH SADL 91 away in folly ; what I did not do let you take warning [and do]." X. At the metropolitan mosque of Damascus I was one year fervent in prayer over the tomb of Yahiya, or John the Baptist and prophet, on whom be God's blessing, when one of the Arab princes, who was notorious for his injustice, chanced to arrive on a pilgrimage, and he put up his supplication, asked a benediction, and craved his wants. "The rich and poor are equally the devoted slaves of this shrine, and the richer they are the more they stand in need of succour." Then he spoke to me, saying: In conformity with the generous resolution of darweshes and their sincere zeal, you will, I trust, unite with me in prayer, for I have much to fear from a powerful enemy. I answered him, Have compassion on your own weak subjects, that you may not see disquiet from a strong foe. "With a mighty arm and heavy hand it is dastardly to wrench the wrists of poor and helpless. Is he not afraid who is hard-hearted with the fallen that if he slip his foot nobody will take him by the hand ? Whoever sowed the seed of vice and expected a virtuous produce, pampered a vain brain and encouraged an idle whim. Take the cotton from thy ear and do mankind justice, for if thou refusest them justice there is a day of retribution." The sons of Adam are members one of another, for in their crea- tion they have a common origin. If the vicissitudes of fortune involve one member in pain, all the other 92 SHAIKH SAD I. members will feel a sympathy. Thou, who art indif- ferent to other men's affliction, if they call thee a man art unworthy of the name." XI. A darwesh, whose prayers had a ready acceptance [with God], made his appearance at Baghdad. Hojaj Yusuf [a great tyrant] sent for him and said : Put up a good prayer for me. He prayed, O God ! take from him his life ! Hojaj said, For God's sake, what manner of prayer is this ? He answered : It is a salutary prayer for you, and for the whole sect of Mussulmans. " O mighty sir, thou oppressor of the feeble, how long can this violence remain marketable ? For what purpose came the sovereignty to thee? Thy death were preferable to thy tyrannising over mankind." XII. An unjust king asked a holy man, saying, What is more excellent than prayers ? He answered : For you to remain asleep till mid-day, that for this one interval you might not afflict mankind. " I saw a tyrant lying dormant at noon, and said, This is mischief, and is best lulled to sleep. It were better that such a reprobate were dead whose state of sleep is preferable to his being awake." XIII. I have heard of a king who had turned night into day in the midst of conviviality, and in the gaiety of SHAIKH SADL 93 intoxication was exclaiming, " I never was in this life happier than at this present moment, for I have no thought of evil or good, and care for nobody ! " A naked darvvesh, who had taken up his rest in the cold outside, answered, " O thou who in good fortune hast not thy equal in the world, I admit that thou hast no cause of care for thyself, but hast thou none for us ? " The king was pleased at this speech. He put a purse of a thousand dinars out at the window, and said : O darwesh ! hold up your skirt He replied, Where can 1 find a skirt, who have not a garment. The king was still more touched at the hardship of his condition, and adding an honorary dress to that donation, sent them out to him. The darwesh squandered all that ready cash within a few days, and falling again into distress, returned. " Money makes no stay in the hand of a religious independent ; neither does patience in a lover's heart, nor water in a sieve." At a time when the king had no thought about him they obtruded his case, and he took offence and turned away his face. And it is on such an occasion that men of prudence and experi- ence have remarked that it behoves us to guard against the wrath and fury of kings, whose noble thoughts are chiefly occupied with important affairs of state, and cannot endure the importunate clamours of the vulgar. " The bounty of the sovereign is forbid to him who does not watch a proper oppor- tunity. Till thou canst perceive a convenient time for obtruding an opinion, undermine not thy con- sequence by idle talk." The king said, Let this 94 SHAIKH SADL impudent beggar and spendthrift be beaten and driven away, who in a short time dissipated such a sum of money, for the treasury of the Beat-al-mal, or charity fund, is intended to afford mouthfuls to the poor, and not bellyfuls to the imps of the devil. " That fool who can illuminate the day with a camphorated taper, must soon feel a want of oil for his lamp at night." One of his discreet ministers said : O king, it were expedient to supply such people with their means of subsistence by instalments, that they may not squander their absolute necessaries ; but, with respect to what your majesty commanded as to coercion and prohibition, though it be correct, a party might impute it to parsimony. Nor does it moreover accord with the principles of the generous to encourage a man to hope for kindness and then overwhelm him with heart-breaking distrust : " Thou must not open upon thyself the door of covetousness ; and when opened, thou must not shut it with harshness. No- body will see the thirsty pilgrims crowding towards the shore of the briny ocean ; but men, birds, and reptiles will flock together wherever they can meet a fresh water fountain." XIV. One of the ancient kings was easy with the yeomanry in collecting his revenue, but hard on the soldiery in his issue of pay; and when a formidable enemy showed its face, these all turned their backs. SHAIKH SADL 95 " Whenever the king is remiss in paying his troops, the troops will relax in handling their arms. What bravery can he display in the ranks of battle whose hand is destitute of the means of living." One of those who had excused themselves was in some sort my intimate. I reproached him and said, He is base and ungrateful, mean and disreput- able who, on a trifling change of circumstances, can desert his old master and forget his obligation of many years' employment. He replied : Were I to speak out, I swear by generosity you would excuse me. Peradventure, my horse was without corn, and the housings of his saddle in pawn. And the prince who, through parsimony, withholds his army's pay cannot expect it to enter heartily upon his service. " Give money to the gallant soldier that he may be zealous in thy cause, for if he is stinted of his due he will go abroad for service. So long as a warrior is replenished with food he will fight valiantly, and when his belly is empty lie will run away sturdily? XV. One of the viziers was displaced, and withdrew into a fraternity of darweshes, whose blessed society made its impression upon him and afforded consola- tion to his mind. . The king was again favourably disposed towards him, and offered his reinstatement in office; but he consented not, and said, With the wise it is deemed preferable to be out of office than to remain in place. " Such as sat within the cell of 96 SHAIKH SADL retirement blunted the teeth of dogs, and shut the mouths of mankind ; they destroyed their writings, and broke their writing reeds, and escaped the lash and venom of the critics." The king answered: At all events I require a prudent and able man, who is capable of managing the state affairs of my kingdom. The ex-minister said: The criterion, O sire, of a wise and competent man is that he will not meddle with such like matters. " The homayi, or phoenix, is hon- oured above all other birds because it feeds on bones, and injures no living creature." A Tamsil, or application in point. They asked a Siyah-gosh, or lion-provider, Why do you choose the service of the lion? He answered: Because I subsist on the leavings of his prey, and am secure from the ill-will of my enemies under the asylum of his valour. They said : Now you have got within the shadow of his protection and admit a grateful sense of his bounty, why do you not approach more closely, that he may include you within the circle of select courtiers and number you among his chosen servants? He replied, I should not thus be safe from his violence. "Though a Guebre may keep his fire alight for a hundred years, if he fall once within its flame it will burn him. Procul d Jove, procul d fulmine. It on one occasion may chance that the courtier of the king's presence shall pick up a purse of gold, and the next that he shall lie shorter by the head. And philoso- phers have remarked, saying, It is incumbent on us to be constantly aware of the fickle dispositions of kings, who will one moment take offence at a salutation, and SHAIKH SADL 97 at another make an honorary dress the return for an act of rudeness ; and they have said, That to be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise. " Be wary, and preserve the state of thine own character, and leave sport and buffoonery to jesters and courtiers." XVI. One of my associates brought me a complaint of his perverse fortune, saying, I have small means and a large family, and cannot bear up with my load of poverty. Often has a thought crossed my mind, suggesting, Let me remove into another country, that in whatever way I can manage a livelihood none may be informed of my good or bad luck. " Often he went asleep hungry, and nobody was aware, saying, Who is he ? Often did his life hang upon his lip, and none lamented over him." On the other hand, I reflect on the exultation of my rivals, saying, They will scoff- ingly sneer behind my back, and impute my zeal in behalf of my family to a want of humanity. " Do but behold that graceless vagabond who can never witness the face of good fortune. He will consult the ease of his own person and abandon to distress his wife and children." And, as is known, I have some small skill in the science of accounts. If, through your respected interest, any office can be obtained that may be the means of quieting my mind, I shall not, during the remainder of life, be able to express my sense of its gratitude. 749 98 SHAIKH SADL I replied, O brother, the service of kings offers a twofold prospect a hope of maintenance and a fear for existence ; and it accords not with the counsel of the wise, under that expectation, to incur this risk. "No tax-gatherer will enter the darwesh's abode, saying, Pay me the rent of a field and orchard ; either put up with trouble and chagrin, or give thy heart- strings to the crows to pluck." He said, This speech is not made as applicable to my case, nor have you given me a categorical answer. Have you not heard what has been remarked, His hand will tremble on rendering his account who has been accessory to a dishonest act. " Righteousness will insure the divine favour ; I never met him going astray who took the righteous path." And philoso- phers have said, Four orders of people are mortally afraid of four others the revenue embezzler, of the king ; the thief, of the watchman ; the fornicator, of the eavesdropper ; and the adulteress, of the censor. But what has he to fear from the comptroller who has a fair set of account-books? "Be not extravagant and corrupt while in office if thou wishest that the malice of thy rival may be circumscribed on settling thy accounts. Be undefiled, O brother, in thy in- tegrity, and fear nobody ; washermen will beat only dirty clothes against a stone." I replied, The story of that fox suits your case, which they saw running away, stumbling and getting up. Somebody asked him, What calamity has hap- pened to put you in such a state of trepidation ? He said, I have heard that they are putting a camel in SHAIKH SADL 99 requisition. The other answered, O silly animal ! what connection has a camel with you, or what resemblance is there between you and it ? He said, Be silent ; for were the envious from malevolence to insist that this is a camel, and I should be seized for one, who would be so solicitous about me as to inquire into my case ? And before they can bring the anti- dote from Irac the person bitten by the snake may be dead. In like manner, you possess knowledge and integrity, discrimination and probity, yet spies lie in ambush, and informers lurk in corners, who, notwith- standing your moral rectitude, will note down the opposite ; and should you anyhow stand arraigned before the king, and occupy the place of his reprehen- sion, who in that state would step forward in your defence? Accordingly, I would advise that you should secure the kingdom of contentment, and give up all thoughts of preferment. As the wise have said : " The benefits of a sea voyage are innumerable ; but if thou seekest for safety, it is to be found only on shore." My friend listened to this speech ; he got into a passion, cavilled at my fable, and began to question it with warmth and asperity, saying, What wisdom or propriety, good sense or morality, is there in this? Here is verified that maxim of the sage, which tells us they are friends alone that can serve us in a jail, for all our enemies may pretend friendship at our own table. " Esteem him not a friend who during thy prosperity will brag of his love and brotherly affection. I account him a friend who will take his ioo SHAIKH SADL friend by the hand when struggling with despair, and overwhelmed with misfortune." I perceived within myself, saying, He is disturbed, and listens to my advice with impatience ; and, having called upon the sahib diwan, or lord high treasurer, in virtue of a former intimacy that subsisted between us, I stated his case and spoke so fully upon his skill and merits, that he put him in nomination for a trifling office. After some time, having adverted to his kindly disposition and approved of his good management, his promotion was in train, and he got confirmed in a much higher station. Thus was the star of his good fortune in ascension, till it rose into the zenith of ambition ; and he became the favourite of his majesty the king, towards whom all turned for counsel, and upon whom all eyes rested their hopes ! I rejoiced at this prosperous change of his affairs, and said: "Repine not at thy bankrupt circumstances, nor let thy heart despond, for the fountain of immortality has its source of chaos. Take heed, O brother in affliction / and be not disheartened, for God has in store many hidden mercies. Sit not down soured at the revolutions of the times, for patience is bitter, yet it will yield sweet fruit." At that juncture I happened to accompany a party of friends on a journey to Hijaz, or Arabia Petraea. On my return from the pilgrimage to Mecca, he came out two stages to meet me. I perceived that his outward plight was wretched, and his garb that of darweshes. I asked, How is this ? He replied, Just as you said, a faction bore me a grudge and charged SHAIKH SADI. 101 me with malpractices ; and the king, be his reign eternal, would not investigate the truth of that charge, and my old and best friends stood aloof from my defence, and overlooked my claims on our former acquaintance. " When, through an act of God, a man has fallen, the whole world will put their feet upon his neck ; when they see that fortune has taken him by the hand, they will put their hands upon their breasts, and be loud in his praise." In short, I under- went all manner of persecution till within this week, that the tidings of the safe return of the pilgrims reached us, when I got a release from my heavy durance and a confiscation of my hereditary tene- ments. I said, At that time you did not listen to my admonition, when I warned you that the service of princes is, like a voyage at sea, profitable but hazard- ous : you either get a treasure or perish miserably. " The merchant gains the shore with gold in both his hands, or a wave will one day leave him dead on its beach." Not deeming it generous any further to irritate a poor man's wound with the asperity of reproach, or to sprinkle his sore with the salt of harsh words, I made a summary conclusion in these two verses, and said : " Wert thou not aware that thou shouldst find fetters on thy feet when thou wouldst not listen to the generous man's counsel. Thrust not again thy finger into a scorpion's hole till thou canst endure the pain of its sting." XVII. I was the companion of a holy fraternity, whose loa SHAIKH SADI. manners were correct from piety, and minds dis- ciplined from probity. An eminent prince entertained a high and respectful opinion of the worth of this brotherhood, and had assigned it an endowment Perhaps one of them committed an act unworthy of the character of darweshes ; for the good opinion of that personage was forfeited, and the market of their support shut I wished that I could by any means re-establish the maintenance of my friends, and attempted to wait on the great man ; but his porter opposed my entrance, and turned me away with rudeness. I excused him conformably with what the witty have said : " Till thou canst take an introduc- tion along with thee approach not the gate of a prince, vizier, or lord ; for the dog and the door- keeper, on espying a beggar, will the one seize his skirt and the other his collar." When the favourite attendants of that great man were aware of my situation, they ushered me into his presence with respect, and offered me the highest seat ; but in humility I took the lowest, and said : " Per- mit that I, the slave of the abject, should seat myself on a level with servants." The great man answered, My God, my God ! what room is there for this speech ? " Wert thou to seat thyself upon the pupil of mine eye, I would court thy dalliance, for thou art lovely." In short, I took my seat, and entered upon a variety of topics, till the indiscretion of my friends was brought upon the carpet, when I said : " What fault did the lord of past munificence remark, that his SHAIKH SADL 103 servant should seem so contemptible in his sight Individually with God is the perfection of majesty and goodness, who can discern our failings and con- tinue to us his support." When the prince heard this sentiment he subscribed to its omnipotence; and, with regard to the stipendiary allowance of my friends, he ordered its continuance as heretofore, and a faithful discharge of all arrears. I thanked him for his generosity, kissed the dust of obeisance, apologised for my boldness, and at the moment of taking my leave, added: "When the fane of the Cablah, at Mecca, became their object from a far-distant land, pilgrims would hurry on to visit it for many farsangs. It behoves thee to put up with such as we are, for nobody will throw a stone at a tree that bears no fruit." XVIII. A prince inherited immense riches by succeeding to his father. He opened the hand of liberality, displayed his munificence, and bestowed innumerable gifts upon his troops and people. " The brain will not be perfumed by a censer of green aloes wood, place it over the fire that it may diffuse fragrance like ambergris. If ambitious of a great name, make a practice of munificence, for the crop will not shoot till thou shalt sow the seed." A narrow-minded courtier began to admonish him, saying, Verily, former sovereigns have collected this wealth with scrupulosity and stored it advisedly. Check your hand in this waste, for accidents wait io4 SHAIKH SADL ahead, and foes lurk behind. God forbid that you should want it on a day of need. " Wert thou to distribute the contents of a granary among the people, every master of a family might receive a grain of rice ; why not exact a grain of silver from each, that thou mightest daily hoard a chamber full of treasure ? " The prince turned his face aside from this speech, so contrary to his own lofty sentiments, and harshly reprimanded him, saying, A great and glorious God made me sovereign of this property, that I might enjoy and spend it ; and posted me not a sentinel, to hoard and watch over it. " Carown perished, who possessed forty magazines of treasure ; Nushirowan died not, who left behind him a fair reputation." XIX. They have related that at a hunting seat they were roasting some game for Nushirowan, and as there was no salt they were despatching a servant to the village to fetch some. Nushirowan called to him, saying, Take it at its fair price, and not by force, lest a bad precedent be established and the village desolated. They asked, What damage can ensue from this trifle? He answered, Originally, the basis of oppression in this world was small, and every new- comer added to it, till it reached to its present extent : "Let the monarch eat but one apple from a peasant's orchard, and his guards, or slaves, will pull up the tree by its root From the plunder of five eggs, that SHAIKH SADI. 105 the king shall sanction, his troops will stick a thousand fowls on their spits." XX. I have heard of a revenue-collector who would distrain the huts of the peasantry, that he might enrich the treasury of the sovereign, regardless of that maxim of the wise, who have said, Whoever can offend the Most High, that he may gain the heart of a fellow-creature, God on high will instigate that creature against him, till he dig out the foundation of his fortune : " That crackling in the flame is not caused by burning rue, but it is the sigh of the afflicted that occasions it" They say, Of all animals the lion is the chief; and of beasts the ass is the meanest ; yet, with the con- currence of the wise, the burthen-bearing ass is preferable to the man-devouring lion. " The poor ass, though devoid of understanding, will be held precious when carrying a burthen ; oxen and asses that carry loads are preferable to men that injure their fellow-creatures." The king had reported to him a part of his nefarious conduct He put him to the rack, and tortured him to death. " Thou canst not obtain the sovereign's approbation till thou make sure of the good-will of his people. Wishest thou that God shall be bountiful to thee, be thou good thyself to the creatures of God." One who had suffered from his oppression passed 106 SHAIKH SADL him at the time of his execution, and said : " It is not every man that may have the strong arm of high station, that can in his government take an im- moderate freedom with the subjects' property. It is possible to cram a bone down the throat, but when it sticks at the navel it will burst open the belly." XXI. They tell a story of an evil-disposed person who struck a pious good man on the head with a stone. Having no power of revenge, the darwesh was keeping the stone by him till an occasion when the sovereign let loose the army of his wrath, and cast him into a dungeon. The poor man went up and flung that stone at his head. The person spoke to him, saying, Who are you, and why did you throw this stone at my head ? He answered, I am that poor man, and this is the same stone that you on a certain occasion flung at my head. He said, Where have you been all this time ? The poor man answered, I stood in awe of your high station, but now that I found you in a dungeon, I availed myself of the opportunity, as they have said " Whilst they saw the worthless man in prosperity, the wise thought proper to show him respect. Now thou hast not sharp and tearing nails, it is prudent for thee to defer to engage with the wicked. Whoever grappled with a steel-armed wrist exposed his own silver arm to torture. Wait till fortune can manacle his hands, SHAIKH SADL 107 then beat out his brains to the satisfaction of thy friends." XXII. A king of Khorasan was afflicted with so shocking a distemper that it is better not to enter upon its pathology. A body of Greek physicians agreed that there was in fact no other remedy for this disease but the gall of a person whom they identified under a certain temperament. The king ordered that they would make inquiry, and they discovered a peasant's son who answered that description which the faculty had specified. He called his father and mother, and secured their consent by giving them a large present. The Cazy issued a death-warrant, stating, It is lawful to shed a subject's blood in order to restore health to the sovereign ; and the executioner stood ready to carry the sentence into effect The youth cast his eyes up to heaven, and, smiling the while, was mutter- ing something between his teeth. The king asked, saying, In this situation what room is there for smiling ? He replied, Children look to their parents to caress them ; their wrongs they refer to the Cazy to redress them, and from the sovereign they expect justice. Now that my father and mother, for vain and worldly considerations, have consigned me to death, the judge, by his warrant, has sanctioned my execution, and the king looks for his own safety in my destruction, I can have no refuge but with God on high. " Before whom can I raise the hand of io8 SHAIKH SADL complaint against thee; at thy hand am I to seek justice against thee ? " The king's heart was touched at this speech, and the tears stood collected in his eyes. He said, My death were preferable to shedding the blood of one so innocent Then he kissed his head and eyes, took him in his arms, gave him immense presents, and set him at liberty. They have related that within that week the king was cured of his complaint. "As applicable to which is that stanza of mine, which an elephant-driver rehearsed on the bank of the river Nile. If thou knowest not the ant's state under thy foot, it is like thine own as trampled on by an elephant." XXIII. One of King Umraw-layas's slaves had absconded, and people that went after him brought him back. The vizier, who had a dislike to him, used his interest to have him put to death, that the other slaves [as he pretended] might not commit the same offence. The poor slave fell at Umraw-layas's feet, and said : " Whatever may befall me, if thou approve of it, it is so far proper. What plea can a vassal offer against his lord and master's decree ? " Nevertheless, inasmuch as I am the nurtured gift of this house, I could not wish that on the last day's reckoning my blood should stand charged to your account. If, at all events, you are resolved to put this your slave to death, let it be done with a plea of legality, that you may not be censured at the day of resurrection. The king asked, SHAIKH SADL 109 How can I set up a legal plea ? He replied, Issue your command that I may kill the vizier, then give an order to put me to death in retaliation for him, that you may kill me according to law ! The king smiled and asked the vizier, What is your advice in this case ? The vizier said, O sovereign of the world ! I beg, for the sake of God, that you will manumit this audacious fellow as a propitiation at the tomb of your forefathers, lest he also involve me in calamity. The fault was on my side, in not doing justice to the saying of the wise, who have warned us : " When thou didst enter the lists with a practised slinger, in thy want of skill thou exposedst thine own head to be broken. When thou didst discharge thine arrow at thy antagonist's face thou shouldst have been upon thy guard, for thou hadst become his butt." XXIV. King Zuzan had a minister of a generous spirit and kindly disposition, who was polite to all persons while present, and spoke well of them when absent One of his acts happened to displease the king, who put him under stoppages, and in rigorous confinement. The officers of the crown were sensible of his former benefits, and pledged to show their gratitude of them. Accordingly, whilst under their charge, they treated him with courtesy and benevolence, and would not use any coercion or violence: "If thou desirest to remain at peace with a rival, whenever he slanders thee behind thy back speak well of him to his face. no SHAIKH SADL The perverse man cavils for the last word ; unless thou preferest his bitter remarks, make his mouth sweet." Of the charge against him at the king's exchequer part had been adjusted according to its settlement, and he remained in durance for the balance. A bordering prince sent him underhand a letter, stating, The sovereign of that quarter has not appreciated such worth, nay, has dishonoured it, and with us it bore a heavy price. If the precious mind of a certain personage, may God facilitate his deliverance, will incline favourably towards us, every possible exertion shall be made to conciliate his good-will, and the cabinet ministers of this kingdom are exulting in the prospect of seeing him, and anxious for the answer of this letter. The minister made himself master of the contents. He pondered on the danger, wrote such a brief answer as seemed discreet upon the back of the letter, and returned it. One of the hangers-on at court had notice of this circumstance. He apprised the king, saying, A certain person whom you have put in confinement is corresponding with a neigh- bouring prince. The king was wroth, and ordered an investigation of this intelligence. The messenger was seized, and letter read. On the back of it he had written, stating, The good opinion of his majesty exceeds the merits of this slave ; but the honoured approbation he has bestowed upon a servant cannot possibly have his consent, for he is the fostered gift of this house, and he cannot on a trifling change of affection betray his ancient benefactor and patron. SHAIKH SAD I. in " Though once in his life he may grate thee with harshness, excuse him who on every occasion else has soothed thee with kindness." The king com- mended his fidelity, bestowed on him an honorary dress and largess, and made his excuses, saying, I was to blame, that could do you an injury. He replied, In this instance, my lord, your servant sees no blame that attaches to you ; but such was the ordination of God, ivhose name was glorified, that this your devoted slave should verily be overtaken with a calamity. Accordingly, it is more tolerable at the hand of you, who possess the rights of past good, and have claims of gratitude on this servant: "Be not offended with mankind should any mischief assail thee, for neither pleasure nor pain originate with thy fellow-being. Know that the contrariety of foe and friend proceeds from God, and that the hearts of both are at his disposal. Though the arrow may seem to issue from the bow, the intelligent can see that the archer gave it its aim." XXV. I have heard that one of the kings of Arabia directed the officers of his treasury, saying, You will double a certain person's salary, whatever it may be, for he is constant in attendance and ready for orders, while the other courtiers are diverted by play, and negligent of their duty. A good and holy man overheard this, and heaved a sigh and groan from the bottom of his bosom. They asked, saying, What ii2 SHAIKH SADL vision did you see? He replied, The exalted man- sions of his devoted servants will be after this manner portioned out at the judgment-seat of a Most High and Mighty Deity ! " If for two mornings a person is assiduous about the person of the king, on the third he will in some shape regard him with affection. The sincerely devout exist in the hope that they shall not depart disappointed from God's threshold. The rank of a prince is the reward of obedience. Dis- obedience to command is a proof of rejection. Whoever has the aspect of the upright and good will lay the face of duty at this threshold." XXVI. They tell a story of a tyrant who bought fire-wood from the poor at a low price, and sold it to the rich at an advance. A good and holy man went up to him and said, " Thou art a snake, who bitest everybody thou seest ; or an owl, who diggest up and makest a ruin of the place where thou sittest : Although thy injustice may pass unpunished among us, it cannot escape God, the knower of secrets. Be not unjust with the people of this earth, that their complaints may not rise up to heaven." They say the unjust man was offended at his words, turned aside his face, and showed him no civility, as they have expressed it [in the Koran] : He, the glorified God, overtook him amidst his sins : till one night, when the fire of his kitchen fell upon the stack of wood, consumed all his property, and laid him SHAIKH SAD I. 113 from the bed of voluptuousness upon the ashes of hell torments. That good and holy man happened to be passing and observed him that he was remarking to his friends, I cannot fancy whence this fire fell upon my dwelling. He said, From the smoke of the hearts of the poor ! " Guard against the smoke of the sore- afflicted heart, for an inside sore will at last gather into a head. Give nobody's heart pain so long as thou canst avoid it, for one sigh may set a whole world into a flame." They have related that tJiese verses were inscribed in golden letters upon Kai-khosraw 's crown : " How many years, and what a continuance of ages, that mankind shall on this earth walk over my head. As the kingdom came to me from hand to hand, so it shall pass into the hands of others." XXVII. A person had become a master in the art of wrest- ling ; he knew three hundred and sixty sleights in this art, and could exhibit a fresh trick for every day throughout the year. Perhaps owing to a liking that a corner of his heart took for the handsome person of one of his scholars, he taught him three hundred and fifty-nine of those feats, but he was putting off the instruction of one, and under some pretence deferring it. In short the youth became such a proficient in the art and talent of wrestling that none of his contem- poraries had ability to cope with him, till he at length 75 ii 4 SHAIKH SAD I. had one day boasted before the reigning sovereign, saying, To any superiority my master possesses over me, he is beholden to my reverence of his seniority, and in virtue of his tutorage ; otherwise I am not inferior in power, and am his equal in skill. This want of respect displeased the king. He ordered a wrestling match to be held, and a spacious field to be fenced in for the occasion. The ministers of state, nobles of the court, and gallant men of the realm were assembled, and the ceremonials of the combat marshalled. Like a huge and lusty elephant, the youth rushed into the ring with such a crash that had a brazen mountain opposed him he would have moved it from its base. The master being aware that the youth was his superior in strength, engaged him in that strange feat of which he had kept him ignorant. The youth was unacquainted with its guard. Advanc- ing, nevertheless, the master seized him with both hands, and, lifting him bodily from the ground, raised him above his head and flung him on the earth. The crowd set up a shout The king ordered them to give the master an honorary dress and handsome largess, and the youth he addressed with reproach and asperity, saying, You played the traitor with your own patron, and failed in your presumption of oppos- ing him. He replied, O sire ! my master did not overcome me by strength and ability, but one cunning trick in the art of wrestling was left which he was reserved in teaching me, and by that little feat had to- day the upper hand of me. The master said, I reserved myself for such a day as this. As the wise have told SHAIKH SADL 115 us, Put it not so much into a friend's power that, if hostilely disposed, he can do you an injury. Have you not heard what that man said who was treacher- ously dealt with by his own pupil : " Either in fact there was no good faith in this world, or nobody has perhaps practised it in our days. No person learned the art of archery from me who did not in the end make me his butt" XXVIII. A solitary darwesh had taken up his station at the corner of a desert A king was passing by him. Inasmuch as contentment is the enjoyment of a kingdom, the darwesh did not raise his head, nor show him the least mark of attention ; and, inasmuch as sovereignty is regal pomp, the king took offence, and said, The tribe of ragged mendicants resemble brute beasts, and have neither grace nor good man- ners. The vizier stepped up to him, and said : O generous man ! the sovereign of the universe has passed by you ; why did you not do him homage, and discharge the duty of obeisance ? He answered and said, Speak to your sovereign, saying : Expect service from that person who will court your favour ; let him moreover know that kings are meant for the protection of the people, and not the people for the subjects of kings. " Though it be for their benefit that his glory is exalted, yet is the king but the shepherd of the poor. The sheep are not intended for the service of the shepherd, but the shepherd is appointed to tend the sheep. To-day thou mayest observe one man n6 SHAIKH SAD I. proud from prosperity, another with a heart sore from adversity ; have patience for a few days till the dust of the grave can consume the brain of that vain and foolish head. When the record of destiny came to take effect, the distinction of liege and subject dis- appeared. Were a person to turn up the dust of the defunct, he could not distinguish that of the rich man from the poor." These sayings made a strong impression upon the king ; he said : Ask me for something. He replied : What I desire is, that you will not trouble me again ! The king said, Favour me with a piece of advice. He answered : " Attend to them now that the good things of this life are in thy hands ; for wealth and dominion are passing from one hand into another." XXIX. One of the king's ministers went to Zu-an-nun (Jonah), the Egyptian, and asked his blessing, saying, Day and night I am occupied in the service of my prince, hoping for his favour and dreading his dis- pleasure. Zu-an-nun wept and answered: Had I feared the most high God as you have feared the king, I should have been among the number of elect! " Were there not the hope of reward and punishment hereafter, the foot of the darwesh had stept into the celestial sphere. Had the vizier stood in the same awe of God that he did of the king, he might have been an angel of heaven." SHAIKH SADL 1 1 7 XXX. A king ordered an innocent person to be put to death. The man said, Seek not your own hurt by venting any anger you may entertain against me. The king asked, How ? He replied, The pain of this punishment will continue with me for a moment, but the sin of it will endure with you for ever. " The period of this life passes by like the wind of the desert. Joy and sorrow, beauty and deformity, equally pass away. The tyrant vainly thought that he did me an injury, but round his neck it clung and passed over me." The king profited by this advice, spared his life, and asked his forgiveness. XXXI. The cabinet ministers of Nushirowan were debating an important affair of state, and each delivered his opinion according to the best of his judgment. In like manner the king also delivered his sentiments, and Abu-zarchamahr, the prime minister, accorded in opinion with him. The other ministers whispered him, saying, What did you see superior in the king's opinion that you preferred it to the judgment of so many wise heads ? He replied : Because the event is doubtful, and the opinion of all rests in the pleasure of the most high God whether it shall be right or wrong. Accordingly it is safer to conform with the judgment n8 SHAIKH SADI. of the king, because if that shall prove wrong, our obsequiousness to his will shall secure us from his displeasure. " To sport an opinion contrary to the judgment of the king were to wash our hands in our own blood. Were he verily to say this day is night, it would behove us to reply : Lo ! there are the moon and seven stars." XXXII. An impostor plaited his hair and spake, saying, I am a descendant of AH ; and he entered the city along with the caravan from Hijaz, saying, I come a pilgrim from Mecca ; and he presented a Casidah or elegy to the king, saying, I have composed it ! The king gave him money, treated him with respect, and ordered him to be shown much flattering attention ; till one of the courtiers, who had that day returned from a voyage at sea, said, I saw him on the Eeduzha, or anniversary of sacrifice at Busrah; how then can he be a Haji, or pilgrim? Another said, Now I recollect him, his father was a Christian at Malatiyah (Malta) ; how then can he be a descendant of AH ? And they discovered his verses in the diwan of Anwari. The king ordered that they should beat and drive him away, saying, How came you to utter so many falsehoods ? He replied, O sovereign of the universe ! I will utter one speech more, and if that may not prove true, I shall deserve whatever punish- ment you may command. The king asked, What may that be ? He said : " If a peasant bring thee a cup of junket, two measures of it will be water and SHAIKH SAD I. 119 one spoonful of it buttermilk. If thy slave spake idly be not offended, for great travellers deal most in the marvellous ! " The king smiled and replied, You never in your life spake a truer word. He directed them to gratify his expectations, and he departed happy and content XXXIII. They have related that one of the viziers would compassionate the weak and meditate the good of everybody. He happened to fall under the royal displeasure, and they all strove to obtain his release. Such as had him in custody were indulgent in their restraint, and his fellow-grandees were loud in pro- claiming his virtues, till the king pardoned his fault. A good and holy man was apprised of these events, and said : " In order to conciliate the good-will of friends, it were better to sell our patrimonial garden ; in order to boil the pot of well-wishers, it were good to convert our household furniture into fire- wood. Do good even to the wicked ; it is as well to shut a dog's mouth with a crumb." XXXIV. One of Harun-ar-rashid's children went up to his father in a passion, saying, A certain officer's son has abused me in my mother's name. Harun asked his ministers, What ought to be such a person's punish- ment ? One made a sign to have him put to death ; another to have his tongue cut out ; and a third, to 120 SHAIKH SADL have him fined and banished. Harun said : O my child ! it were generous to forgive him ; but if you have not resolution to do that, do you abuse his mother in return, yet not to such a degree as to exceed the bounds of retaliation, for in that case the injury would be on our part, and the complaint on that of the antagonist. " In the opinion of the prudent he is no hero that can dare to combat a furious elephant ; but that man is in truth a hero who, when provoked to anger, will not speak intern per ately. A cross-grained fellow abused a certain person ; he bore it patiently, and said, O well-disposed man ! I am still more wicked than thou art calling me ; for 1 know my defects better than thou canst know them." XXXV. I was seated in a vessel along with some persons of distinction, when a boat sunk astern of us and two brothers were drawn into the whirlpool. One of our gentlemen called to the pilot, saying, Save those two drowning men and I will give you a hundred dinars. The pilot went and rescued one of them, but the other perished. I observed, That man's time was come, therefore you were tardy in assisting him, and alert in saving this other. The pilot smiled, and replied, What you say is the essence of inevitable necessity; yet was my zeal more hearty in rescuing this one, because on an occasion when I was tired in the desert he set me on a camel ; whereas, when a boy, I had received a horsewhipping from that other. SHAIKH SADL 121 God Almighty was all justice and equity: whoever laboured imto good experienced good in himself ; and Jie who toiled unto evil experienced evil. " So long as thou art able grate nobody's heart, for in this path there must be thorns. Expedite the concerns of the poor and needy ; for thy own concerns may need to be expedited." XXXVI. There were two brothers in Egypt, one of whom served the king, and the other ate the bread of his own industry. On one occasion the rich man said to his poor brother, Why do you not serve the king, that you may relieve yourself from the hardship of labour? He replied, Why do you not engage in business, that you may release yourself from the ignominy of service ? As philosophers have said : To eat barley- bread and sit at our own ease, is more creditable than to wear a golden girdle and stand up in service. " To use the hands in making quicklime into mortar is better than to cross them on the breast in attendance on a prince. My precious life was wasted in the thought of what I must eat in the summer, and wear in the winter. Be content, O ignoble belly ! with a crust of bread, that thou mayest not bend thy back double in servitude." XXXVII. A person announced to Nushirowan the Just, saying, I have heard that God, glorious and great, has removed from this world a certain man who was 122 SHAIKH SAD I. your enemy. He said, Have you had any intelli- gence that he has overlooked me ? " In the death of a rival I have no room for exultation, since my life also is not to last for ever." XXXVIII. At the court of Kisra, or Nushirowan, a cabinet council were debating some state affair. Abuzar- chamahr, who sat as president, was silent They asked him, Why do you not join us in this discussion ? He replied, Such ministers of state are like physicians, and a physician will prescribe a medicine only to a sick man ; accordingly, so long as I see that your opinions are judicious, it were ill-judged in me to obtrude a word. " While business can proceed with- out my interference, it does not behove me to speak on the subject ; but were I to see a blind man walking into a pit, I would be much to blame if I remained silent" XXXIX. When he reduced the kingdom of Misr, or Egypt, to obedience, Harun-ar-rashid said, In contempt of that impious rebel [Pharaoh], who, in his pride of the sovereignty of Egypt, boasted a divinity, I will bestow its government only on the vilest of my slaves. He had a negro bondsman, called Khosayib, preciously stupid, and him he appointed to rule over Egypt. They tell us that his judgment and under- standing were such, that when a body of farmers SHAIKH SADL 123 complained to him, saying, We had planted some cotton shrubs on the banks of the Nile, and the rains came unseasonably, and swept them all away ; he replied, You ought to sow wool, that it might not be swept away ! A good and holy man heard this, and said : " Were our fortune to be increased in proportion to our knowledge, none could be scantier than the share of the fool ; but fortune will bestow such wealth upon the ignorant as shall astonish a hundred of the learned. Power and fortune depend not on know- ledge, they are obtained only through the aid of heaven ; for it has often happened in this world that the illiterate are honoured, and the wise held in scorn. The fool in his idleness found a treasure under a ruin ; the chemist, or projector, fell the victim of disappointment and chagrin." XI* [This Apologue is partly omitted.} They took a damsel of China to a king. In a state of intoxication . . . and passion he forced her upon a negro, whose upper lip projected along the sides of his nose, and the lower one doubled down upon his chin. He had such a hideous appearance that the demon Sakhr would have been terrified at seeing him, and fountains of liquid pitch trickled from his arm-pits. " Thou mayest affirm that, till the end of time, beauty and deformity had their extreme in Joseph and him. He was not a person who had such 124 SHAIKH SADL a sort of forbidding aspect that any words could describe his ugliness. God deliver us from the noisomeness of his arm-pits ; it was a carcase welter- ing in a dog-day sun." The negro was at that juncture the slave of his libidinous and carnal appetites : he gave way to his lust, and deflowered the damsel. In the morning the king sought after but did not find her. They informed him what had happened. He got furious, and ordered that they should bind the negro and damsel hand and foot, and precipitate them together from the pinnacle of the castle to the bottom of the moat. One of his ministers, and a man of benevo- lence, laid the face of intercession on the earth, and said : Let the universe accord with the wishes of his majesty, and let fortune and dominion be his hand- maids. In this instance, the negro was not in fault ; for all the servants and dependants about the court are accustomed to the bounty and munificence of his highness. He replied : Had he restrained his passion for one night, what would have been his loss, for I would in her room have given him a more precious bondswoman ? He said : O my lord ! have you not heard what the witty have remarked " When a person parched with thirst reaches a clear and limpid fountain, fancy not that he would regard a furious elephant. A hungry infidel, or hypocrite, alone in a house replenished with food, would not have the grace to think that it was Ramazan, or the Moham- medan month of Lent." The king was pleased at this jest. He replied, The SHATKH SAD I. 125 V negro I bestow upon you ; now what am I to do with the damsel ? He said, Give her to the negro, for it is meet that a dog should eat the leavings of a dog. " Never approve of her as a mistress who can go a wandering into forbidden places. The heart of the thirsty can never be brought to relish sweet water that has passed the lip of a stinkard. Now the orange is soiled by having fallen in the mire, how can it again grace the hand of a king ? how can the heart of the parched wish for the drink where the cup has been in contact with a mouth offensive in its breath ? " XLI. They asked Sikander Rumi, or Alexander the Greek, saying, How came you to conquer the regions of the east and west, when former monarchs exceeded you in years and treasures, in dominion and power, and none of them gained such easy victories? He answered, Whatever kingdom I subdued, through the grace of a most high God, I never oppressed its people, nor took the names of its kings, unless in good part " Men of sense esteem him not magnani- mous who can speak disrespectfully of the mighty and great A throne and dominion, command and prohibition, conquest and triumph, all these are vanity and folly once they are gone by. Traduce not the fame of such as went before, that thy fair name may remain as a memorial of thee." CHAPTER II. OF THE MORALS OF DARWESHES. A PERSON of distinction asked a parsa, or devout and holy man, saying, What do you offer in justi- fication of a certain abid, another species of Moham- medan monk, whose character others have been so ready to question ? He replied : In his outward behaviour I see nothing to blame, and with the secrets of his heart I claim no acquaintance. " Whomsoever thou seest in a parsa's habit, con- sider him a parsa, or holy, and esteem him as a good man ; and if thou knowest not what is passing in his mind, what business has the mohtasib, or censor, with the inside of the house ? " II. I saw a darwesh who, having laid his head at the fane of the Cabah of Mecca, was complaining and saying, O gracious, O merciful God ! thou knowest what can proceed from the sinful and ignorant that may be worthy of thy acceptance ! " I brought my SHAIKH SAD I. 127 excuse of imperfect performance, for I have no claim on the score of obedience. The wicked repent them of their sins; such as know God confess a deficiency of worship." Abids, or the pious, seek a reward of their devo- tion, merchants a profit on their traffic. I, a devoted servant, have brought hope, not obedience, and have come as a beggar, and not for lucre ! Do unto me vvhat is worthy of thyself ; but deal not with me as I myself have deserved. " Whether thou wilt slay me or pardon my offence, my head and face are prostrate at thy threshold. Thy servant has no will of his own ; whatever thou commandest, that he will perform. At the door of the Cabah I saw a petitioner, who was praying and weeping bitterly. I ask not, saying, Approve of my obedience, but draw the pen of forgiveness across my sins," III. Within the sanctuary of the Cabah, at Mecca, I saw Abd-u'1-cadur the Gilani, who having laid his face upon the Hasa, or black stone, was saying, Spare and pardon me, O God ! and if, at all events, I am doomed to punishment, raise me up at the day of resurrection blindfolded, that I may not be put to shame in the eyes of the righteous. " Every morning when the day begins to dawn, with my face in the dust of humility, I am saying, O thou, whom I never can forget, dost thou ever bestow a thought on thy servant ? " 128 SHAIKH SAD I. IV. A thief got into a holy man's cell ; but however much he searched, he could find nothing to steal, and was going away disappointed. The good soul was aware of what was passing, and taking up the rug on which he had slept, he put it in his way that he might not miss his object. " I have heard that the heroes on the path of God will not distress the hearts of their enemies. How canst thou attain this dignified station who art at strife and warfare with thy friends ? " The loving-kindness of the righteous, whether before your face or behind your back, is not such that they will censure you when absent, and offer to die for you when present. " Face to face meek as a lamb, behind your back like a man-devouring wolf. Whoever brings you, and sums up the faults of others, will doubtless expose your defects to them." V. Some travelling mendicants had agreed to club in a body and participate in the cares and comforts of society. I expressed a wish that I might be one of the party, but they refused to admit me. I said : It is rare and inconsistent with the generous disposi- tions of darweshes to turn their faces from a good- fellowship with the poor, and to deny them its benefits, for on my part I feel such a zeal and SHAIKH SADL 129 good-will, that in the service of the liberal I am likely to prove rather an active associate than a grievous load. " Though not one of those who are mounted on the camels, I will do my best, tfiat I may carry their saddle-cloths" One of them answered and said : Be not offended at what you have heard, for some days back a thief joined us in the garb of a darwesh, and strung him- self upon the cord of our acquaintance. " How can people know what he is that wears that dress. The writer can alone tell the contents of the letter." In consequence of that reverence in which the darwesh character is held, they did not think of his profligacy, and admitted him into their society. " The outward character of the holy is a patched cloak ; this much is sufficient, that it has a threadbare hood. Be industrious in thy calling, and wear whatever dress thou choosest Put a diadem on thy head, and bear a standard on thy shoulder. Holiness does not consist in a coarse frock. Let a zahid, or holy man, be truly pious, and he may dress in satin. Sanctity is not merely a change of dress ; it is an abandon- ment of the world, its pomp and vanity. It requires a hero to wear a coat of mail, for what would it profit to dress an hermaphrodite, or coward, in a suit of armour ? " In short we had one day travelled till dark, and at night composed ourselves for sleep under the wall of a castle. That graceless thief took up his neigh- bour's ewer, saying, I am going to my ablutions ; and he was setting out for plunder. " Behold a 751 130 SHAIKH SADL religious man, who threw a patched cloak over his shoulders ; he made the covering of the Cabah the housing of an ass." So soon as he got out of the sight of the darweshes, he scaled a bastion of the fort and stole a casket. Before break of day that gloomy- minded robber had got a great way off, and left his innocent companions asleep. In the morning they were all carried into the citadel, and thrown into a dungeon. From that time we have declined any addition to our party, and kept apart to ourselves, for there is safety in unity, but danger in duality or a multitude. " When an individual of a sect committed an act of folly, the high and the low sunk in their dignity. Dost thou not see that one ox in a pasturage will cast a slur upon all the oxen of the village ? " I said: Let there be thanksgiving to a Deity of majesty and glory that I am not forbid the benefits of darweshes, notwithstanding I am in appearance excluded from their society ; and I am instructed by this narration, and others like me may profit by its moral during their remaining lives. " From one indiscreet person in an assembly a host of the prudent may get hurt If they fill a cistern to the brim with rose-water, and let a dog fall into it, the whole will be contaminated." VI. A Zahid was the guest of a king. When he sat down at table he ate more sparingly from that than SHAIKH SADL 131 his appetite inclined him, and when he stood up at prayers he continued longer at them than it was his custom ; that they might form a high opinion of his sanctity. " I fear, O Arab ! that thou wilt not reach the Cabah ; for the road that thou art taking leads to Turkistan, or the region of infidels." When he returned home he ordered the table to be spread that he might eat. His son was a youth of a shrewd understanding. He said : O father, perhaps you ate little or nothing at the feast of the king? He answered, In his presence I ate scarce anything that could answer its purpose ! Then retorted the boy, Repeat also your prayers, that nothing be omitted that can serve a purpose. " Yes, thy virtues thou hast exposed in the palm of thy hand, thy vices thou hast hid under thy arm-pit Take heed, O hypocrite, what thou wilt be able to purchase with this base money on the day of need or day of judgment." VII. I remember that in my early youth I was overmuch religious and vigilant, and scrupulously pious and abstinent. One night I sat up in attendance on my father, on whom be God's mercy, never once closed my eyes during the whole night, and held the precious Koran open on my lap, while the company around us were fast asleep. I said to my father : Not an indi- vidual of these will raise his head that he may perform his genuflections, or ritual of prayer ; but they are all so sound asleep, that you might conclude they were 1 3 2 SHAIKH SAD I. dead. He replied : O emanation of your father, you had also better have slept than that you should thus calumniate the failings of mankind. " The braggart can discern only his own precious person ; he will draw the veil of conceit all around him. Were fortune to bestow upon him God's all-searching eye, he would find nobody weaker than himself." VIII. In a company they were extolling a gentleman of distinction and magnifying his splendid virtues. He raised his head, and said, I am such as I know I am ! "It suffices with thee, O sir, that summest up my good works, as they appear outwardly, but thou knowest not the secrets of my heart" " In the eyes of mankind my outward person is a goodly object ; but my head hung down in shame at the deformity of my mind. People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet." IX. One of the holy men of Mount Lebanon, whose discourses were esteemed, and his miracles renowned throughout the regions of Arabia, entered the metro- politan mosque at Damascus ; and was performing his ablutions by the reservoir at the well, when, his foot slipping, he fell into the cistern, and extricated himself from it with considerable difficulty. After they had finished their prayers one of his companions SHAIKH SAD I. 133 said : A point of some perplexity offers itself, which with your leave, I will state. The holy man asked, What is it ? He said : I can recollect that the Shaikh, or his reverence, would walk on the surface of the western ocean, and not wet his foot. How came it to-day that, in this scarcely a man's depth of water, you were all but drowned ? what does this mean ? The holy man dropped his 'head on the bosom of reflection, and after some profound thought raised it, and answered, Have you not heard what that prince of the universe, Mohammed Mustofa, upon whom be God's blessing and 'peace \ said : There is a time when I am with God; and he will not show the favour he does me to the angels of his affection and prophets of his revelation. But he did not say it is always so. On one occasion that he described, he would not converse with Gabriel and Michael ; and on another, he could hold an intercourse with Hofzah and Zynob [two of his wives]. The visions of the inspired are revelation and tenabrosity ; he is directing and be- wildering them. " Thou unveilest thine eyes and preachest up continence ; thou givest an activity to the mart where they are sold, and inflamest our desires. / behold him [God] whom my heart desires with- out the veil of intervention, therefore I become like him who loses his way, he stirs up a flame and then quenches it by sprinkling water, on which account thou seest me at one moment burning and the next drowning. A person questioned Jacob, or him who had lost Joseph, his son, saying, O illustrious and intelligent old man, thou didst smell the perfume of his garment at the i 3 4 SHAIKH SADI. distance of Egypt, how earnest thou not to discover him when hid in the well of Canaan ? " He replied : My condition is that of lightning ; as at one moment seen in a flash, and the next disappearing. This instant I can aspire to the highest mansion of heaven, and the next I cannot discern the instep of my foot Could the darwesh's mind remain fixed on its object (namely, the contemplation and adoration of the Deity), he might wash his hands of this world and the next (that is, attain his re-union with God). X. On one occasion, at the metropolitan mosque of Balbuk, I was holding forth, by way of admonition, to a congregation cold and dead at heart, and not to be moved from the materialism of this world into the paths of mysticism. I perceived that the spirit of my discourse was making no impression, nor were the sparks of my enthusiasm likely to strike fire into their humid wood. I grew weary of instructing brutes, and of holding up a mirror to an assembly of the blind ; but the door of exposition was thrown open, and the chain of argument extended ; and in explanation of this text in the Koran, We. are nearer to him [God] than the vein of his neck. I had reached that passage of my sermon where I thus express myself: " Such a mistress as is closer to me in her affection than I am to myself, but this is marvellous that I am estranged from her. What shall I say, and to whom SHAIKH SADI. 135 can I tell it, that she lies on my bosom and I am alienated from her." The intoxicating spirit of this discourse ran into my head, and the dregs of the cup still rested in my hand, when a traveller, as passing by, entered the outer circle of the congregation, and its expiring undulation lit upon him. He sent forth such a groan that the others in sympathy with him joined in lamentation, and the rawest of the assembly bubbled in unison. I exclaimed, Praise be to God ! those far off are present in their knowledge, and those near by are distant from their ignorance. " If the hearer has not the faculty of comprehending the sermon, expect not the vigour of genius in the preacher. Give a scope to the field of inclination, that the orator may have room to strike the ball of eloquence over it." XL One night in the desert of Mecca, from an excess cf drowsiness, I had not a foot to enable me to pro- ceed ; and, laying my head on the earth, I gave myself up for lost, and desired the camel-driver to leave me to my fate. " How could the foot of the poor jaded pedestrian go on, now that the Bactrian dromedary got impatient of its burden. While the body of a fat man is getting lean, a lean man must fall the victim of a hardship." The camel-driver replied : O brother, holy Mecca is ahead, and the profane robber behind ; if you come forward you escape, but if you stay here you die ! 136 SHAIKH SADT. " During the night journey of the caravan, and in the track of the desert, it is fascinating to dose under the acacia-thorn tree ; but, on this indulgence, we must resign all thoughts of surviving it." XII. I saw on the sea-shore a holy man who had been torn by a tyger, and could get no salve to heal his wound. For a length of time he suffered much pain, and was all along offering thanks to the Most High. They asked him, saying, Why are you so grateful ? He answered, God be praised that I am overtaken with misfortune and not with sin ! " Were that beloved friend, God, to give me over to death, take heed, and think not that I should be solicitous about life. I would ask, What hast thou seen amiss in thy poor servant that thy heart should take offence at me? for that could alone give me a moment's uneasiness." XIII. Having some pressing occasion, a darwesh stole a rug from the hut of a friend. The judge ordered that they should cut off his hand. The owner of the rug made intercession for him, saying, I have forgiven him. The judge replied, At your instance I cannot relax the extreme sentence of the law. He said : In what you ordered you spoke justly. Nevertheless, whoever steals a portion of any pro- perty dedicated to alms must not suffer the forfeiture SHAIKH SAD I. 137 of his hand, for a religious mendicant is not the proprietor of anything; and whatever appertains to darweshes is devoted to the necessitous. The judge withdrew his hand from punishing him, and by way of reprimand asked, Had the world become so cir- cumscribed that you could not commit a theft but in the dwelling of such a friend? He answered, Have you not heard what they have said, Sweep everything away from the houses of your friends, but knock not at the doors of your enemies. " When overwhelmed with calamity let not thy body pine in misery. Strip thy foes of their skins, and thy friends of their jackets." XIV. A king said to a holy man, Are you ever thinking of me ? Yes, replied he, at such time as I am for- getting God Almighty ! " He will wander all around whom God shall drive from his gate ; and he will not let him go to another door whom he shall direct into his own." XV. One of the righteous in a dream saw a king in paradise, and a parsa, or holy man, in hell. He questioned himself, saying, What is the cause of the exaltation of this, and the degradation of that, for we have fancied their converse ? A voice came from above, answering, This king is in heaven because 138 SHAIKH SADJ. of his affection for the holy, and that parsa is in hell because of his connection with the kingly. " What can a coarse frock, rosary, and patched cloak avail ? Abstain from such evil works as may defile thee. There is no occasion to put a felt cowl upon thy head. Be a darwesh in thy actions, and wear a Tartarian coronet." XVI. A pedestrian, naked from head to foot, left Cufah with the caravan of pilgrims for Hijaj, or Mecca, and came along with us. I looked at and saw him destitute of every necessary for the journey ; yet he was cheerfully pushing on, and bravely remark- ing : " I am neither mounted on a camel nor a mule under a burden. I am neither the lord of vassals nor the vassal of a lord. I think not of present sorrows or past vanities, but breathe the breath of ease and live the life of freedom ! " A gentleman mounted on a camel said to him, O darwesh, whither are you going? return, or you must perish miserably. He did not heed what he said, but entered the desert on foot and proceeded. On our reaching the palm plantation of Mahmud, fate overtook the rich man, and he died. The darwesh went up to his bier and said, I did not perish amidst hardship on foot, and you expired on a camel's back. "A person sat all night weeping by the side of a sick friend. Next day he died, and the invalid recovered ! Yes ! many a fleet horse perished by the way, and that lame ass reached the SHAIKH SADJ. 139 end of the journey. How many of the vigorous and hale did they put underground, and that wounded man recovered ! " XVII. A king invited an abid, or holy man, to a feast. He pondered within himself, saying : I will take a medicine that shall weaken me ; peradventure that respect which the king entertains for my sanctity may be increased. They say it was a deadly poison. He swallowed it, and died. " That fellow who seemed to me full of meat as a pistachio nut, his brain was all fold over fold like an onion. Such holy men are at their prayers, turning their backs upon the Cabah and their faces towards mankind; whilst thus the zahids, or hermits, of Omar, Bakar, and Zayid [fictitious names] pretend not to any godliness, for you are hypocrites. When a person calls himself the servant of God, it behoves him to know God, and him only." XVIII. In the territory of the Greeks a caravan was attacked by robbers, and plundered of much pro- perty. The merchants set up a lamentation and complaint, and besought the intercession of God and the prophet ; but all to no purpose. " When the gloomy-minded robber is flushed with victory, what will he feel for the traveller's despair." MO SHAIKH SADI. Lucman, the fabulist and philosopher, happened to be among them. One of the travellers spoke to him, saying, Direct some maxims of wisdom and admoni- tion to them ; perhaps they may restore a part of our goods ; for it were a pity that articles of such value should be cast away. He answered : It were a pity to cast away the admonitions of wisdom upon them ! " From that iron which the rust has corroded thou canst not eradicate the canker with a file. What purpose will it answer to preach to the gloomy- minded infidel ? A nail of iron cannot penetrate into a piece of flint" Perhaps the fault has been on our part [in not being charitable], as they have said : " On the day of thy prosperity remember the bankrupt and needy, for by visiting the hearts of the poor with charity thou shalt divert calamity. When the beggar solicits alms from thee, bestow it with a good grace ; otherwise the tyrant may come and take it by force." XIX. However much my ghostly tutor, Shaikh Shums- u'd-din Abu'1-firah-bin-Juzi, of Baghdad, might incul- cate my relinquishment of the darwesh's dance and song, and recommend a life of monastic privacy and retirement, he could not reach the ear of my assent, the spring-tide of youth would overflow, and vigour of sensuality prevail. Wretch as I was, in opposition to that preceptor's good sense, I would let my feet lead me astray, and give way to the enjoyment of music SHAIKH SAD I. 141 and conviviality; and whenever the advice of that sage might cross my thought, I would whisk me a circular dance, and cry, " Were the crazy to sit down in our party, he would clap his hands from joy; were the censor to drink wine, he would overlook those that get intoxicated : " till one night that I got into a mixed company, and met among them a minstrel. " Thou mayest say, the bow of his violin is breaking the cat-gut string of existence, and his voice is more harsh than that of a man howling on the death of his father." One moment the fingers of the auditors are on his account in their ears, and the next moment on their lips, motioning silence ! " The heart may be charmed by the voice of sweet melody ; but such a singer as thou art can only please by being silent. Nobody can feel any delight in thy singing till the hour of thy departure, when it will cease. When that lute-player began his song, I said to our landlord, For God's sake, either pour quicksilver into my ear, that I may not hear, or open the door for me, that I may run out." In short, out of regard for my companions, I accom- modated myself to their wishes, and turned night into day after manifold vexations. "The mouzzin, or crier at the mosque, gives his notices of prayer out of all season ; he is not aware how much of the night is gone. Ask the length of the night from my eye-lids, for my eyes have not been indulged with one wink of sleep." At dawn, by way of benediction, I took the turban from my head, and a diram from my girdle, and, laying them at his feet, folded him in my arms, and returned him many thanks. My friends 142 SHAIKH SADI. considered my endeavours to do him justice as contrary to what was usual, imputed it to a weakness of under- standing, and turned it into ridicule behind my back. One of them let loose the tongue of animadversion, and began to admonish me, saying, In this instance you did not act as became a prudent man, for you bestowed the distinguishing garment of a Shaikh upon this singer, who has not during his whole life had a diram in the palm of his hand, or a particle of gold on the head of his tambourine. " Such a minstrel, far let him remain from this happy mansion, nobody has seen twice in the same place. Truly, when his voice issued from his mouth, it made people's hair stand on end on their bodies : the bird on the house-top is frightened away by the howl ; it distracts our brains, and tears open our windpipe." I replied : It were as well to restrain the tongue of animadversion, in as much as his faculty of working miracles is hereby made manifest He said : Let us also benefit by this discovery, that we may all unite and apologise for the rudeness we committed. I answered, on this account, that my reverend Shaikh had repeatedly forbid my frequenting the darwesh's dance and song, and often warned me against them ; but I never thought of his advice till this night, that my propitious stars and good fortune directed me to this house ; and I vowed, on the hand of this minstrel, that I would not again engage in the circular dance or convivial song: " When sweet melody escapes from a lovely throat, mouth, and lip, whether harmonious or not, it must fascinate ; but were it the musical mode of Oshshac, SHAIKH SAD I. 143 Ispahan, or Hijaz, it would disgust, if proceeding from the pipe of so vile a minstrel." XX. They asked Lucman, the fabulist, from whom did you learn manners ? He answered, From the un- mannerly, for I was careful to avoid whatever part of their behaviour seemed to me bad. " They will not speak a word in joke from which the wise cannot derive instruction ; let them read a hundred chapters of wisdom to a fool, and they will all seem but a jest to him." XXI. They tell a story of an abid, who in the course of a night would eat ten mans, or pounds, of food, and in his devotions repeat the whole Koran before morning. A good and holy man heard this, and said, Had he eaten half a loaf of bread, and gone to sleep, he would have done a more meritorious act " Keep thy inside unencumbered with victuals, that the light of good works may shine within thee ; but thou art void of wisdom and knowledge, because thou art filled up to the nose with food." XXIL The divine favour had placed the lamp of grace in the path of a wanderer in forbidden ways, till it 144 SHAIKH SAD I. directed him into the circle of the righteous, and the blessed society of darweshes ; and their spiritual co-operation enabled him to convert his wicked propensities into praiseworthy deeds, and to restrain himself in sensual indulgences ; yet were the tongues of calumniators questioning his sincerity, and saying, He retains his original habits, and there is no trusting to his piety and goodness. " By the means of repent- ance thou mayest get delivered from the wrath of God, but there is no escape from the slanderous tongue of man." He was unable to put up with the virulence of their remarks, and took his complaint to his ghostly father, saying, I am much troubled by the tongues of mankind. The holy man wept, and answered, How can you be sufficiently grateful for this blessing, that you are better than they represent you ? " How often wilt thou call aloud saying, The malig- nant and envious are calumniating wretched me, that they rise up to shed my blood, and that they sit down to devise me mischief. Be thou good thyself, and let people speak evil of thee ; it is better than to be wicked, and that they should consider thee as good." But, on the other hand, behold me, of whose perfect- ness all entertain the best opinion, while I am the mirror of imperfection. " Had I done what they have said, I should have been a pious and moral man." " Verily, I may conceal myself from the sight of my neighbour, but God knows what is secret and what is open. There is a shut door between me and mankind, that they may not pry into my sins ; but what, O Omniscience ! can a closed door avail against thee, SHAIKH SADI. 145 who art equally informed of what is manifest or concealed ? " XXIIL I lodged a complaint with one of our reverend Shaikhs, saying: A certain person has borne testimony against my character on the score of lasciviousness. He answered, Shame him by your continence. " Be thou virtuously disposed, that the detractor may not have it in his power to indulge his malignity. So long as the harp is in tune, how can it have its ear pulled [or suffer correction by being put in tune] by the minstrel ? " XXIV. They asked one of the Shaikhs of Sham, or Syria, saying : What is the condition of the Sufi sect ? He answered, Formerly they were in this world a fraternity dispersed in the flesh, but united in the spirit ; but now they are a body well clothed carnally, and ragged in divine mystery. "Whilst thy heart will be every moment wandering into a different place, in thy recluse state thou canst not see purity ; but though thou possesses! rank and wealth, lands and chattels, if thy heart be fixed on God, thou art a hermit." XXV. On one occasion we had marched, I recollect, all the night along with the caravan, and halted towards 752 146 SHAIKH SADL morning on the skirts of the wilderness. One mystically distracted, who accompanied us on that journey, set up a loud lamentation at dawn, went a-wandering into the desert, and did not take a moment's rest Next day I said to him, What condition was that ? He replied, I remarked the nightingales that they had come to carol in the groves, the pheasants to prattle on the mountains, the frogs to croak in the pools, and the wild beasts to roar in the forests, and thought with myself, saying, It cannot be generous that all are awake in God's praise and I am wrapt up in the sleep of forgetfulness ! " Last night a bird was carolling towards the morn- ing ; it stole my patience and reason, my fortitude and understanding. My lamentation had perhaps reached the ear of one of my dearly-beloved friends. He said, I did not believe that the singing of a bird could so distract thee ! I answered, This is not the duty of the human species, that the birds are singing God's praise and that I am silent" XXVI. Once, on a pilgrimage to Hijaz, I was the fellow- traveller of some piously-disposed young men, and on a footing of familiarity and intimacy with them. From time to time we were humming a tune and chanting a spiritual hymn, and an abid, who bore us company, kept disparaging the morals of the darweshes, and was callous to their sufferings, till we reached the palm plantation of the tribe of Hulal, SHAIKH SADL 147 when a boy of a tawny complexion issued from the Arab horde and sung such a plaintive melody as would arrest the bird in its flight through the air. I remarked the abid's camel that it kicked up and pranced, and, throwing the abid, danced into the wilderness. I said : O reverend Shaikh ! that spiritual strain threw a brute into an ecstasy, and it is not in like manner working a change in you ! " Knowest thou what that nightingale of the dawn whispered to me. What sort of man art thou, indeed, who art ignorant of love ? The camel is in an ecstasy of delight from the Arab's song. If thou hast no taste to relish this, thou art a cross-grained brute. Now that the camel is elated with rapture and delight, if a man is insensible to these he is an ass. Tlie zephyr, gliding through the verdure on the earth, shakes the twig of the ban-tree, but moves not the solid rock. Whatever thou beholdest is loud in extolling him. That heart which has an ear is full of the divine mystery. It is not the nightingale that alone serenades his rose ; for every thorn on the rose-bush is a tongue in his or God's praise ! " XXVII. A king had reached the end of his days and had no heir to succeed him. He made his will, stating, You will place the crown of sovereignty upon the head of whatever person first enters the city gate in the morning, and commit the kingdom to his charge. It happened that the first man that presented himself at the city gate was a beggar, who had passed his whole 148 SHAIKH SADL life in scraping broken meat and in patching rags. The ministers of state and nobles of the court fulfilled the conditions of the king's will, and laid the keys of the treasury and citadel at his feet. For a time the darwesh governed the kingdom, till some of the chiefs of the empire swerved from their allegiance, and the princes of the territories on every side rose in opposition to him, and levied armies for the contest In short, his troops and subjects were routed and subdued, and several of his provinces taken from him. The darwesh was hurt to the soul at these events, when one of his old friends, who had been the companion of his state of poverty, returned from a journey and found him in such dignity. He exclaimed : Thanksgiving be to a Deity of majesty and glory that lofty fortune succoured you and pros- perity was your guide, till roses issued from your thorns and the thorns were extracted from your feet, and till you arrived at this elevated rank ! Along with hardship there is ease ; or, to sorrow succeeds joy. " The plant is at one season in flower and at another withered ; the tree is at one time naked and at another clothed with leaves." He said: O, my dear friend, offer me condolence, for here is no place for congratula- tion. When you last saw me I had to think of getting a crumb of bread ; now I have the cares of a whole kingdom on my head. " If the world be adverse, we are the victims of pain ; if prosperous, the fettered slaves of affection for it Amidst this life no calamity is more afflicting than that, whether fortunate or not, SHAIKH SADL 149 the mind is equally disquieted. If thou covetest riches, ask not but for contentment, which is an immense treasure. Should a rich man throw money into thy lap, take heed, and do not look upon it as a benefit ; for I have often heard from the great and good that the patience of the poor is more meritorious than the gift of the rich. Were King Bahram Ghor to distribute a whole roasted elk, it would not be equal to the gift of a locust's leg from an ant." xxvm. A person had a friend who was holding the office of king's diwan, or prime minister, and it happened that he had not seen him for some time. Somebody remarked, saying, It is some time since you saw such a gentleman. He answered, I am no ways anxious about seeing him. One of the diwan's people chanced to be present. He asked, What has happened amiss that you should dislike to visit him? He replied, There is no dislike ; but my friend, the diwan, can be seen at a time when he is out of office, and my idle intrusion might not come amiss. " Amidst the state patronage and authority of office they might take umbrage at their acquaintance ; but on the day of vexation and loss of place they would impart their mental disquietudes to their friends." XXIX. Abu-Horairah was making a daily visit to the prophet Mustafa Mohammed, on whom be God's ISO SHAIKH SADL blessing and peace. He said : O Abu-Horairah I let me alone every other day, that so affection may increase; that is, come not every day, that we may get more loving ! They said to a good and holy man, Notwith- standing all these charms which the sun commands, we have never heard of anybody that has fallen in love with him ! He answered, It is because he is seen every day, unless during the winter, when he is veiled [in the clouds], and thus much coveted and loved. " To visit mankind has no blame in it, but not to such a degree as to let them say, Enough of it. If we see occasion to interrogate ourselves, we need not listen to the reprehension of others." XXX. Having taken offence with the society of my friends at Damascus, I retired into the wilderness of the Holy Land, or Jerusalem, and sought the company of brutes till such time as I was made a prisoner by the Franks, and employed by them, along with some Jews, in digging earth in the ditches of Tripoli. At length one of the chiefs of Aleppo, between whom and me an intimacy had of old sub- sisted, happening to pass that way, recognised me, and said, How is this? and how came you to be thus occupied ? I replied : What can I say ? " I was flying from mankind into the forests and moun- tains, for my resource was in God and in none SHAIKH SADL 151 else. Fancy to thyself what my condition must now be, when forced to associate with a tribe scarcely human ? To be linked in a chain with a company of acquaintance were pleasanter than to walk in a garden with strangers." He took pity on my situation ; and, having for ten dinars redeemed me from captivity with the Franks, carried me along with him to Aleppo. Here he had a daughter, and her he gave me in marriage, with a dower of a hundred dinars. Soon after this damsel turned out a termagant and vixen, and dis- covered such a perverse spirit and virulent tongue as quite unhinged all my domestic comfort. " A scolding wife in the dwelling of a peaceable man is his hell even in this world. Protect and guard us against a wicked inmate. Save us, O Lord, and preserve us from the fiery, or hell, torture." Having on one occasion given a liberty to the tongue of reproach, she was saying, Are you not the fellow whom my father redeemed from the captivity of the Franks for ten dinars? I replied, Yes, I am that same he delivered from captivity for ten dinars, and enslaved me with you for a hundred ! " I have heard that a reverend and mighty man released a sheep from the paws and jaws of a wolf. That same night he was sticking a knife into its throat, when the spirit of the sheep reproached him, saying, Thou didst deliver me from the clutches of a wolf, when I at length saw that thou didst prove a wolf to me thyself." J52 SHAIKH SADL XXXI. Omitted. XXXII. A king asked an abid, or holy man, who had a family, how he managed his precious time. He answered, My whole night I pass in communing with God, my morning in supplicating his blessing and support, and my entire day in earning the means of a livelihood. Comprehending from this state- ment the good man's drift, the king commanded that they should provide his subsistence daily, and relieve his mind from the cares of a family. " Thou must not again fancy thyself free who art bound by the foot with the thoughts of a family. The care of children, their bread, raiment, and meat, incapacitate thee from soaring into the angelic abode. The live- long day I am occupied with thinking how I can devote my night to God. At night, when settling myself at prayer, I reflect what my babes are to eat next morning." XXXIII. One of the holy men of Syria had passed many years of devotion in the wilderness, and was feeding on the leaves of trees. The king of that country, in the way of a pilgrimage, visited him, and said, If you can see the propriety of removing into my capital I will prepare an abode, where you may perform your SHAIKH SADL 153 devotions more at ease than in this place, and others may benefit by the blessing of your spiritual com- munion, and be edified by the example of your pious labours. The hermit was adverse to this advice, and turned away his face. One of the king's ministers spoke to him, saying : For the satisfaction of his majesty, it were proper that you would for a few days remove into the city, and ascertain the nature of the place ; when, if it should prove that your purity might be tarnished by 'coming in contact with the wicked, you have still the option left of moving back. It is reported that they prevailed on the hermit to accompany them into the city ; and, in a garden near the sacred residence of the king, prepared for him a dwelling, which, like the mansions of paradise, was rejoicing the heart, and exhilarating the soul. " Its damask roses were blooming as the cheeks of the lovely, and its tufted spikenard like the ringlets of our mistresses. It had as much to fear from the angry blasts of winter as the babe who has not yet tasted its nurse's milk : boughs of trees on which hung crimson flowers, that gleamed like a flame amidst their dusky foliage" Forthwith the king sent him a moon-faced damsel. " Such was this delicate crescent of the moon, and fascination of the holy, this form of an angel, and decoration of a peacock, that let them once behold her, and continence must cease to exist in the con- stitutions of the chaste." And, in like manner, there followed her a youth of 154 SHAIKH SADI. such rare beauty and exquisite symmetry, that the powerful grasp of his charms had broken the wrists of the pious, and tied up behind their backs the arms of the upright. " Mankind stand around him parched with thirst, whilst he, who seems thy cup-bearer, will give thee no drink. The eye could not be satiated by beholding him, like the dropsical man with water by looking at the river Euphrates." The hermit began to relish dainty food, and to wear sumptuous apparel ; to regale himself with fruits, perfumes, and sweetmeats; and to behold with delight the charms of the handmaid and bondsman. And the wise have said, The ringlets of the lovely are a chain on the feet of reason, and a snare for the bird of wisdom. " To the mystery of thy service I devoted my heart, religion, and all my mental faculties ; verily, I am now the bird of reason, and thou art the lure and bait." In short, the good fortune of his many years of sanctity ran to waste, as has been said : " Whatever he had laid up from theologician, sage, or saint, or of recondite knowledge from the eloquent and pure of spirit, now that he had stooped to mix with a vile world, like the foot of a fly he got entangled in its honey." The king had the curiosity of making him another visit, and found the hermit much altered from what he first saw of him. His face had become fair and ruddy, and his body plump and jolly ; and he was reclining at his ease on cushions of brocade, and had the Hoori-like damsel lolling by his side, and the SHAIKH SADL 155 fairy-formed youth holding a fly-flap of peacock's feathers in his hand, and standing by him in attend- ance. The king congratulated him upon his portly appearance, and they entered together upon a variety of topics, till his majesty concluded by observing, In this world I have an affection for these two orders of mankind, the learned and the recluse. A philosophic vizier, and man of much worldly experience, happened to be present. He said : O sire ! such is the canon of affection that you should confer a benefit on each. Give money to the learned man, that he may teach others ; and give nothing to the hermit, that he may remain an anchorite. " A zahid, or hermit, stands in need of neither diram nor dinar ; when an anchorite takes either, look out for another. Whoever is vir- tuously disposed, and holds a mystical communication with God, is sufficient of a hermit without requiring the bread of charity, or the crumbs of mendicity. The tapering finger of the lovely, and her soul-delud- ing ear-lobe, are decoration enough without a turkois- ring or ear-jewel. Tell that piously-disposed and serene-minded darwesh that he needs not the bread of consecration or scraping of beggary ; tell that handsome and fair-faced matron that she does not require paint, colouring, or jewellery. When I have of my own, and covet what is another's, if they esteem me not a hermit they treat me as I merit." XXXIV. Conformably with the above apologue, a king had a business of importance in hand. He said : If this 156 SHAIKH SADL affair prosper to my wish I will distribute among the recluse a certain sum in dirams. Now his object was accomplished, and mind made easy, he thought it incumbent to fulfil the condition of his eleemosynary vow, and gave a bag of dinars to a favourite servant, that he might distribute them among the anchorites. This was a discreet and considerate young man. He wandered about for the whole day ; and, returning in the evening, kissed the bag of money, and laid it before the king, saying, However much I sought after, I have met with no recluses ! The king answered, What a story is this.? for I myself know four hundred recluses within this city. He said, O sovereign of the universe ! such as are recluses do not take money ; and such as take money are not anchorites ! The king smiled, and observed to his courtiers, However much I reverence and favour this tribe of God's wor- shippers, this saucy fellow expresses for them a spite and ill-will ; and, if you desire the truth, he has justice on his side. " Instead of that hermit who took dirams and dinars, get hold of one who is more an anchorite." XXXV. They asked a profoundly-learned man, saying, What is your opinion of consecrated bread, or alms- taking ? He answered, If with the view of composing their minds, and promoting their devotions, it is law- ful to take it; but if monks collect for the sake of an endowment, it is forbidden. " Good and holy men have received the bread of consecration for the sake SHAIKH SADI. 157 of religious retirement; and are not recluses, that they may receive such bread." xxxvi. A darwesh came to put up at a place where the master of the house was a gentleman of an hospitable disposition. He had as his guests an assembly of learned and witty men, each of whom was repeating such a jest, or anecdote, as is usual with the facetious. Having travelled across a desert, the darwesh was much fatigued, and well-nigh famished. One of the company observed, in the way of pleasantry, You must also repeat something. The darwesh answered, lam not, like the others, overstocked with learning and wit, nor am I much read in books ; and you must be satisfied with my reciting one distich. One and all eagerly cried, Let us hear it He said, " Hungry as I am, I sit by a table spread with food, like a bachelor at the entrance of a bath full of women ! " They applauded what he said, and ordered the tray to be placed before him. The lord of the feast said, Stay your appetite, my friend ! till my handmaids can prepare for you some forced meat He raised his head from the tray, and answered, " Say there is no need for forced meet on my tray, for a crust of plain bread is sufficient for one baked as I have been in the desert." XXXVII. A disciple complained to his ghostly father, saying, What can I do, for I am much annoyed by the people, 158 SHAIKH SAD I. who are interrupting me with their frequent visits, and break in upon my precious hours with their imper- tinent intrusions. He replied, To such of them as are poor lend money, and from such as are rich ask some in loan ; and neither of them will trouble you again. " Let a beggar be the harbinger of an army of Islam, or the orthodox, and the infidel will fly his importunity as far as the wall of China." XXXVIII. A young divine observed to his spiritual preceptor, saying, The hypothetical and florid sermons of our theological declaimers make no impression upon me, for I do not observe that their works correspond with their precepts. " They hold forth to mankind to abandon the world, and are themselves hoarding money and corn. That doctor who can fancy his word enough will prevail with nobody, whatever he may teach. That is a wise man who does no evil ; not he who will forbid the people, and is himself a sinner. The learned man, who may consult his own indulgences and gratifications, is gone astray himself, how can he guide another ? " The ghostly father replied : O ! my son, solely misled by this fallacious reasoning, you should not reject the instruction of the preachers ; nor choose for yourself the path of refractoriousness ; nor con- sider the learned as tainted with error ; nor, in the pursuit of an immaculate teacher, remain yourself excluded from the benefits of knowledge, like that SHAIKH SAD I. 159 blind man who fell one night into a slough, and cried aloud, O ye faithful ! will ye at last place a light in my way ? A courtesan heard him, and replied, You, who cannot see a light, what can you do with a light ? In like manner the sermon of a preacher is like a market-place, where until you take ready money you can get no ware ; and here, until you bring a hearty zeal, you cannot secure the felicity of hereafter. " Listen to his doctrine with the ear of the soul, notwithstanding the learned man's actions may not correspond with his precepts. Vain is that objection of the caviller, How can he who is asleep awake his sleeping neighbour ? It behoves a man to attend to instruction, notwithstanding the maxim be written on a wall. A good and holy man left a monastery for a college ; he broke the vow of his monkish fraternity. I asked, What is the difference between a philosopher and abid, that thou shouldst prefer that sect to this ? He replied, This would rescue a brother monk from the waves, and that, or the philosopher, would endeavour to save any drowning person." XXXIX. A drunken fellow had lain down to sleep on the highway, and was quite overcome with the fumes of intoxication. An abid was passing close by, and look- ing at him with scorn. The youth raised his head, and said, W/ienever they pass anything shameful they pass it with compassion. " Whenever thou beholdest a sinner, hide and bear with his transgressions : thou, who art 160 SHAIKH SADI. aware of them, why not overlook my sins with pity? Turn not away, O reverend sir! from a sinner; but look upon him with compassion. Though in my actions I am not a hero, do thou pass by as the heroic would pass me." XL. A gang of dissolute vagabonds broke in upon a darwesh, used opprobrious language, and beat and ill-used him. In his helplessness he carried his com- plaint before his ghostly father, and said, Thus it has befallen me. He replied : O my son ! the patched cloak of darweshes is the garment of resignation ; whosoever wears this garb, and cannot bear with disappointment, is a hypocrite, and to him our cloth is forbidden. " A vast and deep river is not rendered turbid by throwing into it a stone. That religious man who can be vexed at an injury is as yet a shallow brook. If thou art subjected to trouble, bear with it ; for by forgiveness thou art purified from sin. Seeing, O brother! that we are ultimately to become dust, be humble as the dust, before thou moulderest into dust." XLI. " Hear what occurred once at Baghdad in a dis- pute that took place between a roll-up curtain and standard. Covered with the road-dust, and jaded with a march, the standard, in reproach, observed to the curtain : Thou and I are gentlemen in livery ; we SHAIKH SAD I. 161 are fellow-servants at the court of his majesty. I never enjoy a moment's relief from duty ; early and late I am equally marching. Thou hast never experienced any peril or a siege, the heavy sand of the desert or dust of a whirlwind ; my foot is most forward in any enterprise. Then why art thou my superior in dignity? Thou art cared for by youths with faces splendid as the moon, and handled by damsels scenting like jasmine ; while I am fallen into the hands of raw recruits, am rolled up on our march, and turned upside down. The curtain answered : I lay my head humble at the threshold, and hold it not up like thine, flaring in the face of heaven ! Who- ever is thus vainly rearing his crest exalts himself only to be humbled." XLII. A good and holy man saw a huge and strong fellow, who, having got much enraged, was storming with passion and foaming at the mouth. He asked, What has happened to this man? Somebody answered, Such a one has given him bad names ! He said, This paltry wretch is able to carry a thousand-weight of stone, and cannot bear with one light word ! " Cease to boast of thy strong arm and pretended manhood, infirm as thou art in mind, and mean in spirit. What difference is there between such a man and a woman? Though thou art strong of arm, let thy mouth utter sweet words ; it is no proof of courage to thrust thy fist into another man's face : Though thou art able to tear the scalp off an elephant, 753 1 62 SHAIKH SADL if deficient in humanity, thou art no hero. The sons of Adam are formed from dust ; if not humble as the dust, they fall short of being men." XLIII. I questioned a respectable divine upon the quali- fications of the sufi brotherhood. He answered: The meanest of them is that they will consult the gratification of their friends in preference to attending to their own special concerns. As philo- sophers have said: A brother who is solely devoted to himself is neither a brother nor a kinsman. " If a fellow-traveller hurries on, he is not the companion of thy journey ; fix thy affections on him who feels a mutual affection. If a relation be not of the same faith and ritual, to dissolve such a connection is better than to court its kindred affection." I recollect that a caviller objected to the sentiment contained in the above distich, and said, The mighty and supreme judge has in the glorious Koran forbid a separation of kindred, and enjoined the tie of consanguinity ; and what you have inculcated is repugnant to this precept. I replied, You are mis- taken ; for it accords with the Koran xxxi., as the Most High God has expressed it : " Were your two parents to command you to give me such partners as you could not acknowledge, then would you not obey them;" "A thousand relatives who are strangers to God are the sacrifice of one stranger who is his friend." SHAIKH SADJ. 163 XLIV. "A facetious old gentleman of Baghdad gave his daughter in marriage to a shoemaker. The flint- hearted fellow bit so deeply into the damsel's lip that the blood trickled from the wound. Next morning the father found her in this plight, he went up to his son-in-law, and asked him, saying : Low-born wretch ! what sort of teeth are these that thou shouldst chew her lips as if they were a piece of leather? I speak not in play what I have to say. Lay jesting aside, and take with her thy legal enjoyment. When once a vicious disposition has taken root in the habit, the hand of death can only eradicate it." XLV. A doctor of laws had a daughter preciously ugly, and she had reached the age of womanhood ; but, notwithstanding her dowry and fortune, nobody seemed inclined to ask her in marriage : " Damask or brocade but add to her deformity when put upon a bride void of symmetry." In short, they were under the necessity of uniting her in the bands of wedlock to a blind man. They add, that soon after there arrived from Sirandip, or Ceylon, a physician that could restore sight to the blind. They spoke to the law doctor, saying, Why do you not get him to prescribe for your son-in-law ? He answered: Because I am afraid he may recover 1 64 SHAIKH SAD I. his sight, and repudiate my daughter ; for " the husband of an ugly woman should be blind." XLVI. A king was regarding with a scornful eye a com- pany of darweshes. One of them, from sagacity, penetrated his thoughts, and said : O sire ! in the pomp of this world we are your inferiors, in its enjoy- ments happier, in death your equals, and at the day of judgment, if it please the Most High God, our future state shall be preferable: "Though a con- queror of regions has every indulgence, and the darwesh is in want of his daily bread, when this and that are alike doomed to die, each can take from this world only his winding-sheet. When thou shalt pack up the baggage of quitting thy present possessions, the beggar will depart lighter and happier than the king." The outward tokens of a darwesh. are a patched garment and a shaven head, and the inward signs those of being alive in the spirit and dead in the flesh : " Not he who will sit apart from his fellow- creatures at the door of supplication with God, and if he shall reject his prayer will stand up in disobedi- ence. Or if a mill-stone come rolling down a mountain, he is not intelligent in the ways of pro- vidence that would rise to avoid it." The ritual of darweshes is gratitude and praise, worship and obedience, contentment and charity, and a belief in the unity and providence of God, SHAIKH SADL 165 having a reliance on and being resigned to his will, confident of his favour, and forbearant with all. Whoever is endowed with these qualifications is in truth a darwesh, notwithstanding he be arrayed in gorgeous apparel. Whereas the irreligious and hypo- critical vain - boaster, sensualist, and whoremonger, who turns days into nights in his slavish indulgences, and converts nights into days in his dreams of forget- fulness ; who eats whatever falls in his way, and speaks whatever comes uppermost, is a profligate, though clothed in the sackcloth of a saint : " Many a believer is tricked out in vainglory, and many an infidel wears the garb of piety: yes ! thy inside is stark naked of piety, though thou mayst adorn thy exterior with the robe of hypocrisy. Thou, who hast only a reed mat for thy floor, do not display a gorgeous curtain before thy door." XLVII. " I noticed some nosegays of fresh-blown roses tied on a dome with fastenings of grass. I said : What bewitched such a weed as grass, that it too should sit on a level with the rose ? The grass wept, and exclaimed : Silence ! the generous forget not an old associate. Though I have no claim to its loveliness, bloom, and fragrance, after all am I not grass from its garden ? I am the servant of a munificent master the fostered offspring of his ancient goodness. Whether I am precious, or whether I am worthless, I trust, nevertheless, to the mercy of God. Although I 1 66 SHAIKH SADL possess no store of merchandise, nor claim from a stock of duty and obedience, he can retrieve the affairs of his servant, now he has no other mediator left him. It is the custom of masters who practise manumission to liberate such slaves as are grown old in their service. O Lord God, the embellisher of this world, bestow liberty upon thine ancient servant. Take, O Sadi ! the path leading to the temple of resignation. O man of God, follow the ways of God. Unhappy is he who will turn his face from this gate, for he shall never find another to enter at." XLVIII. They asked a wise man which was preferable, munificence or courage ? He answered, Whoever has munificence has no need of courage. " On the tomb- stone of Bahram-gor was inscribed : The hand of liberality is stronger than the arm of power. Hatim Tayi remains not, yet will his exalted name live renowned for generosity to all eternity. Distribute the tithe of thy wealth in alms, for the more the gardener prunes his vine the more he adds to his crop of grapes." CHAPTER III. ON THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CONTENTMENT. I. A mendicant from the west of Africa had taken his station amidst a group of shopkeepers at Aleppo, and was saying: O lords of plenty ! had ye a just sense of equity, and we of contentment, all manner of importunity would cease in this world ! " O content- ment ! do thou make me rich, for without thee there is no wealth. The treasure of patience was the choice of Lucman. Whoever has no patience has no wisdom." II. There dwelt in Egypt two youths of noble birth, one of whom applied himself to study knowledge, and the other to accumulate wealth. In process of time that became the wisest man of his age, and this king of Egypt Then was the rich man casting an eye of scorn upon his philosophic brother, and saying, I have reached a sovereignty, and you remain thus in a state of poverty. He replied: O brother! I am all the more grateful for the bounty of a Most High God, j 68 SHAIKH SADL whose name was glorified, that I have found the heritage of the prophets namely, wisdom ; and you have got the estate of Pharaoh and Haman that is, the kingdom of Egypt. " I am an emmet, that mankind shall tread under foot ; not a hornet, that they shall complain of my sting. How can I suffi- ciently express my grateful sense of this blessing, that I possess not the means of injuring my fellow- creatures ? " III. I heard of a darwesh who was consuming in the flame of want, tacking patch after patch upon his ragged garment, and solacing his mind with this couplet : " I can rest content with a dry crust of bread and a coarse woollen frock, for the burden of my own exertion bears lighter than laying myself under obligation to another." Somebody observed to him, Why do you sit quiet, while a certain gentleman of this city is so nobly disposed and universally benevolent, that he has girt up his loins in the service of the religious independents, and seated himself by the door of their hearts ? Were he apprised of your condition, he would esteem himself obliged, and be happy in the opportunity of relieving it. He said : Be silent ; for it is better to die of want than to expose our necessities before another, as they have remarked : " Patching a tattered cloak, and the consequent treasure of content, is more commend- able than petitioning the great for every new gar- ment By my troth, I swear it were equal to the SHAIKH SADL 169 torments of hell to enter into paradise through the interest of a neighbour." IV. One of the Persian kings sent a skilful physician to attend Mohammed Mustufa, on whom be salutation. He remained some years in the territory of the Arabs ; but nobody went to try his skill, or asked him for any medicine. One day he presented himself before the blessed prince of prophets, and complained, saying, The king had sent me to dispense medicine to your companions ; but, till this moment, nobody has been so good as to enable me to practise any skill that this your servant may possess. The blessed messenger of God was pleased to answer, saying, It is a rule with this tribe never to eat till hard pressed by hunger, and to discontinue their repast while they have yet an appetite. The physician said, This accounts for their health. Then he kissed the earth of respect and took his leave. " The physician will then begin to inculcate temperance, or to extend the finger of indulgence, when from silence his patient might suffer by excess, or his life be endangered by abstinence : of course, the skill of the physician is advice, and the patient's regimen and diet yield the fruits of health I " V. A certain person would be making vows of abstinence and breaking them. At last a reverend 1 70 SHAIKH SADI. gentleman observed to him, So I understand that you make a practice of eating to excess ; and that any restraint on your appetite, namely, this vow, is weaker than a hair, and this voraciousness, as you indulge it, would break an iron chain ; but the day must come when it will destroy you. " A man was rearing the whelp of a wolf ; when full grown it tore its patron and master." VI. In the annals of Ardishir Babagan it is recorded that he asked an Arabian physician, saying, What quantity of food ought to be eaten daily ? He replied, A hundred dirams' weight were sufficient The king said, What strength can a man derive from so small a quantity ? The physician replied : So much can support you; but in whatever you exceed that you must support it. " Eating is for the purpose of living, and speaking in praise of God ; but thou believest that we live only to eat." VII. Two darweshes of Khorasan were fellow-com- panions on a journey. One was so spare and moderate that he would break his fast only every other night, and the other so robust and intemperate that he ate three meals a day. It happened that they were taken up at the gate of .a city on suspicion of being spies, and both together put into a place, the entrance of which was built up with mud. After SHAIKH SADI. 171 a fortnight it was discovered that they were inno- cent, when, on breaking open the door, they found the strong man dead, and the weak one alive and well. They were astonished at this circumstance. A wise man said, The contrary of this had been strange, for this one was a voracious eater, and not having strength to support a want of food, perished ; and that other was abstemious, and being patient, according to his habitual practice, survived it. "When a person is habitually temperate, and a hardship shall cross him, he will get over it with ease; but if he has pampered his body and lived in luxury, and shall get into straitened circum- stances, he must perish." VIII. A certain philosopher admonished his son against eating to an excess, because repletion made a man sick. The boy answered, O father, hunger will kill. Have you not heard what the wits have remarked, To die of a surfeit were better than to bear with a craving appetite ? The father said, Study modera- tion, for the Most High God has told us in the Koran : Eat ye and drink ye, but not to an excess : "eat not so voraciously that the food shall be re- gorged from thy mouth, nor so abstemiously that from depletion life shall desert thee : though food be the means of preserving breath in the body. Yet, if taken to excess, it will prove noxious. If conserve of roses be frequently indulged in it will cause a 172 SHAIKH SADL surfeit, whereas a crust of bread, eaten after a long interval, will relish like conserve of roses." IX. They asked a sick man : What does your heart covet ? He replied : Only this, that my heart may covet nothing ! " When the stomach is oppressed, and the belly suffering from a cholic, it cannot benefit though everything else be right." X. In the city of Wasit a dealer in corn had allowed some sufis to run up a score with him, and was daily dunning them for payment, and making use of very coarse language. The brotherhood were hurt to the soul by his low abuse ; but they had no remedy besides patience. A good and holy man among them said, It is easier to satisfy the appetite with a promise of nourishment than to put off the grain merchant with an assurance of future payment : " It were preferable to forego the beneficence of a patron than to submit to the rudeness of his door-keepers. It is better to perish of a craving for meat than bear with the execrable dunning of butchers." XL In a battle with the Tartars, a gallant young man was grievously wounded. Somebody said to him, A SHAIKH SADL 173 certain merchant has a stock of the mummy antidote ; if you would ask him, he might perhaps accom- modate you with a portion of it. They say that merchant was so notorious for his stinginess, that " If, in the place of his loaf of bread, the orb of the sun had been in his wallet, nobody would have seen day- light in the world till the day of judgment." The spirited youth replied : Were I to ask him for this antidote, he might give it, or he might not ; and if he did it might cure me, or it might not ; at any rate, to ask such a man were itself a deadly poison ! " Whatever thou wouldst ask of the mean, in obliga- tion, might add to the body, but would take from the soul." And philosophers have observed, that were the water of immortality, for example, to be sold at the price of the reputation, a wise man would not buy it, for an honourable death is preferable to a life of infamy. " Wert thou to eat colocynth from the hand of the kind-hearted, it would relish better than a sweetmeat from that of the crabbed." XII. One of the learned had a large family and small means. He stated his case to a great man, who entertained a favourable opinion of his character. This turned away from his solicitation, and viewed this prostitution of begging as discreditable with a gentleman of education. " If soured by misfortune, present not thyself before a dear friend, for thou 174 SHAIKH SADL mayst also imbitter his pleasure. When thou bringest forward a distress, do it with a cheerful and smiling face, for an openness of countenance can never retard business." They have related that he rose a little in the pension, but sunk much in the estimation of the great man. After some days, when he perceived this falling off in his affection, he said : "Miserable is that supply of food which thou obtainest in the hour of need; the pot is put to boil, but my reputation is bubbled into vapour. He added to my means of subsistence, but took from my reputation ; absolute starving were better than the disgrace of begging." XIII. A darwesh had a pressing call for money. Some- body told him a certain person is inconceivably rich ; were he made aware of your want, he would somehow manage to accommodate it. He said, I do not know him. The other answered, I will introduce you ; and having taken his hand, he brought him to that person's dwelling. The darwesh beheld a man with a hanging lip, and sitting in sullen discontent He said nothing, and returned home. His friend asked, What have you done? He replied, His gift I gave in exchange for his look : " Lay not thy words before a man with a sour face, otherwise thou mayst be ruffled by his ill-nature. If thou tellest the sorrows of thy heart, let it be to him in whose countenance thou mayst be assured of prompt consolation." SHAIKH SADL 175 XIV. One year there had occurred such a drought at Alexandria that the reins of patience dropped from the hands of the people ; the flood-gates of the skies were shut against the earth, and the lamentations of the inhabitants of the earth mingled with the skies : " There was not an animal among the beasts, birds, fish, and reptiles whose lamentation in its distress did not rise up to heaven : strange that the heart-felt sighs of creatures were not gathering so as to become clouds, and the torrents of their eyes to fall into rain." During such a season there was a hermaphrodite be he far apart from our friends, for a speech in description of him were a breach of politeness, more especially in the presence of the great and good ; yet we must not from a motive of contempt altogether overlook him, lest certain people might charge the narrator with incapacity ; therefore it was briefly stated in these two verses, where a little was a proof of much, and a handful the sample of an ass-load : " Were a Tartar to kill that hermaphrodite, we would not demand retaliation upon the Tartar. How long must he continue like the bridge at Baghdad, with water underneath, and people on his back." Such a person as I have summarily described was that year possessed of immense wealth ; and was distributing gold and silver among the needy, and keeping an open table for the traveller. A company of darweshes, who, in their extreme want, had well 176 SHAIKH SADL nigh perished, were inclined to accept his invitation, and came to consult me on the subject. I turned away indignant, and said : " Were he dying of hunger in his den, the lion would not eat the leavings of a dog ; let thy body suffer hunger and hardship, but raise not the hand of petition before the mean ; were he another Firedown in wealth and dominion, account the dishonourable man as nothing ; silk and embroidery on a worthless man's back is like daub- ing a mud wall over with azure and gold." XV. They asked Hatim Tayi : Have you ever met, or heard of, a person of a more independent spirit than yourself? He answered : Yes, one day I had made a sacrifice of forty camels, and invited the chief of every Arab tribe to a feast. Then I repaired to the border of the desert, where I met a wood-cutter, who had tied up his faggot to carry it into the city. I said, Why do you not go to the feast of Hatim, where a crowd have assembled round his carpet? He replied :-? " Whoever can eat the bread of his own industry will not lay himself under obligation to Hatim Tayi : and in him I met my superior in spirit and independence." XVI. The Prophet Moses, on whom be peace, saw a darwesh who had buried his body, in his want of clothes to cover it, in the sand. He said : O Moses, SHAIKH SADL 177 put up a prayer, that the most high God would bestow a subsistence upon me, for I am perishing in distress. The blessed Moses prayed accordingly, that God on high would succour him. Some days afterwards, as he was returning from a conference with God on Mount Sinai, he met that darwesh in the hands of justice, and a mob following him. He asked : What has befallen this man ? They answered: He had drunk wine and got into a quarrel, and having killed somebody, they are now going to exact retaliation. " The God who set forth the seven climates of this world assigned to every creature its appropriate lot. Had that wretched cat been gifted with wings, she would not have left one sparrow's egg on the earth. It might happen that were a weak man to get the ability, he would rise and domineer over his weak brethren." The blessed Moses acknowledged the wisdom of the creator of the universe, and, confessing his own presumption, repeated this verse of the Koran : Were God to spread abroad his stores of subsistence to servants, verily they would rebel all over the earth : " What happened, O vain man ! that thou didst pre- cipitate thyself into destruction ? Would that the ant might not have tJie means of flying ! " " A mean person, when he has got rank and wealth, will bring a storm of blows upon his head. Was not this at last the adage of a philosopher, That ant is best disposed of that has no wings." The father is a man of much sweetness of disposition, but the son is full of heat and passions : " That Being, God, who would not 754 178 SHAIKH SADL make thee rich, must have known thy good better than thou couldst thyself know it" XVII. I saw an Arab, who was standing amidst a circle of jewellers at Busrah, and saying : On one occasion I had missed my way in the desert, and having no road-provision left, I had given myself up for lost, when all at once I found a bag of pearls. Never shall I forget that relish and delight, so long as I mistook them for parched wheat ; nor that bitterness and disappointment, when I discovered that they were real pearls. " In the mouth of the thirsty traveller, amidst parched deserts and moving sands, pearl, or mother-of-pearl, were equally distasteful. To a man without provision, and knocked up in the desert, a piece of stone or of gold, in his scrip, is all one." XVIII. An Arab, suffering under all the extremity of thirst in the desert, was saying : " Would to God that yet, before I perish, I could but for one day gratify my ^vish : that a stream of water might dash against my knees, and I could Jill my leathern flask or stomach with if In like manner a traveller had got bewildered in the great desert, and had neither provisions nor strength left, yet a few dirams remained with him in his scrip. He kept wandering about, but could not SHAIKH SADL 179 find the path, and sunk under his fatigue. A party of travellers arrived where his body lay ; they saw the dirams spread before him, and these verses written in the sand : " Were he possessed of all the gold of Jafier [a famous gold refiner], a man without food could not satisfy his appetite. To a wretched mendi- cant, parched in the desert, a boiled turnip would relish better than an ingot of virgin silver." XIX. I had never complained of the vicissitudes of fortune, nor murmured at the ordinances of heaven, excepting on one occasion, that my feet were bare, and I had not wherewithal to shoe them. In this desponding state I entered the metropolitan mosque at Cufah, and there I beheld a man that had no feet. I offered up praise and thanksgiving for God's good- ness to myself, and submitted with patience to my want of shoes. " In the eye of one satiated with meat a roast fowl is less esteemed at his table than a salad ; but to him who is stinted of food a boiled turnip will relish like a roast fowl." XX. A king, attended by a select retinue, had, on a sporting excursion during the winter, got at a distance from any of his hunting seats, and the evening was closing fast, when they espied from afar a peasant's cottage. The king said: Let us repair thither for i8o SHAIKH SADL the night, that we may shelter ourselves from the inclemency of the weather. One of the courtiers replied : It would not become the dignity of the sovereign to take refuge in the cottage of a low peasant ; we can pitch a tent here and kindle a fire. The peasant saw what was passing ; he came forward with what refreshments he had at hand, and, laying them before the king, kissed the earth of subserviency, and said : The lofty dignity of the king would not be lowered by this condescension ; but these gentlemen did not choose that the condition of a peasant should be exalted. The king was pleased with this speech ; and they passed the night at his cottage. In the morning he bestowed an honorary dress and hand- some largess upon him. I have heard that the peasant was resting his hand for some paces upon the king's stirrup, and saying : " The state and pomp of the sovereign suffered no degradation by his condescen- sion in becoming a guest at the cottage of a peasant ; but the corner of the peasant's cap rose to a level with the sun when the shadow of such a monarch as thou art fell upon his head." XXI. They tell a story of an importunate mendicant who had amassed much riches. A certain king said : It seems that you possess immense wealth, and I have a business of some consequence in hand. If you will assist me with a little of it, by way of a loan, when the public revenue is realised I will repay it and SHAIKH SADL 181 thank you to the bargain. He replied : O sire, it would ill become the sublime majesty of the sovereign of the universe to soil the hand of lofty enterprise with the property of such a mendicant as I am, which I have scraped together grain by grain. He said : There is no occasion to vex yourself, for I mean it for the Tartars, as impurities are suiting for the impure : " They said, The compost of a dunghill is unclean. We replied, That with it we will fill up the chinks of a necessary : If the water of a Christian's well is defiled, and we wash a Jew's corpse in it, there is no sin." I have heard that he disobeyed the royal command, questioned its justice, and resisted it with insolence. The king ordered that the exchequer stipulations should be put in force with rigidness and violence. " When a business cannot be settled with fair words, we must of necessity make use of foul. When a man will not contribute of his own free will, if another enforces him he meets his desert." XXII. I knew a merchant who had a hundred and fifty camels of burthen and forty bondsmen and servants in his train. One night he entertained me at his lodgings in the island of Keish, in the Persian Gulf, and continued for the whole night talking idly, and saying: Such a store of goods I have in Turkistan, and such an assortment of merchandise in Hindustan ; this is the mortgage-deed of a certain estate, and this the security-bond of a certain individual's concern. 1 82 SUAIKFf SADL Then he would say : I have a mind to visit Alexandria, the air of which is salubrious ; but that cannot be, for the Mediterranean Sea is boisterous. O Sadi ! I have one more journey in view, and, that once accom- plished, I will pass my remaining life in retirement and leave off trade. I asked : What journey is that ? He replied : I will carry the sulphur of Persia to Chin, where, I have heard, it will fetch a high price ; thence I will take China porcelain to Greece ; the brocade of Greece or Venice I will carry to India ; and Indian steel I will bring to Aleppo ; the glass-ware of Aleppo I will take to Yamin ; and with the bardimani, or striped stuffs, of Yamin I will return to Persia. After that I will give up foreign commerce and settle myself in a warehouse. He went on in this melancholy strain till he was quite exhausted with speaking. He said : O Sadi ! do you too relate what you have seen and heard. I replied : " Hast thou not heard that in the desert of Ghor as the body of a chief merchant fell exhausted from his camel, he said, Either contentment or the dust of the grave will fill the stingy eye of the worldly-minded." XXIII. I have heard of a wealthy man who was as notori- ous for parsimony as Hatim Tayi was famous for liberality. His outward form was adorned with worldly pelf ; but the vice of innate avarice was so constitutionally rooted in his heart that he would not part with a crumb of bread to save the life of a fellow- creature, indulge Abu-harairah's cat with a mouthful SHAIKH SADI. 183 of meat, or throw a bone to the dog of the seven sleepers at Ephesus. In short, nobody had ever seen the door of his mansion open, or his table spread for dinner : " unless from the smell of it the poor darwesh had no intimation of his dinner, and the bird could not pick up any crumbs from the shakings of his table-cloth." I have heard that he had embarked on the Mediter- ranean Sea on a voyage for Egypt, and harboured in his head the vain imagination of Pharaoh ; as the Most High hds said : Until the instant that he was droivned : when the ship all at once encountered a contrary wind and was overwhelmed. As has been remarked : " With thy ill-conditioned disposition, what will not the heart do that it may be accom- modated ; but the ship is not at all times indulged with a favourable wind." He raised his hand in prayer, and made much useless supplication, as God expressed it : WJien embarked on board a skip, ye will pray to the Lord: "What can the hands of sincere supplication avail that needy servant who opens them at the time of praying to God, but folds them under his arms when he should open them in charity : Bestow comfort upon others in dealing forth thy gold and silver, and also partake thyself of their benefit ; and that this edifice, or the world, may endure tothee hereafter, take [in building it] one brick of gold and one brick of silver." They have related that he had poor relations in Egypt who were enriched with his remaining property. On his death they tore their old garments in pieces, and 1 84 SHAIKH SADL decked themselves in silks and Damiyati or Egyptian fine linens. Within a week I met one of them ambling along on a wind-fleet charger, with an angel-faced bondsman running by him on foot. I remarked to myself : " Were it possible, alas ! that the dead man could return and make his appearance amidst his tribe and family, a restitution of the heritage would be more afflicting to his heirs than had been the death of their kinsman." In virtue of an intimacy of old date, I took him familiarly by the sleeve, and said : " Enjoy, my good and honest friend, what that ill- fated wretch hoarded, but enjoyed not." XXIV. A weak fisherman got a strong fish into his net, but not having the power of mastering it, the fish got the better of him, and, dragging the net from his hand, escaped : " A bondsman went that he might take water from the brook ; the brook came to rise and carried off the bondsman. On most occasions the net would bring out the fish ; on this occasion the fish escaped, and took away the net." The other fishermen expressed their vexation, and reproached him, saying, Such a fish came into your net, and you were not able to master it He replied : Alas ! my brethren, what could be done ? It was not my day of fortune, and the fish had in this way another day left it And they have said : Unless it be his lot, the fisherman cannot catch a fish in the Tigris ; and, except it be its fate, the fish will not die on the dry shore. SHAIKH SADL 185 XXV. A person without hands or feet killed a millepede. A good and holy man passed by him at the time, and said : Glory be to God ! notwithstanding the thousand feet he had when his destiny overtook him, he was unable to escape from one destitute of hand or foot. " When the life-plundering foe comes up behind, fate arrests the speed of the swift-going warrior. At the moment when the enemy might approach step by step it were useless to bend the kayani, or Parthian bow." XXVI. I met a fat blockhead decked in rich apparel, and mounted on an Arab horse, with a turban of fine Egyptian linen on his head. A person said : O Sadi, how comes it that you see these garments of the learned on this ignorant beast ? I replied : It is a vile epistle which has been written in golden letters : " Verily this ass, with the resemblance of a man, has the carcase of a calf, and the voice or bleating of a calf. Thou canst not say that this brute appears like a man, unless in his garments, turban, and outward form. Examine into all the ways and means of his existence, and thou shalt find nothing lawful but the shedding of his blood : though a man of noble birth be reduced to poverty, imagine not that his lofty dignity can be lowered ; and though he may secure his silver threshold with a hasp of gold, conclude not that a Jew can be thereby ennobled." 1 86 SHAIKH SADL XXVII. A thief said to a mendicant : Are you not ashamed when you hold forth your hand to every mean fellow for a barley-corn of silver ? He replied : " It is better to hold forth the hand for one grain of silver than to have it cut off for one and a half dang." XXVIII. They tell a story of an able-bodied youth who had, from adverse fortune, fallen into great affliction, and from an inordinate appetite and a narrowness of means to satisfy it, had reason to complain. He stated his grievances to his father, and craved his permission, saying: I wish to travel, that perad venture I may, by the strength of my arm, lay hands upon the skirt of my object : " Science and knowledge are useless till put in practice. Aloes-wood they place upon the fire, and musk they rub, in order to extract their fragrance." The father replied : O my son, put this absurd fancy out of your head, and draw the foot of con- tentment within the mantle of safety, for philosophers have said, Fortune is not to be secured by exertion, but its want is to be obviated by moderation : " Nobody can seize on the skirt of fortune by force. Exertion is here as useless as putting antimony on a blind man's eyebrows [that it may give a lustre to the eyesight]. -Were two hundred accomplishments SHAIKH SADL 187 appending to every hair of thy head, skill is of no practical use where bad luck prevails. What can a powerful but unlucky man do ? The hand of fortune is more effective than the arm of strength." The son said : O father, the advantages of travelling are manifold ; from the enjoyments of the mind, and allurements of kind acts ; from beholding strange sights, and hearing wonderful adventures ; from the recreation of cities, and recognisance of former places; from the acquisition of dignity and urbanity, and the augmentation of wealth and property ; and from a renovation of old acquaintance, and an experience of the times ; as our guides in the paths of righteousness have pointed out " Whilst thou loiterest at home and in thy shop, like a pledge in pawn, never, O raw youth, canst thou arrive at man's estate ; roam abroad in the world, and take thy fill of its enjoy- ments before the day shall come when thou must quit it for good." The father replied : O my son, such as you have stated them, the advantages of travelling are numer- ous ; nevertheless, they are the special lot of five orders of mankind: First, a merchant, who, in consequence of his wealth and property, has soul- alluring bondsmen and handmaids, and active menials about him in his service ; and has every day a different city, and every night a change of stage, and at all times a place of recreation, where he can indulge in worldly luxury: "Amidst mountains, wildernesses, or deserts, the rich man is no stranger ; wherever he may go he can pitch himself a tent, and take up his 188 SHAIKH SADI. abode ; but he who has not at command the comforts and enjoyments of life, is alike unknown and an alien even at his own home." Secondly, the man of learning, who, in his melli- fluous eloquence and attic wit, in his profound science and recondite knowledge, wherever he may go is generally sought for, and respected : " The presence of a wise man is like pure gold, which is of the same price and value wherever it is found ; but the ignorant son of a nobleman is like paper or leather currency, which, in a strange place, will go for nothing." Thirdly, a handsome young man, whose society the hearts of the good and holy will piously covet, as they have said : A little beauty is preferable to much wealth ; and they tell us, a lovely face is the solace of wounded hearts and the key of locked-up gates ; consequently, all will court its society, and esteem its , service as a courtesy: "Wherever a lovely person shall roam he will meet honour and respect, notwith- standing his father and mother may have driven him in anger from his home. I found a peacock's feather within the leaves of a Koran, and said to it, This station is above thy condition. It replied : Be silent; for that person who possesses the charms of loveli- ness, wherever he puts his foot, finds no hand held up to oppose him." "Where there is a fondness and partiality for the son, it costs us not a thought that the father is estranged from him ; he is a jewel, let him not make the world his casket, for everybody is the purchaser of such a nonpareil pearl." Fourthly, the charming songster, who, with the pipe SHAIKH SADL 189 of David and the fascination of his melody, can arrest the river in its current, and the bird in its flight ; con- sequently, through the means of this perfection he can captivate the hearts of his admirers, and the lords of mystical knowledge will fondly court his society, and be assiduous in serving him. " How grateful is the soft and plaintive voice, vibrating on the ears of lovers giddy from a morning debauch ; a melodious pipe will fascinate more than a lovely face, for this can seduce the sensual appetite, but that must enrap- ture the soul." Fifthly, a common mechanic, who can earn a sub- sistence by the industry of his hand, and shall not have to stake his reputation for every morsel of bread, as philosophers have said : " Though obliged to wander a stranger from his country, the cobbler or botcher would not suffer inconvenience or trouble ; but were he, from anarchy, deposed from his throne, Mumruz the king would perish of hunger." Such qualities, as I have detailed them, are, O my son, the solace of the heart, and the means of sweet enjoyment during a journey ; but for any man that does not possess one of them to travel abroad were an idle undertaking, and none would ask his character, or inquire after him. " That man whom the revolutions of the skies regard with a malignant aspect, fortune will conduct to anything but his good. The pigeon that is ordained never to revisit its nest, destiny is enticing towards the bait and snare." The son said : O father, why should I act in contra- diction to the maxim of the wise, who have told us IQO SHAIKH SAD I. that though our lot be apportioned, yet there is a condition appending to it ; and though misfortune be ordained, yet we are to turn aside from the door that leads to it: "Though our daily bread will come to us without our thought, it is the duty of reason to look for its approaches: although none will die till their predestined time, there is no occasion to walk into the mouth of a dragon." And circumstanced as I feel myself, I could assail a formidable elephant and grapple with a ferocious lion. Accordingly, it were advisable that I should travel, for I am not able to put up any longer with indigence. " When a man falls in his rank and station, what can he apprehend that is worse? the world at large is his place of residence. The rich man at night repairs to his mansion ; the poor man makes that place his inn where the night overtakes him. But what need has he of inn, resting-place, or abode ? Wherever he may wander, all is the dwelling of his God." He so spoke, took leave of his father, asked his blessing, and departed. And as he went along they heard him that he was saying : " When fortune may not accord to his wish, the man of skill will travel where his name is not known." He was thus proceeding, till he reached a sea-shore, where rocks were heaved upon rocks by the force of its waves, and the roaring of its billows was heard for many furlongs : " Such was the awfulness of the deep, that the water-fowl found it not safe to rest on its bosom ; and its smallest wave would roll mill- stones along its strand." SHAIKH SAD I. 191 Here he saw a number of people, each of whom had for a small piece of gold taken a passage in the ferry-boat, and had his luggage stowed by him. The young man, having no money, opened the mouth of entreaty ; but however much he supplicated them they showed him no favour, and said : " Without money thou canst not commit violence upon and force any- body ; and if thou hast money, there is no occasion for force." And the ungenerous master of the vessel turned towards him, as he pushed off his boat, and with a sneer, added : " Thou hast no gold, and thou canst not cross the sea by main strength ; what can the prowess of ten heroes avail thee ? Bring me the passage money of one man." The youth was much hurt at this sarcasm of the boatman, and wished that he could revenge it ; but the boat had put off. He called aloud, and said, If this garment which I am wearing will satisfy, I am ready to give it you. The boatman was avaricious, and brought his vessel back : " Covetousness will sew up the eyes of the wary, and greediness decoy the bird and fish into the net" So soon as the young man could lay hands on the boatman's beard and collar, he dragged him from his vessel and belaboured him most unmercifully : " Whenever thy hand can reach it, tear out thy foe's brain, for such an opportunity washes anger from the mind." His comrade disem- barked, that he might back him ; but meeting the same rough treatment, he turned his back. They saw it advisable to make their peace with him, and compromise for his passage money : " When thou 192 SHAIKH SAD I. witnesses! a dispute, show a forbearance, for mild- ness will shut the door of contention ; where thou seest a perseverance, oppose it with kindness, for a sharp sword cannot cut into a silk-quilted corselet Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayst manage to guide an elephant with a hair." After excusing what had passed, they fell at his feet, and, after kissing with hypocrisy his head and face, they ushered him on board the boat, and pro- ceeded on their voyage, till they came to the pillar which rises in the sea out of some Grecian ruins. The boatman said: The vessel is here in some danger; it will be necessary for one of the heartiest, most heroic, and strongest of you to get upon this pillar and hold a hawser in his hand till we can swing her head round. The youth, in the pride of that courage which was uppermost in his thoughts, neither regarded the rancour of an injured rival, nor put in practice that maxim of the wise, who have said, if you have given a person serious cause of offence, and should afterwards do him a hundred kind offices, rest not secure against his revenge of that one offence ; for the dart may be extracted from the wound, yet the smart of it will rankle in the heart : " How well did the captain remark to his troop : When thou hast made a cut at thy antagonist, expect a thrust in return. Now that another is suffering pain at thy hand, trust not that thy heart shall be exempt from affliction. Throw not a stone upon the turret of the citadel, for a stone may perhaps be returned from the SHAIKH SADL 193 castle : " So soon as the youth had put the hawser over his arm, and seated himself on the top of the pillar, the boatman dragged it from his hand and pushed off the vessel. The deserted wretch stood aghast. For two days he suffered calamity and distress, and underwent much hardship. On the third day sleep overpowered and precipitated him into the sea. After another day and night he reached the shore, when well-nigh reduced to his last gasp. Here he began to eat the leaves of trees and roots of grass, till, getting a little refreshed, he was able to set forward in the desert, and was proceeding when, overcome with hunger, thirst, and fatigue, he arrived at a well, where a crowd of people sat in a circle around it, and each had a draught of water presented to him in his turn, on paying a pashiz or small species of coin. The youth had no money ; he begged a little water gratis, but this they refused ; he attempted to reach it by force, but to no good purpose. Some few he of course knocked down, but they overpowered him with numbers, and beat him unmercifully, and maimed him sadly : " Notwithstanding his huge and formid- able aspect, when gnats act in concert they will bring down an elephant ; when ants set to work and move in a body, they can strip a fierce lion of his hide." Jaded and maimed, but impelled by necessity, he got up with the rear of a caravan, and made a shift to follow it. In the evening they arrived at a place much infested with robbers. He beheld the people 755 194 SHAIKH SADL of the caravan with bodies trembling in fear, and minds occupied with their danger. He said : Be not alarmed, for I am one among you that can of myself encounter any fifty, and the other youths will assist me. The people were encouraged by his boasting, and, overjoyed with his company, they supplied him with food and drink. The fire of the youth's stomach had blazed into a flame, and the rein of temperance dropped from his hand. He devoured many mouth- fuls of the victuals, and gulped down several draughts of water, before he could appease the demon of his belly, when sleep seized him and laid him at rest Belonging to that caravan there was an experienced old man, who had seen much of the world. He said : O my friends, I am more afraid of this your guard than of all the thieves beside, as they tell a story, that an Arab had hoarded a sum of money, and could not sleep by himself at home from a dread of the Luriyans, a tribe of notorious robbers. He got one of his neighbours to abide with him, that in his society he might dispel the gloom of solitude. In this way they passed some nights together, till the friend found out where he kept his money, when he stole and made off with it. In the morning they found the Arab weeping and bewailing, and asked : How comes this ? Perhaps the thief has made free with that money. He replied : Not he, by God ! but my friend and guard has stolen it : " I can never sit down secure of my companion till I ascertain what may be his disposition. The bite of a foe's tooth must prove more cutting where it is given under the SHAIKH SADL 195 semblance of a friend." Who can say but this may also be one of the thieves, who has introduced himself by a stratagem among us, that he may watch his opportunity of giving intelligence to his comrades. Accordingly, I see it advisable that we should leave him asleep and depart. This counsel of the old man made a strong impres- sion on his juvenile companions ; and, as they stood .in awe of his athletic power, they packed up their baggage and left the youth asleep. He did not get awake till the sun shone bright on his shoulders, when, raising his head, he found that the caravan was gone. In this forlorn state he wandered to some distance, and lost all trace of the path. Overcome with thirst and fatigue, he threw himself up for lost. He was saying : " Who will converse with me, now the camels are departed ; the stranger has no friend, unless it be a stranger : he will deal harshly by a stranger who has not been himself often a traveller and stranger." The desponding youth was uttering this speech while a king's son, who had dropped his retinue in the pursuit of hunting sport, was standing over him. He listened to these words, and, looking at his aspect, beheld a graceful figure, but a mind in much affliction. He asked him, saying : Whence are you, and how came you into this place ? He made a short statement of the adventures which had befallen him. The prince took compassion on him, gave him a dress and largess, and sent a confidential servant to take him home. His father was rejoiced at seeing him, and thanked 196 SHAIKH SADL God for his safe return. At night he entered in detail of what befell him in the affair of the ferry- boat, the insolence of the boatman, the violence of the peasants at the well, and treachery of the caravan people on the road. The father said : O my son, did not I warn you, at the time of your departure, that the courageous wrist of the empty-handed was manacled and his lion-like arm broken : " How happily did that empty-handed man of war remark, A barley-corn of gold is worth more than fifty mans', or pounds', weight of strength." The son replied : O father ! till you may somehow undergo trouble, you cannot acquire treasure ; till you put your life in jeopardy you cannot subdue your enemy ; and until you may sow the seed you cannot reap the harvest. Do you not perceive that, in return for the little fatigue I underwent, what a store of wealth I acquired ; and for the sting I endured, what a stock of honey I secured : " Though we cannot get more than our predestined portion, it behoves us not to be idle in looking after it. Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark he would never lay hands on the precious pearl : the lower mill-stone takes not its turn in circulation, and sustains in consequence the brunt of the burthen : what would the ravenous lion have to eat if he remained a sluggard in the corner of his den, or what power of soaring after game has the broken-winged falcon? Wert thou to expect sport by staying at home thou wouldst become all legs and arms, like a spider ! " The father said : O my son, on this occasion the SHAIKH SADL 197 skies co-operated, and fortune was your guide, so as to enable you to pluck a rose from your thorn and to extract the thorn from your foot. Moreover, an opulent gentleman met you and generously investi- gated your condition and redressed your broken fortune ; otherwise, such instances are rare, and we ought not to expect and trust to wonders. Take heed that, led away by this greediness, you do not again enter the circle of desire, or spread the carpet of covetousness : " The sportsman does not every day make sure of his game. It may happen that the tyger shall one day tear him." In like manner as a certain king of Persia had a precious gem set in a ring. For the sake of recreation, he went on one occasion with a select retinue to the Mussala, near Shiraz, and ordered that they should fix the ring on the dome of Azud, with a proclamation that whoever might shoot an arrow through its hoop should have the ring as a present. It happened that four hundred professed archers who were in the royal train took their aim, but all of them missed it. A boy at play on the terrace roof of a public building was shooting from his bow at random, and lo ! the morn- ing breeze took his arrow and carried it through the circlet of the ring. They complimented him with the gem and ring, and made him many presents. After this the boy burnt his bow and arrows. They asked : Why did you do so ? He replied : That my first instance of reputation may be lasting. "It at one time may chance that the clear-headed sage shall be mistaken in the counsel he will offer ; at another time 198 SHAIKH SADL we find that an unskilful boy shall, through mistake, hit the target with his arrow." XXIX. I saw a darwesh who had withdrawn into a cave, shut the door of communication between the world and himself, and with his lofty and independent eye viewed emperors and kings without awe or reverence: " Whoever opens to himself the door of mendicity, must continue a beggar till the day of his death. Put covetousness aside, and be independent as a prince ; the neck of contentment can raise its head erect" One of the sovereigns of those parts sent a message to him, stating : So far I can rely on the generous disposition of his reverence, that he will one day favour me by partaking of my bread and salt, by becoming my guest. The shaikh, or holy man, con- sented ; for the acceptance of such an invitation accorded with the sunnat, or law and tradition of the prophet. Next day the king went to apologise for the trouble he had caused him. The abid rose from his place, took the king in his arms, showed him much kindness, and was full of his compliments. After he was gone, one of the shaikh's companions asked him, saying : Was not such condescending kind- ness as you this day showed the king contrary to what is usual ; what does this mean ? He answered : Have you not heard what they have said: "It is SHAIKH SAD I. 199 proper to stand up and administer to him whom thou hast seated on thy carpet, or made thy guest" " He could so manage that, during his whole life, his ear should not indulge in the music of the tabor, cymbal, and pipe. He could restrain his eyes from enjoying the garden, and gratify his sense of smell without the rose or narcissus. Though he had not a pillow stuffed with down, he could compose himself to rest with a stone under his head ; though he had no heart-solacer as the partner of his bed, he could hug himself to sleep with his arms across his breast. If he could not ride an ambling nag, he was content to take his walk on foot ; only this grumbling and vile belly he could not keep under, without stuffing it with food." CHAPTER IV. ON THE BENEFIT OF BEING SILENT. I SPOKE to one of my friends, saying : A prudent restraint on my words is on that account advisable, because in conversation there on most occasions occur good and bad ; and the eyes of rivals only note what is bad. He replied : O brother ! that is our best rival who does not, or will not, see our good ! " The malignant brotherhood pass not by the virtuous man without imputing to him what is infamous: To the eye of enmity virtue appears the ugliest blemish; it is a rose, O Sadi! which to the eyes of our rivals seems a thorn. The world-illuminating brilliancy of the foun- tain of the sun, in like manner, appears dim to the eye of the purblind mole." II. A merchant happened to lose a thousand dinars. He said to his son : It will be prudent not to mention this loss to anybody. The son answered : O father, it is your orders, and I shall riot mention it ; but SHAIKH SAD I. 201 communicate the benefit so far, as what the policy may be in keeping it a secret. He said : That I may not suffer two evils : one, the loss of my money; another, the reproach of my neighbour: "Impart not thy grievances to rivals, for they are glad at heart, while praying, God preserve us ; or there is neither strength nor power, unless it be from God/" III. A sensible youth made vast progress in the arts and sciences, and was of a docile disposition ; but however much he frequented the societies of the learned, they never could get him to utter a word. On one occasion his father said : O my son, why do not you also say what you know on this subject? He replied : I am afraid lest they question me upon what I know not, and put me to shame : " Hast thou not heard of a sufi who was hammering some nails into the sole of his sandal An officer of cavalry took him by the sleeve, saying, Come along, and shoe my horse : So long as thou art silent and quiet, nobody will meddle with thy business ; but once thou divulgest it, be ready with thy proofs." IV. A man, respectable for his learning, got into a discussion with an atheist ; but, failing to convince him, he threw down his shield and fled. A person asked him, With all your wisdom and address, 202 SHAIKH SADI. learning and science, how came you not to con- trovert an infidel? He replied: My learning is the Koran, and the traditions and sayings of our holy fathers ; but he puts no faith in the articles of our belief, and what good could it do to listen to his blasphemy ? " To him whom thou canst not convince by revelation or tradition, the best answer is that thou shalt not answer him." V. The physician Galen saw a blockhead of a fellow who had laid hold of a learned man by the collar, and was treating him most disrespectfully. He said : Had this been a wise man he would never have permitted his concerns with an ignoramus to come to this pass. " Strife and malignity occur not between two men of sense. A wise man will not dispute with one that is hasty. If an ignoramus is harsh in his rude brutality, a prudent man will soothe him with mild urbanity. A hair can keep two good and holy men together, notwithstanding they are arguing a difference of opinion ; but if on both sides contentious and brutal, though it were an iron chain, they would tear it asunder." VI. They have esteemed Sahban Wabil as unrivalled in eloquence, insomuch that he could speak for a year before an assembly, and would not use the SHAIKH SADL 203 same word twice ; or should he chance to repeat it, he would give it a different signification ; and this is one of the special accomplishments of a courtier : " Though a speech be captivating and sweet, worthy of belief, and meriting applause, yet what thou hast once delivered thou must not repeat, for if they eat a sweetmeat once they find that enough." VII. I overheard a sage, who was remarking : Never has anybody acknowledged his own ignorance, excepting that person who, while another may be talking, and has not finished what he has to say, will begin speaking: "A speech, O wiseacre! has a beginning and an end ; bring not one speech into the middle of another. A man of judgment, discretion, and pru- dence, delivers not his speech till he find an interval of silence." VIII. Some of the courtiers of Sultan Mahmud asked Husan Maimandi, saying : What did the king whisper to you to-day on a certain state affair ? He said : You are also acquainted with it They replied : You are the prime minister : what the king tells you, he does not think proper to communicate to such as we are. He replied : He communicates with me in the confidence that I will not divulge to anybody ; then why do you ask me ? " A man of sense blabs not, whatever he may come to know ; he should not make his own head the forfeit of the king's secret." 204 SHAIKH SADL IX. I was hesitating about the purchase of a dwelling- house. A Jew said : I am an old housekeeper in this street : ask the character of this house from me and buy it, for it has no fault. I replied : True ! only that you are its neighbour : " Any such house as has thee for its neighbour could scarce be worth ten dirams of silver ; yet it should behove us to hope that after thy death it may fetch a thousand." x. A certain poet presented himself before the chief of a gang of robbers, and recited a casidah, or elegy, in his praise. He ordered that they should strip off his clothes, and thrust him from the village. The naked wretch was going away shivering in the cold, and the village dogs were barking at his heels. He stooped to pick up a stone, in order to shy at the dogs, but found the earth frost-bound, and was disappointed. He exclaimed : What rogues these villagers are, for they let loose their dogs, and tie up their stones ! The chief robber saw and over- heard him from a window. He smiled at his wit, and, calling him near, said : O learned sir ! ask me for a boon. He replied, I ask for my own garments, if you will vouchsafe to give them : / shall have enough of boons in your suffering me to depart, " Mankind expect charity from others ; I expect no chanty from SHAIKH SAD I. 205 thee, only do me no injury." The chief robber felt compassion for him. He ordered his clothes to be restored, and added to them a robe of fur and sum of money. XI. An astrologer returned home, and found a stranger seated with his wife. He abused and assailed him with violence, and riot and uproar took place between them. A goodly and holy man was apprised of this, and said : " How canst thou tell what passes in the celestial sphere, who art ignorant of an intrigue carrying on at thine own dwelling ? " XII. A preacher of a harsh tone of voice fancied himself a fine-spoken man, and would hold forth at the mosque to a very idle purpose. You might say that the croaking of the raven of the desert was the burthen of his chant, and this text of the Koran expressive of his manner: The most abominable of noises is the braying of an ass : " Whenever this ass of a preacher sets up a braying, his voice will make the city of Istikhar, or Persepolis, shake to its base" In reverence of his rank his townsmen indulged this defect, and would not distress him by remarking on it, till another preacher of those parts, actuated by a private pique, came on one occasion to tantalise him, and said, I have seen you in a dream ; may it prove fortunate ! He asked : What have you seen ? 206 SHAIKH SADI. He replied : So it seemed in my vision that your voice had become harmonious, and mankind were charmed with your melodious cadences. For a while the preacher bowed his head in thought, then raised it, and said : What a fortunate vision is it that you had, that has made me sensible of my weakness ! I am now aware that I have an unpleasant voice, and that the people are distressed at my delivery. I have vowed that I will henceforth preach only in a soft tone of voice. " I am distressed with the society of friends who extol my vices into virtues, my blemishes they view as excellences and perfections, my thorns they regard as roses and jassmines. Where is that rude and bold rival who will expose all my deformities ? " XIII. At a mosque in the city of Sanjar, the capital of Khorasan, a person was volunteering to chant forth the call to prayers with so discordant a note as to drive all that heard him away in disgust. The intendant of that mosque was a just and well-dis- posed gentleman, who was averse to giving offence to anybody. He said : O generous youth, there belong to this mosque some mowuzzins, or criers, of long standing, to each of whom I allow a monthly stipend of five dinars ; now I will give you ten to go elsewhere. To this he agreed, and took himself off. After a while he came to the nobleman, and said : O my lord ! you did me an injury when for ten dinars you prevailed upon me to quit this station, for SHAIKH SADL 207 where I went they offered me twenty to remove to another place, but I would not consent. The noble- man smiled and replied : Take heed, and do not accept them, for they may be content to give you fifty ! " No person can with a mattock scrape off the clay from the face of a hard rock in so grating a manner as thy harsh voice is harrowing up my soul." XIV. A person with a harsh voice was reciting the Koran in a loud tone. A good and holy man went up to him, and asked : What is your monthly stipend ? He answered, Nothing. Then, added he, why give yourself so much trouble ? He said : I am reading for the sake of God. The good and holy man replied : For God's sake do not read: "for if thou chantest the Koran after this manner, thou must cast a shade over the glory of Islamism or Mussulman orthodoxy," CHAPTER V. ON LOVE AND YOUTH. THEY asked Husan Maimandi : How comes it that Sultan Mahmud, who has so many handsome bonds- women, each of whom is the wonder of the world and most select of the age, entertains not such fondness and affection for any of them as he does for Ayaz, who can boast of no superiority of charms ? He replied : Whatever makes an impression on the heart seems lovely in the eye. " That person of whom the sultan makes choice must be altogether good, though a compendium of vice ; but where he is estranged from the favour of the king none of the household will think of courting him." " Were a person to view it with a fastidious eye, the form of a Joseph might seem a deformity ; but let him look with desire on a demon, and he will appear like an angel and cherub." II. They tell a story of a gentleman who had a slave singularly handsome ; and her he regarded with an eye of fondness and affection. He observed to one of SHAIKH SADL 209 his friends : What a pity that this slave, with the beauty and grace which she possesses, should be a termagant and vixen. He replied: O brother, now you have made her your companion, expect not the service of a waiting woman ; for where the lover and mistress come in play, the distinction of master and slave is done away: " When the gentleman begins to .joke and toy with his angel-faced and handsome hand- maid, it should not surprise if she order like a master, and he bear the burthen of coquetry like a bonds- woman. It becomes the bondswoman to be a water- carrier and brickmaker. Let her be a charmer and she becomes a boxer and bruiser." III. . - I saw a parsa, or holy man, so enamoured of a lovely person that he had neither fortitude to bear with, nor resolution to declare, his passion ; and, however much he was the object of remark and censure, he would not forego this infatuation, and was saying : " I quit not my hold on the skirt of thy garment, though thou mayst verily smite me with a sharp sword. Besides thee I have neither asylum nor defence ; if I am to flee, I must take refuge with thee." On one occasion I reproached him, and said: What is become of your precious reason, that a vile passion should thus master you? He made a short pause, and replied : " Wherever the king of love came, he left no room for the strong arm of chastity. How 756 2 TO SHAIKH SAD I. can that wretch live undefiled who has fallen in a quagmire up to the neck ? " IV. A certain person had lost his heart and abandoned himself to despair. The object of his desire was not such a dainty that he could gratify his palate with it, or a bird that he could lure it into his net, but a frightful precipice and overwhelming whirlpool : " When thy gold attracts not the charmer's eye, dust or gold is of equal value with thee." His friends admonished him, saying: Put aside this vain fancy, for multitudes are in the durance and chains of this same passion which you are cherishing. He sighed aloud, and replied : " Say to my friends, Do not admonish me, for my eye is fixed on the wish of her. With strength of wrist and power of shoulders warriors overwhelm their antagonists and charmers their lovers." Nor can it be consistent with the condition of love that any thought of life should divert the heart from affection for its mistress : " Thou, who art the slave of thine own precious self, playest false in the affairs of love. If thou canst not make good a passage to thy mistress, it is the duty of a lover to perish in the attempt. I persist when policy is no longer left me, though the enemy may cover me all over with the wounds of swords and arrows. If I can reach her I will seize her sleeve, or at all events proceed and die at her threshold." SHAIKH SADL 211 His kindred, whose business it was to watch over his concerns, and to pity his misfortunes, gave him advice, and put upon him restraints, but all to no good purpose : " The physician is, alas ! prescribing bitter aloes, and his depraved appetite is craving sweetmeats ! Heardest thou what a charmer was saying in a whisper to one who had lost his heart to her : So long as thou maintainest thine own dignity, of what value can my dignity appear in thine eye ? " They informed the princess who was the object of his infatuation, saying: A youth of an amiable disposi- tion and sweet flow of tongue is frequent in his attendance at the top of this plain ; and we hear him delivering brilliant speeches and wonderful sallies of wit ; it would seem that he has a mystery in his head and a flame in his heart, for he appears to be distractedly in love. The princess was aware that she had become the object of his attachment, and that this whirlwind of calamity was raised by himself, and spurred her horse toward him. Now that the youth saw that it was the princess's inten- tion to approach him, he wept, and said : " That personage who inflicted upon me a mortal wound again presented herself before me ; perhaps she took compassion upon her own victim." However kindly she spoke, and asked, saying: Who are you, and whence come you ? what is your name, and what your calling? the youth was so entirely over- whelmed in the ocean of love and passion that he absolutely could not utter a word : " Couldst thou 212 SHAIKH SADL in fact repeat the seven Saba, or whole Koran by heart, if distracted with love, thou wouldst forget thy alphabet:" the princess continued: Why do you not answer me ? for I too am one of the sect of darweshes, niy, I am their most devoted slave. On the strength of this sympathising encouragement of his beloved, the youth raised his head amidst the buffeting waves of tempestuous passion, and answered : " It is strange that with thee present I should remain in existence ; that after thou earnest to talk, I should have speech left me." This he said, and, uttering a loud groan, surrendered his soul up to God : " No wonder if he died by the door of his beloved's tent ; the wonder was, if alive, how he could have brought his life back in safety." V. A boy at school possessed much loveliness of per- son and sweetness of conversation ; and the master, from the frailty of human nature, was enamoured of his blooming skin. Like his other scholars, he would not admonish and correct him, but when he found him in a corner he would whisper in his ear : " I am not, O celestial creature ! so occupied with thee, that I am harbouring in my mind a thought of myself. Were I to perceive an arrow coming right into it, I could not shut my eye from contemplating thee." On one occasion the boy said : Tn like manner, as you inspect my studies, also animadvert on my SHAIKH SADL 213 tendency to vice, in order that if you discern any immorality in my behaviour, which has met my own approbation, you can warn me against it, that I may correct it. He replied: O my child ! propose this task to somebody else ; for the light in which I view you reflects nothing but virtue. " That malignant eye, let it be plucked out in whose sight his virtue .can seem vice. Hadst thou but one perfection and seventy faults, the lover could discern only that one perfection." VI. One night, I recollect, a beloved friend entered my chamber-door. I rose so heedlessly from my seat that the lamp was extinguished by my sleeve : " A vision made its appearance, ^vhicll in its splendour illumined chaos. I was surprised at my good fortune, exclaiming : Whence came this treasure ? " She took a seat, and began to chide me, saying, Why did you put out the light at the instant of seeing me ? I answered : The sun, I fancied, was getting up ! Also men of wit have said : " If an austere person should intrude upon the light, rise and drive him with blows from the assembly; but if a dimpling smiler and sugar-lipped charmer, take her round the waist and put out the taper." VII. A person who had not seen his friend for a length of time, said to him : Where were you ? for I have 214 SHAIKH SADL been very solicitous about you. He replied, It is better to be sought after than loathed. " Thou hast come late, O intoxicating idol ! I shall not in a hurry quit my hold on thy skirt : that mistress whom they see but seldom is at last more desired than she is whom they are cloyed with seeing." The charmer that can bring companions along with her has come to quarrel ; for she cannot be void of jealousy and discontent : " Whenever thou contest to visit me attended with comrades or rivals, though thou comest in peace, yet thy object is hostile : for one single moment that my mistress associated with a rival, it went well-nigh to slay me with jealousy. Smiling, she replied: O Sadi ! I am the torch of the assembly; what is it to me if the moth consume itself? " VIII. In former times, I recollect, a friend and I were associating together like two kernels within one almond shell. I happened unexpectedly to go on a journey. After some time, when I was returned, he began to chide me, saying: During this long interval you never sent me a messenger. I replied : It vexed me to think that the eyes of a courier should be enlightened by your countenance, whilst I was debarred that happiness : Tell my old charmer not to impose a vow upon me with her tongue ; for I would not repent, were she to attempt it with a sword. Envy stings me to the quick, lest another should be satiated with beholding thee, till I recollect SHAIKH SADL 215 myself, and say : Nobody can have a satiety of that!" IX. I saw a learned gentleman the captive of attach- ment for a certain person, and the victim of his reproach ; and he would suffer much violence, and bear it with great patience. On one occasion I said, by way of admonition : I know that in your attach- ment for this person you have no bad object, and that this friendship rests not on any criminal design ; yet, under this interpretation, it accords not with the dignity of the learned to expose yourself to calumny, and put up with the rudeness of the rabble. He replied: O my friend, withdraw the hand of reproach from the skirt of my fatality, for I have frequently reflected on this advice which you offer me, and find it easier to suffer contumely on his account than to forego his company ; and philosophers have said : It is less arduous to persist in the labour of courting than to restrain the eye from contemplating a beloved object : " Whoever devotes his heart to a soul deluder puts his beard or reputation into the hands of another. That person, without whom thou canst not exist, if he do thee a violence, thou must bear with it. The antelope, that is led by a string cannot bound from this side to that. One day I asked a compact of my mistress ; how often have I since that day craved her forgiveness ! A lover exacts not terms of his charmer ; I relinquished my heart to whatever she desired me, whether to call me up to 216 SHAIKH SADL her with kindness, or drive me from her with harsh- ness she knows best, or it is her pleasure." X. In my early youth such an event (as you know) will come to pass. I held a mystery and intercourse with a young person,, because he had a pipe of exquisite melody, and a form silver bright as the full moon : " He is sipping the fountain of immortality, who may taste the down of his cheek ; and he is eating a sweetmeat, who can fancy the sugar of his lips." It happened that something in his behaviour having displeased me, I withdrew the skirt of communica- tion, and removed the seal of my affection from him, and said : " Go, and take what course best suits thee ; thou regardest not my counsel, follow thine own." I overheard him as he was going, and saying : " If the bat does not relish the company of the sun, the all-current brilliancy of that luminary can suffer no diminution." He so expressed himself and departed, and his vagabond condition much dis- tressed me : the opportunity of enjoyment was lost, and a man is insensible to the relish of prosperity till he has tasted adversity : return and slay me, for to die before thy face were far more pleasant than to survive in thy absence." But, thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty, he did not return till after some interval, when that melodious pipe of David was cracked, and that SHAIKH SADL 217 handsome form of Joseph in its wane ; when that apple his chin was overgrown with hair like a quince, and the all-current lustre of his charms tarnished. He expected me to fold him in my arms ; but I took myself aside and said : " When the down of loveliness flourished on thy cheek, thou drovest the lord of thy attractions from thy sight ; now thou hast come to court his peace when thy face is thick set with fathahs and zammahs, or the bristles of a beard : The verdant foliage of thy spring is turned yellow ; place not thy kettle on my grate, for its fire is cooled. How long wilt thou display this pomp and vanity ; hopest thou to regain thy former dominion ? Make thy court to such as desire thee, sport thy airs on such as will hire thee : The verdure of the garden, they have told us, is charming ; that person (Sadi) knows it who is relating that story ; or, in other words, that the fresh-shooting down on their charmers' cheeks is what the hearts of their admirers chiefly covet : Thy garden is like a bed of chives : the more thou croppest it, the more it will shoot : Last year thou didst depart smooth as an antelope, to-day thou art returned bearded like a pard. Sadi admires the fresh-shooting down, not when each hair is stiff as a packing-needle : Whether thou hast patience with thy beard, or weed it from thy face, this happy season of youth must come to a conclusion. Had I the same command of life as thou hast of beard, it should not escape me till doomsday. I asked him and said: What has become of the beauty of thy countenance, that a beard has sprung up round the 2i8 SHAIKH SADL orb of the moon ? He answered : I know not what has befallen my face, unless it has put on black to mourn its departed charms." XL They asked a doctor of laws, saying: Were a man seated in a private chamber with a moon-faced damsel, the doors shut, her attendants gone to sleep, his appetite craving and lust domineering, as the Arabs say : The dates rife, and the gardener inviting us to eat, might it be possible by the virtue of his chastity to escape her temptations ? He answered : If he might resist dalliance with the damsel, he would not escape the scandal of the slanderer : "For though a man be safe from the mischief of his own lust, yet he is not secure from the evil report of his rivals. It is possible to restrain thy own passion ; but thou canst not curb the tongue of man. By repentance he may deprecate the wrath of God ; but he cannot escape the slander of his fellow-creature." XII. They shut up a parrot in the same cage with a crow. The parrot was affronted at his ugly look, and said: What an odious visage is this, a hideous figure ; what an accursed appearance, and ungracious demeanour ! " Would to God, O raven of the desert ! we were wide apart as the east is from the west: The serenity of his peaceful day would change into the gloom of night, who on issuing forth in the morning SHAIKH SADL 219 might cross thy aspect An ill-conditioned wretch like thyself should be thy companion ; but where could we find such another in the world ? " But what is more strange, the crow was also out of all patience, and vexed to the soul at the society of the parrot. Bewailing his misfortune, he was railing at the revolutions of the skies ; and, wringing the hands of chagrin, was lamenting his condition, and saying : What an unpropitious fate is this ; what ill-luck, and untoward fortune ! Could they any way suit the dignity of me, who would in my day strut with my fellow-crows along the wall of a garden: "It were durance sufficient for a good and holy man that he should be made the companion of the wicked:" What sin have I committed that my stars in retribution of it have linked me in the chain of companionshfp, and immured me in the dungeon of calamity, with a conceited blockhead, and good-for- nothing babbler : " Nobody will approach the foot of a wall on which they have painted thy portrait ; wert thou to get a residence in paradise, others would go in preference to hell." I have introduced this parable to show that how- ever much learned men despise the ignorant, these are a hundredfold more scornful of the learned : " A zahid, or holy man, fell in company with some wandering minstrels. One of them, a charmer of Balkh, said to him : If thou art displeased with us, do not look sour, for thou art already sufficiently offen- sive. An assemblage is formed of roses and tulips, and thou art stuck up amidst them like a withered 220 SHAIKH SADI. stalk ; like an opposing storm, and a chilling winter blast ; like a ball of snow, or lump of ice." XIII. I had an associate, who was for years the com- panion of my travels, partook of the same bread and salt, and enjoyed the many rights of a confirmed friendship. At last on some trifling advantage he gave me cause of umbrage, and our intimacy ceased. And notwithstanding all this, there was a hankering of good-will on both sides ; in consequence of which I heard that he was one day reciting in a certain assembly these two couplets of my writings : " When my idol, or mistress, is approaching me with her tantalising smiles, she is sprinkling more salt upon my smarting sores. How fortunate were the tips of her ringlets to come into my hand, like the sleeve of the generous in the hands of darweshes." This society of his friends bore testimony, and gave applause, not to the beauty of this sentiment, but to the liberality of his own disposition in quoting it ; while he had himself been extravagant in his encomiums, regretted the demise of our former attachment, and confessed how much he was to blame. I was made aware that he too was desirous of a reconciliation ; and, having sent him these couplets, made my peace : " Was there not a treaty of good faith between us, and didst not thou com- mence hostilities, and violate the compact ? I relin- quished all manner of society, and plighted my heart SHAIKH SAD I. 221 to thee ; for I did not suspect that thou wouldst have so readily changed. If it still be thy wish to renew our peace, return, and be more dear to me than ever." XIV. A man had a beautiful wife, who died ; but the mother, a decrepid old dotard, remained a fixture in his house, because of the dowry. He was teased to death by her company ; but, from the circumstance of the dower, he had no remedy. In the meantime some of his friends having come to comfort him, one of them asked : How is it with you, since the loss of that dear friend ? He answered : The absence of my wife is not so intolerable as the presence of her mother : " They plucked the rose, and left me the thorn ; they plundered the treasure, and let the snake remain. To have our eye pierced with a spear were more tolerable than to see the face of an enemy. It were better to break with a thousand friends than to put up with one rival." XV. In my youth I recollect I was passing through a street, and caught a glimpse of a moon-like charmer during the dog-days, when their heat was drying up the moisture of the mouth, and the Samum, or desert hot-wind, melting the marrow of the bones. From the weakness of human nature I was unable to withstand the darting rays of a noon-tide sun, and 222 SHAIKH SADL took refuge under the shadow of a wall, hopeful that somebody would relieve me from the oppressive heat of summer, and quench the fire of my thirst with a draught of water. All at once I beheld a luminary in the shadowed portico of a mansion, so splendid an object that the tongue of eloquence falls short in summing up its loveliness ; such as the day dawning upon a dark night, or the fountain of immortality issuing from chaos. She held in her hand a goblet of snow-cooled water, into which she dropt some sugar, and tempered it with spirit of wine ; but I know not whether she scented it with attar, or sprinkled it with a few blossoms from her own rosy cheek. In short, I received the beverage from her idol-fair hand ; and, having drunk it off, found myself restored to a new life. " Such is not my parching thirst that it is to be quenched with the limpid element of water, were I to swallow it in oceans: Joy to that happy aspect whose eye can every morning contemplate such a countenance as thine. A person intoxicated with wine lies giddy and awake half the night ; but if intoxicated with the cup-bearer [God], the day of judgment must be his dawn or morning." XVI. In the year that Sultan Mohammed Khowarazm- Shah had for some political reason chosen to make peace with the king of Khota, I entered the metro- politan mosque at Kashghar, and met a youth incomparably lovely, and exquisitely handsome ; SHAIKH SADL 223 such as they have mentioned in resemblance of him : " Thy master instructed thee in every bold and captivating grace ; he taught thee coquetry and confidence, tyranny and violence. I have seen no mortal with such a form and temper, stateliness and manner; perhaps he learned these fascinating ways from an angel." He held the introduction of the Zamakhshari Arabic grammar in his hand, and was repeating : Zaraba Zaidun Amranwa Zaid beat Amru and is the assailant of Amru. I said: O my son! the Khowarazm and Khatayi sovereigns have made peace, and does war thus subsist between Zaid and Amru ? He smiled, and asked me the place of my nativity. I answered : The territory of Shiraz. He said : Do you recollect any of Sadi's compositions ? I replied : "/ am enamoured ^vith the reader of the syntax, who, taking offence, assails me in like manner as Zaid does Amru. And Zaid, when read Zaidin, cannot raise his head ; and how canst thou give a zammah to a word accented with a kasrah ? " He reflected a little within himself, and said : In these parts we have much of Sadi's compositions in the Persian language ; if you will speak in that dialect we shall more readily comprehend you, for you should address mankind according to their capacities. I replied : " Whilst thy passion was that of studying grammar, all trace of reason was erased from our hearts. Yes ! the lover's heart is fallen a prey to thy snare : we are occupied about thee, and thou art taken up with Amru and Zaid." 224 SHAIKH SAD I. On the morrow, which had been fixed on as the period of our stay, some of my fellow-travellers had perhaps told him such a one is Sadi ; for I saw that he came running up, and expressed his affection and regret, saying: Why did you not during all this time tell us that a certain person is Sadi, that I might have shown my gratitude by offering my service to your reverence. I answered : " In thy presence I cannot even say that I am I ! " He said : " How good it were if you would tarry here for a few days, that we might devote ourselves to your service." I replied : That cannot be, as this adventure will explain to you : " In the hilly region I saw a great and holy man, who was content in living retired from the world in a cavern. I said: Why dost thou not come into the city, that thy heart might be relieved from a load of servitude? He replied: In it there dwell some wonderful and angel-faced charmers, and where the path is miry, elephants may find it slippery."- Having delivered this speech, we kissed each other's head and face, and took our leaves : " What profits it to kiss our mistress's cheek, and with the same breath to bid her adieu. Thou mightest say that the apple had taken leave of its friends by having this cheek red and that cheek yellow : Were I not to die of grief on that day I say farewell, tJiou ivouldst charge me with being insincere in my attachments" XVII. A ragged darwesh accompanied us along with the caravan for Hijaz, and a certain Arab prince presented SHAIKH SADJ. 225 him with a hundred dinars for the support of his family. Suddenly a gang of Khafachah robbers attacked the caravan, and completely stripped it. The merchants set up a weeping and wailing, and made much useless lamentation and complaint : " Whether thou supplicatest them, or whether thou complainest, the robbers will not return thee their plunder : " all but that ragged wretch, who stood collected within himself, and unmoved by this adven- ture. I said: Perhaps they did not plunder you of that money ? He replied : Yes, they took it ; but I was not so fond of my pet as to break my heart at parting with it " We should not fix our heart so on any thing or being as to find any difficulty in removing it" I said: What you have remarked corresponds precisely with what once befell myself; for in my juvenile days I took a liking to a young man, and so sincere was my attachment that the Cablah, or fane, of my eye was his perfect beauty, and the profit of this life's traffic his much-coveted society : " Perhaps the angels might in paradise, otherwise no living form can on this earth display such a love- liness of person. By friendship I swear that after his demise all loving intercourse is forbidden ; for no human emanation can stand a comparison with him." All at once the foot of his existence stumbled at the grave of annihilation ; and the sigh of separation burst from the dwelling of his family. For many days I sat a fixture at his tomb, and, of the many dirges I composed upon his demise, this is one : 757 22 6 SHAIKH SADL "On that day, when thy foot was pierced with the thorn of death, would to God the hand of fate had cloven my head with the sword of destruction, that my eyes might not this day have witnessed the world without thee. Such am I, seated at the head of thy dust, as the ashes are seated on my own : whoever could not take his rest and sleep till they first had spread a bed of roses and narcissuses for him : the whirlwind of the sky has scattered the roses of his cheek, and brambles and thorns are shooting from his grave." After my separation from him I came to a steady and firm determination, that during my remaining life I would fold up the carpet of enjoyment, and never re-enter the gay circle of society : " Were it not for the dread of its waves, much would be the profits of a voyage at sea ; were it not for the vexation of the thorn, charming might be the society of the rose. Yesterday I was walking stately as a peacock in the garden of enjoyment ; to-day I am writhing like a snake from the absence of my mistress." XVIII. To a certain king of Arabia they were relating the story of Laila and Mujnun, and his insane state, saying: Notwithstanding his knowledge and wisdom, he has turned his face towards the desert, and abandoned himself to distraction. The king ordered that they brought him into his presence ; and he reproved him, and spoke, saying : What have SHAIKH SADI. 227 you seen unworthy in the noble nature of man that you should assume the manners of a brute, and for- sake the enjoyment of human society ? Mujnun wept and answered : "Many of my friends reproach me for my love of for, namely Laila. Alas ! that they could one day see her, that my excuse might be manifest for me!" "Would to God that such as blame me could behold thy face, O thou ravisher of hearts ! that at the sight of thee they might, from inadvertency, cut their own fingers instead of the orange in their hands : " Then might the truth of the reality bear testimony against the semblance of fiction, what manner of person that was for whose sake you were upbraiding me. The king resolved within himself, on viewing in person the charms of Laila, that he migl.;. be able to judge what her form could be which had caused all this misery, and ordered her to be produced in his presence. Having searched through the Arab tribes, they discovered and presented her before the king in the courtyard of his seraglio. He viewed her figure, and beheld a person of a tawny complexion and feeble frame of body. She appeared to him in a contemptible light, inasmuch as the lowest menial in his harem, or seraglio, surpassed her in beauty and excelled her in elegance. Mujnun, in his sagacity, penetrated what was passing in the royal mind, and said : It would behove you, O king, to contemplate the charms of Laila through the wicket of a Muj nun's eye, in order that the miracle of such a spectacle might be illustrated to you. " Thou canst have no fellow-feeling 228 SHAIKH SADL for my disorder ; a companion to suit me must have the self-same malady, that I may sit by him the live- long day repeating my tale ; for by rubbing two pieces of dry firewood one upon another they will burn all the brighter : had that grove of verdant reeds heard the murmurings of love ^vhich in detail of my mistress's story have passed through my ear, it would somehow have sympathised in my pain. Tell it, O my friends, to such as are ignorant of love ; would ye could be aware of what wrings me to the soul: the anguish of a wound is not known to the hale and sound ; we must detail our aches only to a fellow-sufferer. It were idle to talk of a hornet to him who has never during his life smarted from its sting. Till thy condition may in some sort resemble mine, my state will seem to thee an idle fable. Compare not my pain with that of another man ; he holds salt in his hand, but I hold it on a wounded limb." XIX. They tell a story of the cazy of the city of Ramadan, that he was enamoured of a farrier's daughter, and had the horse-shoe of his heart made glowing hot in the fire of a forge. For a time he was wavering and unsettled, desiring and expectant, and repeating, as applicable to what was passing : " This straight and lofty cypress marched graceful before my eyes ; she took the heart from my hand and trod it under her foot. This bold and lascivious eye was luring my heart into a snare. If thou wishest not to resign thy heart to anybody thou must shut thy eyes." SHAIKH SADI. 229 I have heard that she met the cazy on the highway. Something of this business had reached her ears, and she was beyond measure offended. She abused him vilely, spoke to him harshly, took up stones to throw at him, and showed him all manner of rudeness. The cazy observed to a respectable learned man who attended him on horseback : " Behold that charmer, how overwhelmed she is with anger ; attend to that frown on her sour and sweet eyebrow : " as the Arabs say : the blow of our beloved has the relish of raisins : " to receive a slap on the mouth from thy hand is more sweet than to fill it with bread from my own : " Thus does her outrageous violence give out the fragrance of courtesy ; like kings who will de- nounce hostilities when they perhaps in their hearts are courting peace. "Unripe grapes have a tart taste ; have patience for a few days, that they may become sweet" He thus delivered himself, and returned into the cazy's court Several well-disposed and respectable persons, who held offices under him, kissed the earth of obeisance, saying : With submission, and as in duty bound, we would make a representation to your lordship, that although " it might be deemed unpolite, as the sage have remarked : it is not proper to argue every point ; to find fault with great men is itself a fault :" yet, conscious that the past munifi- cence of our lord and master was the cause of the good fortune of his servants, it were a species of treachery in us to be aware of what is right, and not to notice it. And this is the path of rectitude, that you should 230 SHAIKH SADL shun the circle of delusion, and fold up the carpet of criminal conversation with this damsel ; for the station of a judge is of such high dignity that you should not contaminate it with an abominable sin. This object, which you have in contemplation, you should consider as your bane, and her story such as you have heard it : "A person has committed many disreputable crimes ; what regard has she for the reputation of another. Many is the good character of fifty years' stand- ing which one shameless act will tread under foot." The cazy approved of the unanimous advice of his friends, and commended their good sense and watch- ful fidelity, and said : The light in which my beloved friends view the policy of my situation is the mirror of what is right, and argument unanswerable : " Of a truth, were friendship to be forfeited on our offering admonition, then might the righteous be accused of falsehood:" nevertheless, "admonish me as much as thou choosest, thou never canst wash a blackamoor white. I never can be made by anybody to forget thee ; I am a snake with my head bruised, and cannot twist myself away." Having thus delivered himself, he deputed certain people to ascertain the damsel's circumstances, and was lavish of his cash, as has been remarked : Who- ever has gold in the scales commands the arms of the balance ; and he who cannot corrupt the world has not a friend all throughout the world : " Whoever sees gold lowers his head, though, like the scales of Justice, he has iron-bound shoulders." In short, he one evening accomplished a private SHAIKH SAD I. 231 interview ; and that same night it was reported to the superintendent of the police that the cazy had all the evening had wine in his head, and his mistress in his arms ; that he had lain awake in ecstasy, and was singing incessantly : " Perhaps this cock does not to-night crow at his proper hour ; the lover is not yet done with his dalliance. The temple of his mistress, lucidly fair within her curling ringlet, resembles the ivory-ball inlaid upon the ebony chowgong club. Be constantly on the watch, lest that lover of mischief fall into a doze, and the opportunity of enjoyment pass away in regret. Till thou hearest the call for morn- ing prayer at the metropolitan mosque, or the beat of the kettle-drum over the palace-gate of the King Atabak, let lips be sealed to lips, like the eyelids of the salacious cock, and let them be removed only on the real crow of that silly bird ! " Such was the state of the cazy, when one of his servants burst into his chamber, and called aloud : Why do you loiter in bed ? get up, and fly, now it is possible ; for your rivals have calumniated you, nay, they have reported what is true. Perhaps with the water of prudence we may quench the fire of mischief, which is yet low. God forbid that to-morrow, when risen into a flame, it should involve a whole world. The cazy turned towards him with a smile, and replied : " The lion has laid his paw on the game, what cares he for the yelping of a dog? Face to face enjoy thy mistress, and leave thy rival to gnaw the hand of jealousy." That same night they informed the king, saying : 232 SHAIKH SADL Such an act of wickedness has been perpetrated with- in your realm ; what would your majesty order upon the occasion ? The king answered : I know him to be one of the most learned of the time, and the nonpareil of his age. Possibly his rivals, from envy of his worth, have laid this plot, but till convinced by seeing it 1 cannot give ear to the fact : " Hastily to lay a hand on the sword of anger must lead to gnaw that hand with the teeth of regret." I have heard that at break of day next morning, the king, accompanied with a select train, entered the cazy's bed-chamber. He saw that the tapers were alight, the charmer seated on the bed, the goblet broken, and the wine spilled, while the cazy lay stupefied in a dream of drunkenness, and alto- gether unconscious of the royal presence. The king kindly waked him, and said : Get up, for the sun is risen. The cazy recollected how matters stood, and asked : From what quarter has he risen ? The king was taken by surprise, and answered : From the east, as is usual ! The cazy said : Praised be God ! that the door of repentance is still open, according to the tradition : " The gate of repentance is not, nor shall it be, shut upon his [God's] servants, till the sun shall rise in the west : and he added : / ask pardon of God, and vow to him that I will repent : these two circumstances involved me in sin, my inauspicious fortune, and a weak understanding. If thou over- takest me with punishment, I am deserving of it ; but if thou wilt forgive me, pardon is more desirable than chastisement." The king replied: It is too late SHAIKH SADL 233 to repent, now that you know sentence of death is passed upon you : The Most High has said : Then were it impossible their faith could avail, when they became ^vitnesses of my commencing wrath : " How can it benefit the thief to repent at that time, when he cannot again throw his noose [by which he climbs up] into the balcony ? Warn the tall man to with- hold his hand from the fruit, for the dwarf cannot of himself reach the branch." When you fancied to yourself such a crime as has been proved, you could not have figured any path of escape. Having thus expressed himself, the king ordered the executioners of the law to lay hands on the cazy. He said: I have one plea more to submit to his majesty. The king asked: What may that be? He replied : " Notwithstanding thou spurnest me with the sleeve of thy displeasure, think not that I will quit the skirt of thy garment. Though im- possible to fancy a deliverance from this sin that I am charged with, I can trust in that clemency which thou possessest." The king said : You have spoken with much genius, and an admirable flow of wit ; yet is it repugnant to reason, and contrary to law, for me to permit eloquence and wisdom to rescue you this day from the hands of justice. I deem it wise to have you thrown headlong from the battlements of the citadel into the ditch, as an example for others. The cazy replied: O sovereign lord of the universe! I am the fostered child of this royal house, and have not been singular in the commission of this crime ; let 234 SHAIKH SADL some person else be precipitated from the battle- ments, that I may take example by him. The king smiled at this remark, and was pleased to signify his pardon ; and he reproved his accusers, who ex- pected his execution, and added : " All of you are laden with your own sins ; do not reproach others with their failings. Whoever is aware of his own failing will not find fault with the failings of other men." XX. " There was a handsome and well-disposed young man, who was embarked in a vessel with a lovely damsel. I have read that, sailing on the mighty deep, they fell together into a whirlpool. When the pilot came to offer him assistance, saying : God forbid that he should perish in that distress, he was answer- ing from the midst of that overwhelming vortex : Leave me, and take the hand of my beloved ! The whole world admired him for this speech which, as he was expiring, he was heard to make. Learn not the tale of love from that faithless wretch who can neglect his mistress when exposed to danger. In this manner ended the lives of those lovers. Listen to what has happened, that you may under- stand ; for Sadi knows the ways and forms of courtship as well as the Tazi, or modern Arabic, is understood at Baghdad. Devote your whole heart to the heart-consoler you have chosen [namely, God], and let your eyes be shut to the whole world beside. Were Laila and Mujnun to return into life, they might read the history of love in this chapter." CHAPTER VI. OF IMBECILITY AND OLD AGE. I. IN the metropolitan mosque at Damascus I was engaged in a disputation with some learned men, when a youth suddenly entered the door, and said: Does any of you understand the Persian language ? They directed him to me, and I answered: It is true. He continued : An old man of a hundred and fifty years of age is in the agonies of death, and is uttering something in the Persian language, which we do not understand. If you will have the goodness to go to him you may get rewarded ; for he possibly may be dictating his will. When I sat down by his bedside I heard him reciting : " I said, I will enjoy myself for a few moments. Alas ! that my soul took the path of departure. Alas ! at the variegated table of life I partook a few mouthfuls, and the fates said, enough!" I explained the signification of these lines in Arabic to the Syrians. They were astonished that, at his advanced time of life, he should express himself so solicitous about a worldly existence. I asked him : How do you now find yourself? He replied : What 236 SHAIKH SADL shall I say? "Hast thou never witnessed what torture that man suffers from whose jaw they are extracting a tooth ? Fancy to thyself how excruciating is his pain from whose precious body they are tearing an existence !" I said: Banish all thoughts of death from your mind, and let not doubt undermine your constitu- tion ; for the Greek philosophers have remarked that although our temperaments are vigorous, that is no proof of a long life ; and that although our sickness is dangerous, that is no positive sign of immediate dissolution. If you will give me leave, I will call in a physician to prescribe some medicine that may cure you. He replied : Alas ! alas ! " The landlord thinks of refreshing the paintings of his hall, and the house is tottering to its foundation. The physician smites the hands of despair when he sees the aged fallen in pieces like a potsherd ; the old man bemoans himself in the agony of death while the old attendant nurse is anointing him with sandal-wood. When the equipoise of the temperament is overset, neither amulets nor medicaments can do any good." II. An old man was telling a story, saying: I had married a young virgin, adorned the bridal chamber with flowers, seated myself with her in private, and riveted my heart and eyes upon her. Many a long night I would lie awake, and indulge in pleasantries and jests, in order to remove any SHAIKH SADL 237 coyness on her part, and encourage familiarity. One of those nights I was addressing her, and saying : Lofty fortune was your friend, and the eye of your prosperity broad awake, when you fell into the society of such an old gentleman as I am, being of mature judgment, well-bred, worldly experienced, inured to the vicissitudes of heat and cold, and .practised in the goods and evils of life ; who can appreciate the rights of good-fellowship, and fulfil the duties of loving attachment ; and is kind and affable, sweet-spoken and cheerful : " I will treat thee with affection, as far as I can, and if thou dealest with me unkindly, I cannot be unkind in return. If, like a parrot, thy food be sugar, I will devote my sweet life for thy nourishment : " and you did not become the victim of a rude, conceited, rash, and headstrong youth, who one moment gratifies his lust, and the next has a fresh object ; who every night shifts his abode, and every day changes his mistress : " young men are lively and handsome, but they keep good faith with nobody. Expect not constancy from nightingales, who will every moment serenade a fresh rose : "- whereas my class of seniors regulate their lives by good breeding and sense, and are not deluded by youthful ignorance. " Court the society of a superior, and make much of the opportunity ; for in the company of an equal thy good fortune must decline." The old man continued : I spoke a great deal in this style, and thought that I had caught her heart in my snare, and made sure of her as my prey ; when she suddenly drew a cold sigh from the bottom of a 238 SHAIKH SADI. much afflicted bosom, and answered : All this speech which you have delivered has not, in the scale of my judgment, the weight of that one sentence which I have heard of my nurse : that it were better to plant a spear in a young maiden's side than to lay her by an old man in bed ! " Much contention and strife will arise in that house where the wife shall get up dissatisfied with her husband. Unable to rise without the help of a staff, how can an old man stir the staff of life ? " In short, there being no prospect of concord, they agreed to separate. After the period prescribed by the law, they united her in wedlock with a young man of an ill-tempered and sullen disposition, and in very narrow circumstances, so that she endured much tyranny and violence, penury and hardship ; yet she was thus offering up thanksgivings for the Almighty's goodness, and saying : Praised be God that I have escaped from such hell-torment, and secured a blessing so permanent : " With all this violence and impetuosity of temper, I bear with thy caprice, because thou art lovely : It were better for me to burn with thee in hell-fire than to dwell in paradise with another. The smell of an onion from the mouth of the lovely is sweeter than a rose in the hand of the ugly." III. In the territory of Diarbekr, or Mesopotamia, I was the guest of an old man, who was very rich, and had a handsome son. One night he told a story, saying : SHAIKH SADL 239 During my whole life I never had any child but this boy. And in this valley a certain tree is a place of pilgrimage, where people go to supplicate their wants; and many was the night that I have besought God at the foot of that tree before he would bestow upon me this boy. I have heard that the son was also whispering his companions, and saying : How happy I -should be if I could discover the site of that tree, in order that I might pray for the death of my father. The gentleman was rejoicing and saying : What a sensible youth is my son ! and the boy was complain- ing and crying : What a tedious old dotard is my father! "Many years are passing over thy head, during which thou didst not visit thy father's tomb. What pious oblation didst thou make to the manes of a parent that thou shouldst expect so much from thy son ? " IV. Urged one day by the pride of youthful vanity, I had made a forced march, and in the evening found myself exhausted at the bottom of an acclivity. A feeble old man, who had deliberately followed the pace of the caravan, came up to me and said : How come you to lie down here ? Get up, this is no fit place for rest. I replied : How can I proceed, who have not a foot to stand on.? He said : Have you not heard what the prudent have remarked ? Going on, and halting, is better than running ahead and breaking down ! " Ye who wish to reach the end of your journey, hurry not on ; practise my advice, 24 o SHAIKH SADL and learn deliberation. The Arab horse makes a few stretches at full speed, and is broken down ; while the camel, at its deliberate pace, travels on night and day [and gets to the end of his journey]." V. An active, merry, cheerful, and sweet-spoken youth was for a length of time in the circle of my society, whose heart had never known sorrow, nor his lip ceased from being on a smile. An age had passed, during which we had not chanced to meet. When I next saw him he had taken to himself a wife, and got a family ; and the root of his enjoyment was torn up, and the rose of his mirth blasted. I asked him: How is this? He replied: Since I became a father of children, I ceased to play the child : " Now thou art old, relinquish childishness, and leave it to the young to indulge in play and merriment. Expect not the sprightliness of youth from the aged; for the stream that ran by can never return. Now that the corn is ripe for the sickle, it rears not its head as when green and shooting. The season of youth has slipt through my hands ; alas ! when I think on those heart-exhilarating days ! The lion has lost the sturdy grasp of his paw : I must now put up, like a lynx, with a bit of cheese. An old woman had stained her grey locks black. I said to her: O, my antiquated dame! thy hair I admit thou canst turn dark by art, but thou never canst make thy crooked back straight" SHAIKH SADI. 241 VI. One day, in the perverseness of youth, I spoke with asperity to my mother. Vexed at heart, she sat down in a corner, and with tears in her eyes was saying : You have perhaps forgot the days of infancy, that you are speaking to me thus harshly. -" How well did an old woman observe to her own son, when she saw him powerful as a tyger, and formidable as an elephant : Couldst thou call to mind those days of thy infancy when helpless thou wouldst cling to this my bosom, thou wouldst not thus assail me with savage fury, now thou art a lion-like hero, and I am a poor old woman." VIL A rich miser had a son who was grievously sick. His well-wishers and friends spoke to him, saying : It were proper that you either read the Koran throughout or offer an animal in sacrifice, in order that the most high God may restore him to health. After a short reflection within himself he answered, It is better to read the Koran, which is ready at hand ; and my herds are at a distance. A good and holy man heard this and remarked : He makes choice of the reading part because the Koran slips glibly over the tongue, but his money is to be wrung from the soul of him. "Fy upon that readiness to bow the head in prayer ; would that the hand of 758 242 SHAIKH SADL charity could accompany it! In bestowing a dinar he will stickle like an ass in the mire ; but ask him to read the Al-hamdi, or first chapter of the Koran, and he will recite it a hundred times." VIII. They asked an old man why he did not marry. He answered : I feel no affection for an old woman. They said : Now you are rich make choice of a young one. He replied : Since I, who am an old man, have no affection for old women, then how can she, as a young woman, have any love for me, who am old ? " Robur requiritur, non aurum ; quia Herae Gratior est Venus, quam Croesi opes." IX. " I have heard that in these times a weak old man took a fancy in his dotage to choose himself a wife. He wedded a beautiful virgin of the name of Gawhar, or the pearl, and shut her up from the sight of men like a gem in a casket. He made the usual display in celebrating his nuptials ; but on the very first onset the old gentleman's staff went asleep. He drew his bow, but did not hit the target, for brocade can be stitched only with a steel needle. He set forth a complaint to his friends, and offered proof that this impudent slut had dishonoured his house and family. Such contention and strife blazed forth between the man and SHAIKH SADL 243 wife that the flame reached the superintendent of the police and cazi, or judge, and made Sadi remark : After all this altercation and recrimination, in what is the damsel to blame. It is thy hand that shakes, and how canst thou bore a pearl ? " CHAPTER VII. OF THE IMPRESSIONS OF EDUCATION. A CERTAIN nobleman had a dunce of a son. He sent him to a learned man, saying : Verily you will give instruction to this youth, peradventure he may become a rational being. He continued to give him lessons for some time, but they made no impression upon him, when he sent a message to the father saying: This son is not getting wise, and he has well- nigh made me a fool ! " Where the innate capacity is good, education may make an impression upon it ; but no furbisher knows how to give a polish to iron which is of a bad temper. Wash a dog seven times in the ocean, and so long as he is wet he is all the filthier. Were they to take the ass of Jesus to Mecca, on his return from that pilgrimage he would still be an ass." II. A philosopher was exhorting his children and saying: O emanations of my soul, acquire knowledge, as no reliance can be placed on worldly riches and SHAIKH SADI. 245 possessions, for once you leave home rank is of no use, and gold and silver on a journey are exposed to the risk either of thieves plundering them at once, or of the owner wasting them by degrees ; but know- ledge is a perennial spring and ever-during fortune. Were a professional man to lose his fortune, he need not feel regret, for his knowledge is of itself a mine of wealth. Wherever he may sojourn the learned man will meet respect, and be ushered into the upper seat, whilst the ignorant man must put up with offal and suffer want : " If thou covet the paternal heritage, acquire thy father's knowledge, for this thy father's wealth thou mayst squander in ten days. After having been in authority, it is hard to obey ; after having been fondled with caresses, to put up with men's violence : There once occurred an insur- rection in Syria, and everybody forsook his former peaceful abode. The sons of peasants, who were men of learning, came to be employed as the ministers of kings ; and the children of noblemen, of bankrupt understandings, went a begging from village to village." III. A certain learned man was superintending the education of a king's son; and he was chastising him without mercy, and reproving him with asperity. The boy, out of all patience, complained to the king his father, and laid bare before him his much-bruised body. The king was much offended, and sending for the master, said : You do not treat the children of my 246 SHAIKH SADL meanest subject with the harshness and cruelty you do my boy; what do you mean by this ? He replied: To think before they speak, and to deliberate before they act, are duties incumbent upon all mankind, and more immediately upon kings ; because whatever may drop from their hands and tongue, the special deed or word will somehow become the subject of public animadversion ; whereas any act or remark of the commonalty attracts not such notice: "Let a darwesh, or poor man, commit a hundred indis- cretions, and his companions will not notice one out of the hundred ; and let a king but utter one foolish word, and it will be echoed from kingdom to king- dom : " therefore in forming the morals of young princes, more pains are to be taken than with the sons of the vulgar. " Whoever was not taught good manners in his boyhood, fortune will forsake him when he becomes a man. Thou mayst bend the green bough as thou likest ; but let it once get dry, and it will require heat to straighten it : " Verily thou 'mayst bend the tender branch, but it were labour lost to attempt making straight a crooked billet" The king greatly approved of this ingenious detail, and the wholesome course of discipline of the learned doctor ; and, bestowing upon him a dress and largess, raised him one step in his rank as a nobleman ! IV. In the west of Africa I saw a schoolmaster of a sour aspect and bitter speech, crabbed, misanthropic, SHAIKH SADL 247 beggarly, and intemperate, insomuch that the sight of him would derange the ecstasies of the orthodox; and his manner of reading the Koran cast a gloom over the minds of the pious. A number of hand- some boys and lovely virgins were subject to his despotic sway, who had neither the permission of a smile nor the option of a word, for this moment he would smite the silver cheek of one of them with his hand, and the next put the crystalline legs of another in the stocks. In short their parents, I heard, were made aware of a part of his disloyal violence, and beat and drove him from his charge. And they made over his school to a peaceable creature, so pious, meek, simple, and good-natured that he never spoke till forced to do so, nor would he utter a word that could offend anybody. The children forgot that awe in which they had held their first master, and remarking the angelic disposi- tion of their second master, they became one after another as wicked as devils ; and relying on his clemency, they would so neglect their studies as to pass most part of their time at play, and break the tablets of their unfinished tasks over each other's heads : " When the schoolmaster relaxes in his dis- cipline, the children will stop to play at marbles in the market-place." A fortnight after I passed by the gate of that mosque and saw the first schoolmaster, with whom they had been obliged to make friends, and to restore him to his place. I was in truth offended, and calling on God to witness, asked, saying: Why 248 SHAIKH SADL have they again made a devil the preceptor of angels? A facetious old gentleman, who had seen much of life, listened to me and replied: Have you not heard what they have said : " A king sent his son to school, and hung a tablet of silver round his neck. On the face of that tablet he had written in golden letters : The severity of the master is more useful than the indulgence of the father." V. A religious man's son succeeded to considerable property through the bequest of his uncles, and began a life of debauchery and vice, and plunged into all manner of profligate dissipation, insomuch that there was no sin he did not commit, nor any intoxicating drug he did not indulge in. On one occasion I said to him in admonition : O my son, income is the current of a dam-sluice, and expendi- ture a revolving mill-stone; that is to say, a profuse expense can suit only him who has an adequate and certain income : " If thou hast no income, be frugal in thy expense, for the mariners are chanting in their songs. Were no rain to fall in Kowhistan or the hilly region, the Tygris would become a bed of dry sand within the year." Listen to instruction and reason, and forego foolery and idleness, for when your means are wasted you will suffer distress, and be put to shame. Seduced by a taste for conviviality and music, the young man disregarded my remarks, and in SHAIKH SADL 249 despite of my advice replied : It is repugnant to the good sense of the wise to disturb our present fleeting enjoyments with the gloomy thoughts of hereafter : " Why should the lords of voluptuous- ness and good fortune let an apprehension of distress involve them in trouble ? Go and enjoy thyself, O my heart-cheering charmer ; let us not to-day anticipate the sorrow of to-morrow :" And it would more especially unsuit me, who am placed in the president's chair of liberality, am under a contract with generosity, and the fame of my munificence is in everybody's mouth : " Whoever has reared the standard of munificence must not again put a check upon his expenses. Once thy fame has got abroad in the street, thou canst not again shut thy door in the face of it." I perceived that admonition had no effect, and that my warm breath made no impression upon his cold iron. I ceased to advise him, quitted his society, and withdrew into the corner of safety. Conformably with the sayings of the wise : Exhort and admonish, as in duty bound ; and if they will not listen, it can no further concern you : " Although thou art aware that they will not hear, inculcate what thou knowest of admonition and instruction. It must soon come to pass, in their desperate plight, that thou shalt see them with their feet fast bound and in durance, wringing their hands, and crying : Alas ! that we did not listen to the good man's advice ! " After a time, what I had predicted of his dissolute conduct came to be verified ; for I saw him putting patch 250 SHAIKH SADL over patch on his ragged clothes, and wandering from door to door begging crumbs. I felt in my heart for his distressed state ; but deeming it un- generous to hurt his feelings with reproach, or in such a case to sprinkle a poor man's sore with salt, I whispered to myself: "The idle profligate in his intoxication of prosperity never reflects on the day of adversity. The tree is in summer profuse of its fruit, and is in consequence stript of its leaves in the winter." VI. A king gave his son into the charge of a pre- ceptor, and said : This is your child, educate him as you would one of your own. For some years he laboured in teaching him, but to no good purpose ; whilst the sons of the preceptor excelled in eloquence and knowledge. The king blamed the learned man, and remonstrated with him, saying : You have violated your trust, and infringed the terms of your engagement He replied : O king, the education is the same, but their capacities are different ! " Though silver and gold are extracted from stones, yet it is not in every stone that gold and silver are found. The Sohail, or star Canopus, is shedding his rays all over the globe. In one place he produces common leather, in another, or in Yamin, that called Adim, or perfumed." VII. I heard a certain learned senior observing to a disciple : If the sons of Adam were as solicitous SHAIKH SADI. 251 after Providence, or God, as they are after their means of sustenance, their places in Paradise would surpass those of the angels. " God did not overlook thee in that state when thou wert a senseless embryo in thy mother's womb. He bestowed upon thee a soul, reason, temper, intellect, symmetry, speech, judgment, understanding, and reflection. He accom- modated thy hands with ten fingers, and suspended two arms from thy shoulders. Canst thou now suppose, O good-for-nothing wretch, that he will forget to provide thy daily bread ? " VIII. I observed an Arab who was informing his son: O my child, God will ask thee on the day of judgment : What hast thou done in this life ? but he will not inquire of thee : Whence didst thou derive thy origin ? That is, they [or God] will ask, saying : What are your works ? But he will not question you, saying : Who is your father ? " The covering of the Kaabah at Mecca, which the pilgrims kiss from devotion, is not prized from its being the fabric of a silk-worm ; for a while it associated with a venerable friend, and became, in consequence, venerable like him." IX. They have related in the books of philosophers that scorpions are not brought forth according to the common course of nature, as other animals are, but that they eat their way through their mothers' wombs, 252 SHAIKH SADL tear open their bellies, and thus make themselves a passage into the world ; and that the fragments of skin which we find in scorpions' holes corroborate this fact. On one occasion I was stating this strange event to a good and great man, when he answered : My heart is bearing testimony to the truth of this remark ; nor can it be otherwise, for as they have thus behaved towards their parents in their youth, so they are approved and beloved in their riper years : " On his death-bed a father exhorted his son, saying: O generous youth, keep in mind this maxim : Whoever is ungrateful to his own kindred cannot hope that fortune shall befriend him." x. They asked a scorpion: Why do you not make your appearance during the winter ? It answered : What is my character in the summer that I should come abroad also in the winter ? XI. The wife of a darwesh was pregnant, and the term of her gestation completed. During his whole life the darwesh had never had a son. He said : If a great and glorious Deity will bestow upon me a son, I will distribute in charity to the poor all the property I have, excepting this ragged garment I am now wearing. It came to pass that his wife bore a son, at which he rejoiced, and made an entertainment for his brethren in performance of his vow. Some years after, as I was SHAIKH SADI. 253 returning from a journey into Syria, I passed by that friend's dwelling, and made inquiry after him. They said : He is in the superintendent of the police's jail. I asked : How comes that ? They said : His son got drunk, had a quarrel, killed a man, and fled from the city; and on his account the father has chains on his legs and an iron collar round his neck. I replied : He brought this misfortune upon himself by praying to God for it. " Were thy pregnant wife, O prudent man, to bring forth a snake at her time of lying-in, that would suit better with the good opinion of the wise than if she might bear thee an undutiful son." XII, When a boy I asked a great and holy man what were the signs of puberty ? He answered : In books of science three signs are noticed first, the age of fifteen ; second, nocturnal emission ; and third, the growth of hair about the pubes. But in truth there is only one sign namely, that you are more the devoted servant of the Most High than the bounden slave of your own vile appetites ; and whoever possesses not this one qualification, the good and pious do not consider him as arrived at years of discretion : "After it had remained forty days in the womb, a drop of water took the human form ; but if after forty years he has not reason and discretion, thou couldst not in truth consider him a man:" "Imagine not that manhood is a mere material form ; for generosity of disposition and urbanity of manners are constituent 254 SHAIKH SAD1. parts of it. Virtue is also necessary ; for the figure of a human body can be painted with vermilion and verdigris upon the wall of a palace. Where a man is deficient in virtue and benevolence, what difference is there between him and such a picture on a wall ? It is not in subduing a whole world that thou showest thy knowledge. Make a conquest, if thou art able, of the mind of one human being [that is, of thyself]." XIII. One year a dissension arose among the foot- travellers on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and the author [Sadi] was also a pedestrian among them. In truth, we fell head and ears together, and accusation and recrimination were bandied from all sides. I over- heard a kajawah, or gentleman, riding on one side of a camel-litter, observing to his adil, or opposite com- panion : How strange that the ivory piyadah, or pawns, on reaching the top of the shatranj, or chess- board, become fazzin, or queens ; that is, they get rank, or become better than they were ; and the piyadah, or pawns of the pilgrimage that is, our foot-pilgrims have crossed the desert and become worse. " Say from me to that haji, or pilgrim, the pest of his fellow-pilgrims, that he lacerates the skin of mankind by his contention. Thou art not a real pilgrim, but that meek camel is one who is feeding on thorns and patient under its burthen." XIV. A Hindu, or Indian, was teaching the art of playing off fireworks. A philosopher observed to him : This SHAIKH SADL 255 is an unfit sport for you, whose dwelling is made of straw. " Utter not a word till thou knowest that it is the mirror of what is correct ; and do not put a ques- tion where thou knowest that the answer must be unfavourable." XV. A fellow had a complaint in his eyes, and went to a horse-doctor, saying : Prescribe something for me ? The doctor of horses applied to his eyes what he was in the habit of applying to the eyes of quadrupeds, and the man got blind. They carried their complaint before the hakim, or judge. He decreed : This man has no redress, for had he not been an ass he would not have applied to a horse or ass doctor ! The moral of this apologue is, that whoever can employ an inexperienced person on an affair of importance, besides being brought to shame, he will incur from the wise the imputation of a weak mind. "A prudent man, with an enlightened under- standing, entrusts not affairs of consequence to one of mean capacity. The plaiter of mats, notwithstanding he be a weaver, they would not employ in a silk manufactory." XVI. A certain great Imaan had a worthy son, and he died. They asked him, saying: What shall we inscribe upon the urn at his tomb. He replied : Verses of the holy Koran are of such superior reverence and dignity that they should not be written 256 SHAIKH SADI. in places where time might efface, mankind tread upon, or dogs defile them ; yet, if an epitaph be necessary, let these two couplets suffice : " I said : Alas! how grateful it was proving to my heart, so long as the verdure of thy existence might flourish in the garden. He replied : O my friend, have patience till the return of the spring, and thou mayst again see rose blossoming on my bosom, or shooting from my dust" XVII. A holy man was passing by a wealthy personage's mansion, and saw him with a slave tied up by the hands and feet, and giving him chastisement. He said : O my son ! God Almighty has made a creature like yourself subject to your command, and has given you a superiority over him. Render thanksgiving to the Most High Judge, and deal not with him so savagely; lest hereafter, on the day of judgment, he may prove the more worthy of the two, and you be put to shame : " Be not so enraged with thy bondsman ; torture not his body, nor harrow up his heart. Thou mightest buy him for ten dinars, but hadst not after all the power of creating him : To what length will this authority, pride, and insolence hurry thee ; there is a Master mightier than thou art. Yes, thou art a lord of slaves and vassals, but do not forget thine own Lord Paramount namely, God ! " There is a tradi- tion of the prophet Mohammed, on whom be blessing, announcing : On the day of resurrection, that will be the most mortifying event when the good slave will SHAIKH SAD1. 257 be taken up to heaven, and the wicked master sent down to hell : " Upon the bondsman, who is sub- servient to thy command, wreak not thy rage and boundless displeasure. For it must be disgraceful on the day of reckoning to find the slave at liberty and the master in bondage." XVIII. One year I was on a journey with some Syrians from Balkh, and the road was infested with robbers. One of our escort was a youth expert at wielding his shield and brandishing his spear, mighty as an elephant, and cased in armour, so strong that ten of the most powerful of us could not string his bow, or the ablest wrestler on the face of the earth throw him on his back. Yet, as you must know, he had been brought up in luxury and reared in a shade, was inexperienced of the world, and had never travelled. The thunder of the great war-drum had never rattled in his ears, nor had the lightning of the trooper's scimitar ever flashed across his eyes : " He had never fallen a captive into the hands of an enemy, nor been overwhelmed amidst a shower of their arrows." It happened that this young man and I kept running on together ; and any venerable ruin that might come in our way he would overthrow with the strength of his shoulder ; and any huge tree that we might see he would wrench from its root with his lion-seizing wrist, and boastfully cry : " Where is the 759 258 SHAIKH SADL elephant, that he may behold the shoulder and arm of warriors ? Where the lion, that he may feel the wrist and gripe of heroes ? " Such was our situation when two Hindus darted from behind a rock and prepared to cut us off, one of them holding a bludgeon in his hand, and the other having a mallet under his arm. I called to the young man, Why do you stop ? " Display whatever strength and courage thou hast, for the foe came on his own feet up to his grave : " I perceived that the youth's bow and arrows had dropped from his hands, and that a tremor had fallen upon his limbs : " It is not he that can split a hair with a coat-of-mail cleaving arrow that is able to withstand an assault from the formidable : " No alternative was left us but that of surrendering our arms, accoutrements, and clothes, and escaping with our lives. " On an affair of importance employ a man experienced in business, who can bring the fierce lion within the noose of his halter ; though the youth be strong of arm and has the body of an elephant, in his encounter with a foe every limb will quake with fear. A man of experi- ence is best qualified to explore a field of battle, as one of the learned is to expound a point of law." XIX. I saw a rich man's son seated by his father's tomb, and in a disputation with that of a darwesh holding forth and saying : My father's mausoleum is built of granite, the epitaph inscribed with letters of gold, the SHAIKH SADL 259 pavement and lining marble, and tessellated with slabs of turkois; and what is there left of your father's tomb but two or three bricks cemented together with a few handfuls of mortar? The poor man's son heard this, and answered : I pray you peace ! for before your father can stir himself under this heavy load of stone mine shall have risen up to heaven ! And there is a tradition of the prophet, that death to the poor is a state of rest " That ass proceeds all the lighter on his journey on whom they load the lightest burthen : the poor darwesh, who suffers under a load of indigence, will in like sort enter the gates of death with an easy burthen ; but with him who luxuriates in peace, plenty, and affluence, it must be a real hard- ship to die amidst all these comforts. At all events consider the prisoner, who is released from his thral- dom, as better off than the prince who is just fallen a captive." XX. I asked a learned man the meaning of this tradi- tion, that the -most hostile of your enemies is your passion of lust, which has its seat in the loins. He replied : Any foe whom you treat courteously will become a friend excepting lust, which, the more civilly you use it, will get the more perverse. " By temperance a man may acquire an angelic disposi- tion ; but if he-indulge like a beast, he will sink into a mineral. Whatever appetite thou mightest favour would obey thy order, unless lust, which, now it had its will, would rebel." 260 SHAIKH SAD1. XXI. I saw a certain person in the garb of danveshes, but not with their meekness, seated in a company, and full of his abuse. Having opened the volume of reproach, and begun to calumniate the rich, his discourse had reached this place, stating : The hand of the poor man's ability is tied up, and the foot of the rich man's inclination crippled : " Men of liberality have no command of money, nor have the opulent and worldly-minded a spirit of liberality." Owing, as I am, my support to the bounty of the great, I considered this animadversion as unmerited, and replied : O my friend ! the rich are the treasury of the indigent, the granary of the hermit, the fane of the pilgrim, resting-place of the traveller, and the carriers of heavy burthens for the relief of their fellow- creatures. They put forth their hand to eat when their servants and dependants are ready to partake with them ; and the bounteous fragments of their tables they distribute among widows and the aged, their neighbours and kindred : " The rich have their consecrated foundations, charitable endowments and rites of hospitality; their alms, oblations, manu- missions, peace-offerings, and sacrifices. How shalt thou rise to this pomp of fortune who canst per- form only these two genuflexions, and them after manifold difficulties ? " Whether it respect their moral dignity or religious duty, the rich are at ease within themselves ; for their property is sanctified by SHAIKH SAD I. 261 giving tithes, and their apparel hallowed by clean- liness, their reputations unblemished, and minds content. The intelligent are aware that the zeal of devotion is warmed by good fare, and the sincerity of piety rendered more serene in a nicety of vesture ; for it is evident what ardour there can be in a hungry stomach ; what generosity in squalid penury ; what ability of travelling with a bare foot ; and what alacrity at bestowing from an empty hand : " Uneasy must be the night-slumbers of him whose provision for to-morrow is not forthcoming : the ant is laying by a store in summer that she may enjoy an abundance in winter." It is clear that indigence and tranquillity can never go together, nor have fruition and want the same aspect : the one had composed himself for prayer, and the other sat anxious, and thinking on his supper; how then could this ever come in competition with that ? " The lord of plenty has his mind fixed on God ; when a man's fortune is bankrupt, so is his heart : " accord- ingly, the devotion of the rich is more acceptable at the temple of God, because their thoughts are present and collected, and their minds not absent and distracted; for they have laid up the conveniences of good living, and digested at their leisure their scriptural quotations [for prayer]. The Arabs say: God preserve us from overwhelming poverty ; and from the company of him whom he loves not, namely, tJie infidel: And there is a tradition of the prophet, ftak poverty has a gloomy aspect in this world and in the next ! 262 SHAIKH SAD I. My antagonist said: Have you not heard what the blessed prophet has declared ? poverty is my glory ! I replied : Be silent, for the allusion of the Lord of both worlds applies to such as are heroes in the field of resignation, and the devoted victims of their fate, and not to those who put on the garb of piety, that they may entitle themselves to the bread of charity. " O noisy drum ! thou art nothing but an empty sound ; unprovided with the means, what canst thou effect on the last day of account? If thou art a man of spirit, turn thy face away from begging charity from thy fellow-creature ; and keep not repeating thy rosary of a thousand beads." Being without divine knowledge, a darwesh, or poor man, rests not till his poverty settles into infidelity; for he that is poor is well-nigh being an infidel : nor is it practicable, unless through the agency of wealth, to clothe the naked, and to liberate the prisoner from jail : how then can such mendicants as we are aspire to their dignity ; or what comparison is there between the arm of the lofty and the hand of the abject ? Do you not perceive that the glorious and great God announces, in the holy book of the Koran, xxviii., the enjoyments of the blessed in Paradise ? that to this community, namely, the orthodox Mussul- mans, a provision is allotted ; in order that you may understand that such as are solely occupied in looking after their daily subsistence are excluded from this portion of the blessed ; and that the property of present enjoyment is sanctioned under the seal of providence : " to the thirsty it will seem SHAIKH SAD 7. 263 in their dreams as if the face of the earth were wholly a fountain." You may everywhere observe that, instigated by his appetites, a person who has suffered hardship and tasted bitterness will engage in dangerous enterprises ; and, indifferent to the consequences, and unawed by future punishments, he will not discriminate between what is lawful and what is forbid : " Should a clod of earth be thrown at the head of a dog, he would jump up in joy, and take it for a bone ; or were two people carrying a corpse on a bier, a greedy man would fancy it a tray of victuals." Whereas the worldly opulent are regarded with the benevolent eye of Providence, and in their enjoyments of what is lawful are preserved from things illegal. Having thus detailed my arguments and adduced my proofs, I rely on your justice for an equitable decree ; whether you ever saw a felon with his arms pinioned ; a bankrupt immured in a jail ; the veil of innocency rent, or the arm mutilated for theft, unless in consequence of poverty : for lion-like heroes, instigated by want, have been caught under- mining walls, and breaking into houses, and have got themselves suspended by the heels. It is moreover possible that a poor man, urged to it by an inordinate appetite, may feel desirous of gratifying his lust; and, unable to get himself a woman, he may fall the victim of some accursed sin : for the bally and privities are twin brothers, that is, two children of the same birth ; and whenever that is pampered with food, these get rampant : as I have heard of a certain darwesh who was surprised in an act of abomination ; in 264 SHAIKH SADI. consequence of the shame that he was put to, and the dread of being stoned to death, he called aloud : O Mussulmans ! I have no money to buy myself a wife, nor sufficient forbearance to restrain my appetite ; what can I do, for the monastic celibacy of Christians is not a rite oflslamism! And of the manifold means of mental tranquillity and corporeal enjoyment which are the special lots of the opulent, one is that every night they can command a fresh mistress, and every day possess a new charmer, such as must excite the envy of the glorious dawn, and stick the foot of the stately cypress in the mire of shame : " She had dipped her hands in the blood of her lovers, and tinged the tips of her fingers with jejubs:" so that it were impossible, with such lovely objects before their eyes, for them to desire what is forbidden or to wish to commit sin : " Why should such a heart as the huries, or nymphs of Paradise, have captivated and plundered, show any way partial to the idols of Yaghma " [or a city in Turkistan famous for its beauties] ? " He who has in both his hands such dates as he can relish, will not think of throwing stones at the bunches of dates on their trees" In common, such as are in indigent circum- stances will contaminate the skirt of innocency with sin ; and such as are suffering from hunger will steal bread : " When a ravenous dog has found a piece of meat, he asks not, saying : Is this the flesh of the prophet Salah's camel or Antichrist's ass ? " Many are the chaste who, because of their poverty, have fallen into the sink of wickedness, and given their fair reputations to the blast of infamy : " The virtue SHAIKH SAD I 265 of temperance remains not with a state of being famished ; and bankrupt circumstances will snatch the rein from the hand of abstemiousness." The moment I had finished this speech, the danvesh, my antagonist, let the rein of forbearance drop from the hand of moderation ; unsheathed the sabre of his tongue ; set the steed of eloquence at full speed over the plain of arrogance ; and, galloping up to me, said : You have so exaggerated in their praise, and amplified with such extravagance, that we might fancy them an antidote to the poison of poverty and a key to the store-house of Pro- vidence ; yet they are a proud, self-conceited, fasti- dious, and overbearing set, insatiate after wealth and property, and ambitious of rank and dignity ; who exchange not a word but to express insolence, or deign a look but to show contempt Men of science they call beggars, and the indigent they reproach for their wretched raggedness. Proud of the property they possess, and vain of the rank they claim, they take the upper hand of all, and deem themselves everybody's superior. Nor do they ever condescend to return any person's salutation, unmindful of the maxim of the wise : That whoever is inferior to others in humility, and is their superior in opulence, though in appearance he be rich, yet in reality he is a beggar : " If a worthless fellow, because of his wealth, treats a learned man with insolence, reckon him the podex of an ass, although he be the amber- grise ox." T replied : Do not calumniate the rich, for they are 266 SHAIKH SADI. the lords of munificence. He said : You mistake them, for they are the slaves of dinars and dirams, or their gold and silver coins. For example, what profits it though they be the clouds of the spring, if they may not send us rain ; or the fountain of the sun, and shine upon no one ; or though they be mounted on the steed of capability, and advance not towards any- body ? They will not move a step for the sake of God, nor bestow their charity without laying you under obligation and thanks. They hoard their money with solicitude, watch it while they live with sordid meanness, and leave it behind them with deadening regret, verifying the saying of the wise: That the money of the miser is coming out of the earth when he is himself going into it : " One man hoards a treasure with pain and tribulation, another comes and spends it without tribulation or pain." I replied : You could have ascertained the parsi- mony of the wealthy only through the medium of your own beggary ; otherwise to him who lays covetousness aside the generous man and miser seem all one. The touchstone can prove which is pure gold, and the beggar can say which is the niggard. He said : I speak of them from experience ; for they station dependants by their doors, and plant surly porters at their gates, to deny admittance to the worthy, and to lay violent hands upon the collars of the elect, and say : There is nobody at home ; and verily they tell what is true : " When the master has not reason or judgment, understanding or SHAIKH SAD 7. 267 discernment, the porter reported right of him, saying : There is nobody in the house." I replied : They are excusable, inasmuch as they are worried out of their lives by importunate memorialists, and jaded to their hearts by indigent solicitors ; and it might be reasonably doubted whether it would satisfy the eye of the covetous if the sands of the desert could be turned into pearls : "The eye of the greedy is not to be filled with worldly riches, any more than a well can be replen- ished from the dew of night." And had Hatim Tayi, who d \velt in the desert, come to live in a city, he would have been overwhelmed with the importunities of mendicants, and they would have torn the clothes from his back : " Look not towards me, lest thou should draw the eyes of others, for at the mendi- cant's hand no good can be expected." He said : I pity their condition. I replied : Not so ; but you envy them their property. We were thus warm in argument, and both of us close engaged. Whatever chess pawn he might advance I would set one in opposition to it; and whenever he put my king in check, I would relieve him with my queen; till he had exhausted all the coin in the purse of his resolution, and expended all the arrows of the quiver of his argument. " Take heed and retreat not from the orator's attack, for nothing is left him but metaphor and hyperbole. Wield thy polemics and law citations, for the wordy rhetorician makes a show of arms over his gate, but has not a soldier within his fort :" At length, having no syllogism left, I made 268 SHAIKH SADI. him crouch in mental submission. He stretched forth the arm of violence, and began with vain abuse. As is the case with the ignorant, when beaten by their antagonist in fair argument, they shake the chain of rancour ; like Azor, the idol-maker, when he could no longer contend with his son Abraham in words he fell upon him with blows, as God has said in the Koran If thou wilt not yield this point, I will over- w/telm thee ivith stones: He gave me abuse, and I retorted upon him with asperity ; he tore my collar, and I plucked his beard : " He had fallen upon me and I upon him, and a crowd had gathered round us enjoying the sport. A whole world gnawed the ringer of astonishment when it heard and understood what had taken place between us." In short, we referred our dispute to the cazi, and agreed to abide by his equitable decree : That the judge of the Mussulmans, or faithful, might bring about a peace, and discriminate for us between the poor and rich. After having noted our physiog- nomies, and listened to our statements, the cazi rested his chin on the breast of deliberation ; and, after due consideration, raised it, and said : Be it known to you, who were lavish in your praise of the rich, and spoke disparagingly of the poor, that there is no rose with- out its thorn ; intoxication from wine is followed by a qualm ; hidden treasure has its guardian dragon ; where the imperial pearl is found, there swims the man-devouring shark ; the honey of worldly enjoy- ment has the sting of death in its rear; and between us and the felicity of paradise stands a frightful SHAIKH SADL 269 demon, namely, Satan. "So long as the charmer slew not her admirer, what could the rival's malice avail him ? The rose and thorn, the treasure and dragon, joy and sorrow, all mingle into one." Do you not observe that in the garden there are the sweet-scented willows and the withered trunks ; so among the classes of the rich some are grateful and some thankless ; and among the orders of the poor some are resigned and some impatient : " Were every drop of dew to turn into a pearl, in the market pearls would be as common as shells." Near by the throne of a great and glorious Judge are the rich meek in spirit, and the poor rich in resolution. And the chief of the opulent is he who sympathises with the sorrows of the indigent ; and the most virtuous of the indigent is he who covets not the society of the opulent : God is all-sufficient for him who trusts in God. Then the cazi turned the face of animadversion from me towards the darwesh, and said : O you who have charged the rich with being active in sin, and intoxicated with things forbidden, verily there is such a tribe as you have described them, illiberal in their bigotry, and stingy of God's bounty ; who are collecting and hoarding money, but will neither use nor bestow it. If, for example, there was a drought, or if the whole earth was deluged with a flood, confident of their own abundance, they would not inquire after the poor man's distress, and, fearless of the divine wrath, exclaim : " If, in his want of every- thing, another person be annihilated, I have plenty ; 270 SHAIKH SADL and what does a goose care for a deluge ? Such as are lolling in their litters, and indulging in the easy pace of a female camel, feel not for the foot-traveller perish- ing amidst overwhelming sands : The mean-spirited, when they could escape with their own rugs, would cry : What care we should the whole world die." Such as you have stated them, there is a tribe of rich men ; but there is another class, who, having spread the table of abundance, and made a public declaration of their munificence, and smoothed the brow of their humility, are solicitous of a reputation and forgiveness, and desirous of enjoying this world and the next ; like unto the servants of his majesty the sovereign of the universe, just, confirmed, vic- torious, lord paramount and conqueror of nations, defender of the stronghold of Islamism, successor of Solomon, most equitable of contemporary kings, Mozuffar-ud-din Atabak-Abubakr-Saad, may God give him a long life, and grant victory to his standards ! " A father could never show such benevolence to his son as thy liberal hand has bestowed upon the race of Adam. The Deity was desirous of conferring a kindness upon man, and in his special mercy made thee sovereign of the world." Now that the cazi had carried his harangue to this extreme, and had galloped the steed of metaphor beyond our expectation, we of necessity acquiesced in the absolute decree of being satisfied, and apologised for what had passed between us ; and after altercation we returned into the path of reconciliation, laid the heads of reparation at each SHAIKH SADL 271 other's feet, mutually kissed and embraced, and, let- ting mischief fall asleep, and war lull itself into peace, concluded the whole in these two verses : " O poor man ! complain not of the revolutions of fortune, for gloomy might be thy lot wert thou to die in such sentiments. And now, O rich man ! that thy hand and heart administer to thy pleasures, spend and give away, that thou mayst enjoy this world and the next" CHAPTER VIII. OF THE DUTIES OF SOCIETY. L RICHES are intended for the comfort of life, and not life for the purpose of hoarding riches. I asked a wise man, saying : Who is the fortunate man, and who is the unfortunate ? He said : That man was fortunate who spent and gave away, and that man un- fortunate who died and left behind : "Pray not for that good-for-nothing man who did nothing, for he passed his life in hoarding riches, and did not spend them." II. The prophet Moses, on whom be peace, admonished Carum, saying: Be bounteous in like manner as God has been bounteous to tliee: but he listened not, and you have heard the end of him. " Whoever did not an act of charity with his silver and gold, sacrificed his future prospects on his hoard of gold and silver. If desirous that thou shouldst benefit by the wealth of this world, be generous with thy fellow-creature, as God has been generous with thee." The Arabs say : Show thy generosity, but make it SHAIKH SAD I 273 not obligatory, that the benefit of it may redound to thee : that is, bestow and make presents, but do not exact an obligation that the profit of that act may be returned to you. " Wherever the tree of generosity strikes root it sends forth its boughs, and they shoot above the skies. If thou cherishest a hope of enjoying its fruit, by gratitude I entreat of thee not to lay a saw upon its trunk." " Render thanks to God, that thou wert found worthy of his divine grace, that he has not excluded thee from the riches of his bounty. Esteem it no obligation that thou art serving the king, but show thy gratitude to him, namely God, who has placed thee in this service." III. Two persons laboured to a vain, and studied to an unprofitable end : he who hoarded wealth and did not spend it, and he who acquired science and did not practise it : " However much thou art read in theory, if thou hast no practice thou art ignorant. He is neither a sage philosopher nor an acute divine, but a beast of burthen with a load of books. How can that brainless head know or comprehend whether he carries on his back a library or bundle of fagots ? " IV. - Learning is intended to fortify religious practice, and not to gratify worldly traffic : Whoever prosti- tuted his temperance, piety, and science, gathered his harvest into a heap and set fire to it" 760 274 SHAIKH SAD I. V. An intemperate man of learning is like a blind link-boy : He shows the road to others, but sees it not himself : " whoever ventured his life on an unpro- ductive hazard gained nothing by the risk, and lost his own stake." VI. A kingdom is embellished by the wise, and religion rendered illustrious by the pious. Kings stand more in need of the company of the intelligent than the intelligent do of the society of kings : "If, O king ! thou wilt listen to my advice, in all thy archives thou canst not find a wiser maxim than this : entrust thy concerns only to the learned, notwithstanding business is not a learned man's concern." VII. Three things have no durability without their concomitants : property without trade, knowledge without debate, or a sovereignty without government. VIII. To compassionate the wicked is to tyrannise over the good ; and to pardon the oppressor is to deal harshly with the oppressed: " When thou patronisest and succourest the base-born man, he looks to be made the partner of thy fortune." SHAIKH SADL 275 IX. No reliance can be placed on the friendship of kings, nor vain hope put in the melodious voice of boys ; for that passes away like a vision, and this vanishes like a dream : " Bestow not thy affections upon a mistress who has a thousand lovers ; or, if thou bestowest them upon her, be prepared for a separation." x. Reveal not every secret you have to a friend, for how can you tell but that friend may hereafter become an enemy. And bring not all the mischief you are able to do upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. And any private affair that you wish to keep secret, do not divulge to anybody; for, though such a person has your confidence, none can be so true to your secret as yourself: " Silence is safer than to communicate the thought of thy mind to anybody, and to warn him, saying : Do not divulge it, O silly man ! confine the water at the dam-head, for once it has a vent thou canst not stop it. Thou shouldst not utter a word in secret which thou wouldst not have spoken in the face of the public." XI. A reduced foe, who offers his submission and courts your amity, can only have in view to become a strong 276 SHAIKH SADL enemy, as they have said : You cannot trust the sincerity of friends, then what are you to expect from the cajoling of foes ? Whoever despises a weak enemy resembles him who neglects a spark of fire : " To-day that thou canst quench it, put it out ; for let fire rise into a flame, and it may consume a whole world. Now that thou canst transfix him with thy arrow, permit not thy antagonist to string his bow." XII. Let your verbal intercourse between two rivals be such that if they should hereafter compromise their difference, you may not be put to shame : " Between two persons dissension rages like a fire, and the ill-conditioned tell-tale is the bearer of its fuel. This and that are again of the same way of thinking, and the luckless go-between stands the object of both their execration. It is not prudent to kindle a fire between two people, and to thrust thyself into the midst of its flames." " Speak in an under-voice with thy friends, lest thy bloodthirsty foe may overhear what thou mayst say. Be cautious in what thou utterest before a wall, lest an ear be listening behind the wall." XIII. Whoever is making a league with their enemies has it in his mind to do his friends an ill turn : " O wise man ! wash thy hands of that friend who is in con- federacy with thy foes." SHAIKH SADL 277 XIV. When irresolute in the despatch of business, incline to that side which is the least offensive : " Answer not with harshness a mild-spoken man, nor force him into war who knocks at the gate of peace." XV. So long as money can answer, it were wrong in any business to put the life in danger: as the Arabs say : let the sword decide after stratagem has failed: "When the hand is balked in every crafty en- deavour, it is lawful to lay it upon the hilt of the sabre." XVI. Show no mercy to a subdued foe, for if he recover himself he will show you no mercy : " When thou seest thy antagonist in a reduced state, curl not thy whiskers at him in contempt, for in every bone there is marrow, and within every jacket there is a man." XVII. Whoever puts a wicked man to death delivers mankind from his mischief, and the wretch himself from God's vengeance : " Beneficence is praise- worthy; yet thou shouldst not administer a balsam to the wound of the wicked. Knew he not who took compassion on a snake, that it is the pest of the sons of Adam." 278 SHAIKH SADL XVIII. It is wrong to follow the advice of an adversary; nevertheless it is right to hear it, that you may do the contrary ; and this is the essence of good policy : " Sedulously shun whatever thy foe may recommend, otherwise thou mayst wring the hands of repentance on thy knees. Should he show thee to the right a path straight as an arrow, turn aside from that, and take the path to the left." XIX. Excessive anger deters people from coming near you, and ill-timed lenity weakens your authority. Be not so severe as to cause shyness, nor so clement as to encourage boldness : " If thou art harsh, they will fight shy of thee ; if lenient, the foe will be audacious and forward. It is best to temper severity with mild- ness, like the surgeon who scarifies a sore, and then applies a balsam. A wise man will not exceed in austerity, nor permit his clemency to lessen his dignity; he will not overrate himself by over-much loftiness, nor lower himself by abject meanness." "A shepherd addressed his father, saying : O wise man! teach me a sage maxim. He replied : Be so far benevolent as not to allow the sharp-fanged wolf to get insolent" XX. Two orders of mankind are the enemies of church and state ; the king without clemency, and the holy SHAIKH SAD I. 279 man without learning : " Let not that prince have rule over the state who is not himself obedient to the will of God." XXI. It behoves a king so to regulate his anger towards his enemies as not to alarm the confidence of his friends ; for the fire of passion falls first on the angry man ; afterwards its sparks will dart forth towards the foe, and him they may reach, or they may not. " It ill becomes the children of Adam, formed of dust, to harbour in their heads such pride, arrogance, and passion. I cannot fancy all this thy warmth and obstinacy to be created from earth, but from fire. I went to a holy man in the land of Bailcan, and said : Cleanse me of ignorance by thy instruction ? He replied : O fakih, or theologician ! go and bear things patiently like the earth; or whatever thou hast read let it all be buried under the earth." XXII. An evil-disposed man is a captive in the hands of an enemy [namely, himself] ; for wherever he may go he cannot escape from the grasp of that enemy's vengeance : " Let a wicked man ascend up to heaven, that he may escape from the grasp of calamity ; even thither would the hand of his own evil heart follow him with misfortune." 2 So SHAIKH SAD I. XXIII. When you see discord raging among the troops of your enemy, be on your side quiet ; but if you see them united, think of your own dispersed state : " When thou beholdest war among thy foes, go and enjoy peace with thy friends ; but if thou findest them of one soul and mind, string thy bow, and range stones around thy battlements." XXIV. A foe will shake the chain of peace when he has failed in all his stratagems. Then he attempts to effect by amity what he cannot compass as an open adversary. XXV. Bruise the serpent's head with the hand of an antagonist, that of two things you may make sure of one ; for if the adversary succeed, you kill the reptile ; and if this prevail, you get rid of a rival. " Make not sure of a weak enemy on the day of battle ; for, on finding himself desperate, he will tear out the brain of a lion." XXVI. Keep to yourself any intelligence that may prove unpleasant, till some person else has disclosed it. " Bring, O nightingale ! the glad tidings of the spring, and leave to the owl to be the harbinger of evil." SHAIKH SADL 281 XXVII. Do not inform the king of a person's treachery till fully informed of it yourself ; otherwise you may labour to your own disgrace. " Open thy exordium and lay thy accusation when satisfied thy proofs must carry conviction." XXVIII. Whoever is counselling a self-sufficient man stands himself in need of a counsellor. XXIX. Swallow not the wheedling of a rival, nor pay for the sycophancy of a parasite ; for that has laid the snare of treachery, and this whetted the palate of gluttony. The fool is puffed up with his own praise, like a dead body, which on being stretched upon a bier shows a momentary corpulency : " Take heed and listen not to the sycophant's blandishments, who expects in return some small compensation ; for shouldst thou any day disappoint his object he would in like style sum up two hundred of thy defects." XXX. Till some person may show its defects, the speech of the orator will fail of correctness : " Be not vain of the eloquence of thy discourse because it has the fool's good opinion, and thine own approbation." 282 SHAIKH SADI. XXXI. Every person thinks his own intellect perfect, and his own child handsome : "A Mussulman and a Jew were warm in argument to such a degree that I smiled at their subject. The Mussulman said in wrath: If this deed of conveyance be not authentic may I, O God, die a Jew ! The Jew replied : On the Pentateuch I swear, if what I say be 'false, I am a Mussulman like you ! Were intellect to be annihi- lated from the face of the earth, nobody could be brought to say : I am ignorant." XXXII. Ten people will partake of the same joint of meat, and two dogs will snarl over a whole carcase. The greedy man is incontinent with a whole world set before him ; the temperate man is content with his crust of bread : " A loaf of brown bread may fill an empty stomach, but the produce of the whole globe cannot satisfy a greedy eye :" " My father, when the sun of his life was going down, gave me this sage advice, and it set for good, saying : Lust is a fire ; refrain from indulging it, and do not involve thyself in the flames of hell. Since thou hast not the strength of burning in those flames [as a punishment in the next world], pour in this world the water of continence upon this fire namely, lust." SHAIKH SADL 283 XXXIII. Whoever does not do good, when he has the means of doing it, will suffer hardship when he has not the means : " None is more unlucky than the misan- thrope, for on the day of adversity he has not a single friend." XXXIV. Life stands on the verge of a single breath ; and this world is an existence between two nonentities. Such as truck their deen, or religious practice, for worldly pelf are asses. They sold Joseph, and what got they by their bargain ? Did I not covenant with you, O ye sons of Adam, that you should not serve Satan; for verily lie is your avowed enemy: " By the advice of a foe you broke your faith with a friend ; behold from whom you separated, and with whom you united yourselves." XXXV. Satan does not prevail over the elect ; nor does the king over the poor and bankrupt : " Trust not him who neglects his prayers to God, though his mouth may verily gape wide from hunger ; for whoever discharges not his duty to the Deity will equally neglect his debt to thee." XXXVL Whatever is produced in haste goes hastily to waste : " I have heard that, after a process of forty 23 4 SHAIKH SADL years, they convert the clay of the East into a China porcelain cup. At Baghdad they can make an hundred cups in a day, and thou mayst of course conceive their respective value." "A chicken walks forth from its shell, and goes in quest of its food ; the young of man possesses not that instinct of prudence and discrimination. That which was at once something comes to nothing ; and this surpasses all creatures in dignity and wisdom. A piece of crystal or glass is found everywhere, and held of no value ; a ruby is obtained with difficulty, and there- fore inestimable." XXXVII. Patience accomplishes its object, while hurry speeds to its ruin : " With my own eyes I saw in the desert that the deliberate man outstript him that had hurried on. The wind-footed steed is broken down in his speed, whilst the camel-driver jogs on with his beast to the end of his journey." XXXVIII. Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence, and if he knew this he would no longer be ignorant : "When unadorned with the grace of eloquence it is wise to keep watch over the tongue in the mouth. The tongue, by abu.-e, renders a man contemptible ; levity in a nut is a sign of its being empty. A fool was undertaking the instruction of an ass, and had SHA1KPI SADI. 285 devoted his whole time to this occupation. A wise man said to him : What art thou endeavouring to do? In this vain attempt dread the reproof of the censori- ous ! A brute can never learn speech from thee ; do thou learn silence from him : That man who reflects not before he speaks will only make all the more improper answer. Either like a man arrange thy speech with judgment, or like a brute sit silent." XXXIX. Whoever shall argue with one more learned than himself that others may take him for a wise man, only confirms them in his being a fool : " When a person superior to what thou art engages thee in conversation do not contradict him, though thou mayst know better." XL. He can see no good who will associate with the wicked : " Were an angel from heaven to associate with a demon, he would learn his brutality, perfidy, and hypocrisy. Virtue thou never canst learn of the vicious ; it is not the wolfs occupation to mend skins " [but to tear them]. XLI. Expose not the secret failings of mankind, other- wise you must verily bring scandal upon them and distrust upon yourself. 286 SHAIKH SADI. XLIL Whoever acquires knowledge and does not practise it resembles him who ploughs his land and leaves it unsown. XLIIL Expect no religious zeal from the heartless, nor profit from a nut-shell without a kernel. XLIV. It is not every man that is apt at argument that is expert in business : " Many is the gracious form that is covered with a veil ; but on withdrawing this thou discoverest a grandmother." XLV. Were every night a night of might, or the four- teenth night of the Mohammedan month Ramazan, then would the night of might become of little might : " Were every pebble a ruby of Badakhstan, pebbles and rubies would get of the same value." XLVI. It is not every man that has a handsome physical exterior that has a good moral character ; for the faculty of business or virtue resides in the heart and not in the skin. " Thou canst in one day ascertain the intellectual faculties of a man, and what pro- ficiency he has made in his degrees of knowledge ; SHAIKH SADI. 287 but be not secure of his mind, nor foolishly sure, for it may take years to detect the innate baseness of the heart." XLVII. Whoever contends with the great sheds his own blood : " Thou contemplatest thyself as a mighty great man ; and they have truly remarked that the squinter sees double. Thou, who canst in play butt with a ram, must soon find thyself with a broken pate." XLVIII. To grapple with a lion, or to box against a naked scimitar, are not the acts of the prudent: "Brave not the furious with war and opposition before their arms of strength cross thy hands of submission." XLIX. A weak man, who tries his courage against the strong, leagues with the foe to his own destruction : " Nurtured in a shade, what strength can he have that he should engage with the warlike in battle ; impotent of arm, he was falling the victim of folly when he set his wrist in opposition to a wrist of iron." L. Whoever will not listen to admonition harbours the fancy of hearing reprehension : " When advice gains not an admission into the ear, if I give thee reproof, hear it in silence." 2 88 SHAIKH SADL LI. The idle cannot endure the industrious any more than the curs of the market-place, who, on meeting dogs employed for sporting, will snarl at and prevent them passing. LII. A mean wretch, that cannot vie with another in virtue, will assail him with malignity : " The narrow- minded envier will somehow manage to revile thee, who in thy presence might have the tongue of his utterance struck dumb." LIU. Were it not from the cravings of the belly, not a bird would fall into the snare ; nay, the fowler would find it of no use to spread his net. " The belly forges manacles for the wrists, and fetters for the legs ; the slave of the belly neglects his worship of the Deity." LIV. Philosophers eat their meals after long intervals ; abids, or monks, take half a bellyful ; zahids, or hermits, what is sufficient to sustain life ; young men, all that is in the dish ; the old eat till they sweat again ; but kalandars gorge to such a degree as not to leave inside of them room enough to breathe, or on the dish what might satisfy a fly : " For two nights the glutton cannot sleep for thinking, first on an empty, and next on a sated stomach." SHAIKH SADL 289 LV. To hold counsel with women is bad, and to deal generously with prodigals a fault : " Showing mercy upon the sharp-fanged pard must prove an injustice to the harmless sheep." LVI. Whoever has his foe at his mercy, and does not kill him, is his own enemy : " With a stone in his hand, and the snake's head convenient, a wise man hesitates not in crushing it" Certain people have seen this maxim in an opposite point of view, saying : It were wiser to delay the execution of captives, inasmuch as the option is left so that you can slay, or you can release them ; but if you shall have heedlessly put them to death, the policy is defunct, for the opportunity of repairing it is lost : " There is no great difficulty to separate the soul from the body, but it is not so easy to restore life to the dead : prudence dictates patience in giving the arrow flight, for let it quit the bow and it never can be recalled." LVII. A learned man who has got into an argument with the ignorant can have no hopes of supporting his own dignity ; and if an ignoramus by his loquacity gets the upper hand it should not surprise us, for he is a stone and can bruise a gem : " No wonder if 761 2 9 o SHAIKH SADL his spirit flag ; the nightingale is cooped up in the same cage with the crow : If the man of sense is coarsely treated by the vulgar, let it not excite our wrath and indignation ; if a piece of worthless stone can bruise a cup of gold, its worth is not increased, nor that of the gold diminished." LVIIL No wonder that a wise man is not listened to in a company of low people, for the sound of the barbut is lost amidst the rattling of the great drum, and the odour of ambergris overcome by the fcetor of garlic : "The loud bawling of the ignorant reared its crest, because it was brow-beating the learned by its effrontery : art thou not aware that the musical mode of Hijaz is confounded by the noise of the warlike drum ? " Lix. Let a gem fall into the mire, and it remains the same precious stone it was ; and let dust be whirled up to heaven, and it retains its base origin. LX. Genius without education is the subject of our regret, and education without genius is labour lost. Although embers have a lofty origin (fire being of a noble nature), yet, as having no intrinsic worth, they fall upon a level with common dust ; on the other SHAIKH SADL 291 hand, sugar does not derive its value from the cane, but from its own innate quality : " Inasmuch as the disposition of Canaan was bad, his descent from the prophet Noah stood him in no stead. Pride thyself on what virtue thou hast, and not on thy parentage ; the rose springs from a thorn-bush, and Abraham from Azor " [either his father's name, or fire]. LXL That is musk which discloses itself by its smell, and not what the perfumers impose upon us : " If a man be expert in any art he needs not tell it, for his own skill will show it" LXIL A wise man is, like a vase in a druggist's shop, silent, but full of virtues ; and the ignorant man resembles the drum of the warrior, being full of noise, and an empty babbler : " The sincerely devout have remarked that a learned man, beset by the illiterate, is like one of the lovely in a circle of the blind, or the holy Koran in the dwelling of the infidel." LXIII. A friend whom they take an age to conciliate, it were wrong all at once to alienate : " In a series of years a stone changes into a ruby ; take heed, and destroy it not at once by dashing it against another stone." 292 SHAIKH SADI. LXIV. Reason is in like manner enthralled by passion, as an uxorious man is in the hands of an artful woman. "Thou mayst shut the door of joy upon that dwelling where thou nearest resounding the scolding voice of a woman." LXV. Intellect, without firmness, is craft and chicanery; and firmness, without intellect, perverseness and obstinacy : " First, prudence, good sense, and dis- crimination, and then dominion; for the dominion and good fortune of the ignorant are the armour of rebellion against God." LXVI. The sinner who spends and gives away is better than the devotee who begs and lays by. LXVII, Whoever foregoes carnal indulgence in order to get the good opinion of mankind, has forsaken a lawful passion and involved himself in what is forbidden : " What, wretched creature ! can that hermit see in his own tarnished mirror, or heart, who retires to a cell, but not for the sake of God ? " SHAIKH SADI. 293 LXVIII. Little upon little makes a muckle, and drop upon drop gathers into a torrent : " A little and a little becomes a great deal, and grain upon grain a barnful of corn." LXIX. A wise man should not through clemency overlook the insolence of the vulgar, otherwise both sustain a loss, for their respect for him is lessened and their own brutality confirmed: "When thou addressest the low with urbanity and kindness, it only adds to their pride and arrogance." LXX. Sin is reprehensible, whoever the transgressor may be, and more so with men of learning, for knowledge is the weapon for contending with Satan ; and when an armed man is taken prisoner, the stain of his disgrace is all the deeper : " An ignorant and low man, of dissolute morals, is preferable to a learned man without temperance ; for that lost his way from a defect of sight, but this with both eyes open walked into a pit." LXXI. Such as ate not his bread during life will not praise him now he is dead. 294 SHAIKH SAD I. LXXII. The poor widow relishes the grapes, and not the great man that owns the fruit LXXIII. The benevolent Joseph, on whom be blessing, would not, during the scarcity in Egypt, eat his fill, that he might keep the hungry in remembrance : " Who- ever may indulge in ease and plenty, what can he feel for the condition of the hungry? That man can judge of the state of the distressed, who amidst his abundance is temperate and frugal : Be aware, O thou ! who art mounted upon a prancing steed, that the poor thorn-bearing ass sticks in the flood and mire. Conclude not that there is a fire in the hovel of thy indigent neighbour, the smoke that thou seest issuing from his chimney is the sigh of his heart." LXXIV. In a season of drought and scarcity ask not the distressed danvesh, saying: How are you? Unless on the condition that you apply a balm to his wound, and supply him with the means of subsistence : " The ass which thou seest stuck in the slough with his rider, compassionate from thy heart, otherwise do not go near him. Now that thou wentest and SHAIKH SADL 295 askedest him how he fell, like a sturdy fellow bind up thy loins, and take his ass by the tail." LXXV. Two things are repugnant to reason : to expend more than what Providence has allotted for us, and to die before our ordained time. " Whether offered up in gratitude, or uttered in complaint, destiny cannot be altered by a thousand sighs and lamentations. The angel who presides over the store-house of the winds feels no compunction, though he extinguish the old woman's lamp." LXXVI. O you that are going in quest of food, sit down, that you may have to eat. And, O you that death is in quest of, go not on, for you cannot carry life along with you. "In search of thy daily bread, whether thou exertest thyself, or whether thou dost not, the God of Majesty and Glory will equally provide it. Wert thou to walk into the mouth of a tiger or lion, he could not devour thee, unless by the ordinance of thy destiny." LXXVII. Whatever was not designed, the hand cannot reach ; and whatever was ordained, it can attain in any situation : " Thou hast heard that Alexander got 296 SHAIKH SADI. as far as chaos ; but after all this toil he drank not the water of immortality." LXXVIII. The fisherman, unless it be his lot, catches no fish in the Tigris ; and the fish, unless it be its fate, does not die on the dry land. " The wretched miser is prowling all over the world, he in quest of pelf, and death in quest of him." LXXIX. The sinful rich man is a piece of gilded earth ; and the holy darwesh a soil-tarnished charmer. This the patched cloak of Moses, and that the embroidered mantle of Pharaoh. LXXX. The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven, and the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth. "Whoever possesses power and dominion, and shows not withal a meek disposi- tion, tell him he shall not, in the kingdom to come, meet with either power or dominion." LXXXI. The envious man is niggard of the gifts of Provi- dence, and an enemy of the innocent : " I met a dry- brained fellow of this sort, tricked forth in the robe SHAIKH SADL 297 of a dignified person. I said : O sir ! if thou art unfortunate in having this disposition, in what have the fortunate been to blame ? Take heed, and wish not misfortune to the misanthrope, for his own ill- conditioned lot is calamity sufficient. What need is there of showing ill-will to him, who has such an enemy close at his heels." LXXXII. A scholar without diligence is a lover without money ; a traveller without knowledge is a bird without wings ; a theorist without practice is a tree without fruit ; and a devotee without learning is a house without an entrance. LXXXIII. The object of sending the Koran down from heaven was that mankind might make it a manual of morals, and not that they should recite it by sections. LXXXIV. The sincere publican has proceeded on foot ; the slothful Pharisee is mounted and gone asleep. LXXXV. The sinner who humbles himself in prayer is more acceptable than the devotee who is puffed up with 298 SHAIKH SADL pride. " The courteous and kind-hearted soldier of fortune is better than the misanthropic and learned divine." LXXXVI. A learned man without works is a bee without honey ; " Tell that harsh and ungenerous hornet : As thou yieldest no honey, wound not with thy sting." LXXXVII. A man without humanity is a woman ; and an avaricious devotee a highway robber. "Thou who, to get a name in the opinion of mankind, hast put on a white robe, thy reputation is black. Whether thy sleeve be short or long, it behoves thee to contract thy intercourse with the world." LXXXVIII. Two orders of mankind cannot let regret quit their thoughts, nor withdraw their feet from the slough of self-delusion : the merchant who has suffered ship- wreck, and the heir who associates with kalandars. " Unless thy property be given for their special endowment, shedding thy blood were a matter of indifference with monks. Either go not to associate with the blue-frocked gentry, or draw the finger of a blot over thy property and family. Either make not companions of elephant-drivers, or build thyself a house fit to accommodate an elephant" SHAIKH SADI. 299 LXXXIX. Though a dress presented by the sovereign be honourable, yet is our own tattered garment prefer- able ; and though the viands at a great man's table be delicate, yet is our own homely fare more sweet : " A salad and vinegar, the produce of our own industry, are sweeter than the lamb and bread sauce at the table of our village chief." xc. It is contrary to sound judgment, and repugnant to the maxims of the prudent, to take a medicine on conjecture, or to follow a road but in the track of the caravan. XCI. They asked Imaam Mursheed Mohammed-bin- Mohammed Ghazali, on whom be God's mercy, how he had reached such a pitch of knowledge. He replied : Whatever I was ignorant of myself, I felt no shame in asking of others : " Thy prospect of health conforms with reason, when thy pulse is in charge of a skilled physician. Ask whatever thou knowest not; for the condescension of inquiring is a guide on thy road in the excellence of learning." XCII. Anything you foresee that you may somehow come to know, be not hasty in questioning, lest your 300 SHAIKH SADI. consequence and respectability may suffer : " When Lucman perceived that in the hands of David iron was miraculously moulded like wax, he asked him not, How didst thou do it? for he was aware that he should know it, through his own wisdom, without asking." XCIII. It is one of the laws of good breeding that you should forego an engagement, or accommodate your- self to the master of the entertainment : " If thou knowest that the inclination is reciprocal, accommo- date thy story to the temper of the hearer. Any discreet man that was in Mujnun's company would entertain him only with encomiums on Laila." XCIV. Whoever associates with the profligate, though he may not be impressed with their bad habits, will be charged with following their evil ways ; in like manner as if a person withdrew into a dram-shop, for the purpose of saying his prayers, they would suspect him of having gone to tipple : " Thou hast incurred upon thyself the character of ignorance, because thou choosest to associate with the ignorant. I asked a learned man to give me his advice ; he enjoined me not to keep company with the ignorant ; for if the oracle of the age in learning, I should become an ass ; and, if naturally weak, an absolute idiot" SHAIKH SADL 301 XCV. Such is the acknowledged docility of a camel, that were a child to take it by the halter, and lead it for a hundred parasangs, it would not disobey him ; but should such a dangerous precipice come in the way as might put his life in jeopardy, and the child, in his ignorance, persist in pushing it on, it would tear the rein from his hand and refuse any longer to obey him ; for at the instant of a difficulty it were repre- hensible to stand on ceremony. On the other hand, it has been remarked that an enemy is not a whit the more friendly from any courtesy; nay, he is still the more unreasonable. " Be submissive with him who treats thee with kindness ; but if he resists, close both his eyes up with mud. Waste not urbanity and mildness upon the perverse, for rusty iron is not to be polished with a smooth file." XCVI. Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance. Philosophers have said : " A prudent man will not obtrude his answer till he has the question stated to him in form. Notwithstanding the proposition may have its right demonstration, the cavil of the fastidious will construe it wrong." 302 SHAIKH SADL XCVII. I had a sore under my clothes. My preceptor be God's mercy upon him would daily ask, saying : How is it? But he would not question me about where it was, being so far cautious as to avoid the mention of every member of the body. And the sage have remarked : Whoever shall not ponder his ques- tion may be vexed at its answer : " It behoves thee not to open thy mouth to speak till full well aware that thy words are the essence of what are proper. If thou tellest the truth, and remainest in durance, it is better than by a lie to work out thy deliverance." XCVIII. To tell a falsehood is like the cut of a sabre ; for though the wound may heal, the scar of it will remain. In like manner as the brothers of the blessed Joseph, who, being notorious for a lie, had no credit afterwards when they spoke the truth : God on high has said Jacob is supposed to speak Koran xii. (Sale ii. 35) : Nay, but rather ye have con- trived this to gratify your own passion ; yet it behoves me to be patient : " If a man who is in the habit of speaking trnth lets a mistake escape him, we can overlook it ; but if he be notorious for uttering false- hoods, and tell a truth, thou wilt call it a lie." XCIX. The noblest of creatures is man, and the vilest of animals is no doubt a dog; yet, in the concurring SHAIKH SADL 303 opinion of the wise, a dog, thankful for his food, is more worthy than a human being who is void of gratitude : "A dog will never forget the crumb thou gavest him, though thou mayst afterwards throw a hundred stones at his head ; but foster with thy kindness a low man for an age, and on the smallest provocation he will be up against thee in arms." C. No virtue is to be expected from the sensualist, and high station is not fitting for the illiterate and worth- less : " Show no mercy to the fatted ox, for whatever is gluttonous must be given to sloth. If desirous of getting fat and sleek as an ox, submit thy carcase to others to beat it like that of an ass." CI. It is written in the Injeel, or Gospel, stating: O son of man, if I bestow riches upon you you will be more intent upon your property than upon me, and if I leave you in poverty you will sit down dejected ; how then can you feel a relish to praise or a zeal to worship me ? (Proverbs xxx. 7, 8, 9) : " In the day of plenty thou art proud and negligent ; in the time of want, full of sorrow and dejected ; since in prosperity and adversity such is thy condition, it were difficult to state when thou wouldst voluntarily do thy duty." CII. The pleasure of Him, or God, who has no equal, hurls one man from a throne of sovereignty, and 304 SHAIKH SADL another he preserves in a fish's belly : " Happy pro- ceeds his time who is enraptured with thy praise, though, like Jonas, he even may pass it in the belly of a fish ! " CHI. Were the Almighty to unsheath the sword of his wrath, prophets and patriarchs would draw in their heads ; and were he to deign a glimpse of his benevolence, it would reach the wicked along with the good : " Were he on the day of judgment to call us to a strict account, even the prophets would have no room for excuse. Say, withdraw the veil from the face of thy compassion, that sinners may entertain hopes of pardon." CIV. Whoever is not to be brought into the path of righteousness by the punishments of this life shall be overtaken with the punishments of that to come : Verily ', / will cause them to taste the lesser punishment over and above the greater punishment: Koran xxxii. (Sale ii. 258) : " Princes, in chastising, ad- monish, and then confine ; when they admonish, and thou listenest not, they throw thee into prison." CV. Men of auspicious fortune would rather take warning from the precepts and examples of their predecessors than that the rising generation should SHAIKH SAJDI. 305 take warning from their acts : " The bird will not approach the grain that is spread about, where it sees another bird a captive in the snare. Take warning by the mischance of others, that others may not take warning by thine." CVI. How can he help himself who was born deaf, if he cannot hear ; and what can he do whose thread of fortune is dragging him on that he may not proceed : " The dark night of such as are beloved of God is serene and light as the bright day ; but this good fortune results not from thine own strength of arm, till God in his mercy deign to bestow it. To whom shall I complain of thee? for there is no judge else, nor is any arm mightier than thine. Him whom thou directest none can lead astray, and him whom thou bewilderest none can direct upon his way." CVII. The beggar whose end is good is better off than the king whose end is evil : " That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow." CVIIL The sky enriches the earth with rain, and the earth gives it dust in return. As the Arabs say : What the vessels have, that they give, " If my moral character strike thee as improper, do not renounce thine own good character." 762 3 o6 SHAIKH SADI. CIX. The Most High God discerns and hides what is improper ; my neighbour sees not, and is loud in his clamour : " God preserve us ! if man knew what is hidden, none could be safe from the animad- version of his neighbour." ex. Gold is got from the mine by digging into the earth ; and from the grasp of the miser by taking away his life : " Misers spend not, but watch with solicitude : expectation, they say, is preferable to waste. Next day observe to the joy of their enemies, the gold remains, and they are dead without the enjoyment of that hope." CXI. Such as deal hard with the weak will suffer from the extortion of the strong : " It is not every arm in which there is strength that can wrench the hand of a weak man. Bring not affliction upon the hearts of the feeble, lest thou mayst fall under the lash of the strong." CXII. A wise man, where he meets opposition, labours to get through it, and where he finds quiet he drops his anchor, for there safety is on one side, and here enjoyment in the middle of it. SHAIKH SAD I. 307 CXIII. The gamester wants three sixes, but he throws only three aces : " The pasture meadow is a thousand times richer than the common, but the horse has not his tether at command." CXIV. The darwesh in his prayer is saying : O God, have compassion on the wicked, for to the good thou hast been abundantly kind, inasmuch as thou hast made them virtuous. CXV. Jamshid was the first person who put an edging round his garment, and a ring upon his finger. They asked him : Why did you bestow all the decoration and ornament on the left hand, whilst the right is the superior ? He answered : Sufficient for the right is the ornament of being right. " Firedown com- manded the gilders of China that they would inscribe upon the front of his palace : Strive, O wise man, to make the wicked good, for the good are of themselves great and fortunate." CXVI. They said to a great and holy man : Notwithstand- ing the superiority that the right hand commands, why do they wear the ring on the left hand? He replied : Arc you not aware that the best are most 3 o8 SHAIKH SADL neglected ! " He who casts our horoscope, provision, and fortune, bestows upon us either good luck or wisdom." CXVII. It is proper for him to offer counsel to kings who dreads not to lose his head, nor looks for a reward. " Whether thou strewest heaps of gold at his feet, or brandishest an Indian sword over the Unitarian's head, to hope or fear he is alike indifferent ; and in this the divine unity alone he is resolved and firm." CXVIIL It belongs to the king to displace extortioners, to the superintendent of the police to guard against murderers, and to the cazi to decide in quarrels and disputes. No two complainants ever referred to the cazi content to abide by justice. " When thou ktiowest that in right the claim is just, better pay with a grace than by distress and force. If a man is refractory in discharging his revenue, the collector must necessarily coerce him to pay it." CXIX. Every man's teeth are blunted by acids excepting the cazi's, and they require sweets : " That cazi, or judge, that can accept of five cucumbers as a bribe, will confirm thee in a right to ten fields of melons." SHAIKH SADI. 309 cxx. The superannuated bawd feels no hesitation in forswearing fornication, nor the displaced police magistrate in foregoing oppression. " A young man becoming a recluse is a lion-like hero devoting himself to the service of God. Not so decrepid age, .which cannot of itself stir from the corner of its cell." CXXI. They asked a wise man, saying : Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad or free excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this ? He replied : Each has its appropriate produce and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered ; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing ; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents : " Fix not thy heart on what is transitory ; for the Dijlah or Tygris will continue to flow through Baghdad after the race of Khalifs is extinct. If thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date-tree ; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress." CXXII. Two orders of mankind died, and carried with them regret : such as had and did not spend, and such as 3 1 o SHAIKH SAD I. knew and did not practise : " None can see that wretched mortal a miser who will not endeavour to point out his faults ; but were the generous man to have a hundred defects, his liberality would cover all his blemishes." THE CONCLUSION OF THE BOOK. The book of the Gulistan, or Flower-Garden, was completed through the assistance and grace of God. Throughout the whole of this work I have not fol- lowed the custom of writers by inserting verses of poetry borrowed from former authors : " It is more decorous to wear our own patched and old cloak than to ask in loan another man's garment" Most of Sadi's sayings have a dash of hilarity and an odour of gaiety about them, in consequence of which short-sighted critics extend the tongue of animadversion, saying : It is not the occupation of sensible men to solicit marrow from a shrivelled brain, or to digest the smoke of a profitless lamp. Nevertheless it cannot be concealed from the en- lightened judgment of the holy and good, to whom these discourses are specially addressed, that the pearls of salutary admonition are threaded on the cord of an elegance of language, and the bitter potion of instruction sweetened with the honey of facetiousness, that the taste of the reader may not take disgust, and himself be debarred from the pleasure of approving of them : " On our part we offered some good advice 3 and spent an age in SHAIKH SADL 311 bringing it to perfection. If that should not meet the ear of anybody's good-will, prophets deliver their messages, or warn mankind ; and that is enough." " O thou who perusest this book, ask tJie mercy of God on the author of it, his forgiveness on tJie tran- scriber. Petition for whatever charitable gift thou mayst require for thyself, and implore pardon on the owner" May I crave thy prayer on the English translator ? The book is finished through the favour of the Lord God Paramount and the bestower of all good! THE END. Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling, Neiccaxtle-on-Tyne, THE SCOTT LIBRARY. Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Trice is. 6d. per Volume. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED- 1 MALORY'S ROMANCE OF KING ARTHUR AND THE Quest of the Holy Grail. Edited by Ernest Rhys. 2 THOREAU'S WALDEN. WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTE by Will H. Dircks. 3 THOREAU'S "WEEK." WITH PREFATORY NOTE BY Will H. Dircks. 4 THOREAU'S ESSAYS. EDITED, WITH AN INTRO- duction, by Will H. Dircks. 5 CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, ETC. By Thomas De Quincey. With Introductory Note by William Sharp. 6 LANDOR'S IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS. SELECTED, with Introduction, by Havelock Ellis. 7 PLUTARCH'S LIVES (LANGHORNE). WITH INTRO- ductory Note by B. J. Snell, M.A. 8 BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI, ETC. WITH INTRO- duction by J. Addington Symonds. 9 SHELLEY'S ESSAYS AND LETTERS. EDITED, WITH Introductory Note, by Ernest Rhys. 10 SWIFT'S PROSE WRITINGS. 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Edited, with Introduction, by William Clarke. 44 THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY Oliver Wendell Holmes. 45 THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. BY OLIVER Wendell Holmes. 46 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. BY Oliver Wendell Holmes. 47 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON. Selected, with Introduction, by Charles Sayle. London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. THE SCOTT LIBRARY continued. 48 STORIES FROM CARLETON. SELECTED, WITH INTRO- duction, by W. Yeats. 49 JANE EYRE. BY CHARLOTTE BRONTE. EDITED BY Clement K. Shorter. 50 ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND. EDITED BY LOTHROP Withington, with a Preface by Dr. FurnivalL 51 THE PROSE WRITINGS OF THOMAS DAVIS. EDITED by T. W. Rolleston. 52 SPENCE'S ANECDOTES. A SELECTION. EDITED, with an Introduction and Notes, by John Underbill. 53 MORE'S UTOPIA, AND LIFE OF EDWARD V. EDITED, with an Introduction, by Maurice Adams. 54 S ADI'S GULISTAN, OR FLOWER GARDEN. TRANS- lated, with an Essay, by James Ross. 55 ENGLISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 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EDITED, WITH an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys. 67 MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK, AND OTHER STORIES. By Charles Dickens. With Introduction by Frank T. Marzials. 68 TALES FROM WONDERLAND. BY RUDOLPH Baumbach. Translated by Helen B. Dole. 69 ESSAYS AND PAPERS BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. EDITED by Walter Jerrold. 70 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. BY Mary Wollstonecraft. Introduction by Mrs. E. Robins Pennell. 71 "THE ATHENIAN ORACLE." A SELECTION. EDITED by John Underbill, with Prefatory Note by Walter Besant. 72 ESSAYS OF SAINTE-BEUVE. TRANSLATED AND Edited, with an Introduction, by Elizabeth Lee. 73 SELECTIONS FROM PLATO. FROM THE TRANS- lation of Sydenham and Taylor. Edited by T. W. Rolleston. 74 HEINE'S ITALIAN TRAVEL SKETCHES, ETC. TRANS- lated by Elizabeth A. Sharp. With an Introduction from the French of Theophile Gautier. 75 SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS. TRANSLATED, with an Introduction, by Major-General Patrick Maxwell. 76 SELECTIONS FROM SYDNEY SMITH. EDITED WITH an Introduction, by Ernest Rhys. THE SCOTT LIBRARY may be had in the following Bindings : Cloth, uncut edges, gilt top, is. 6d. ; Half-Morocco, gilt top, antique; Red Roan, gilt edges, etc. : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. GREAT WRITERS. A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. Edited by Prof. E. S. ROBERTSON and FRANK T. MARZIALS. A Complete Bibliography to each Volume, by J. P. ANDERSON, British Museum, London. Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1/6. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED LIFE OF LONGFELLOW. By PROF. ERIC S. ROBERTSON. "A most readable little work." Liverpool Mercury. LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By HALL CAINE. "Brief and vigorous, written throughout with spirit and great literary skill." Scotsman. LIFE OF DICKEN 5. By FRANK T. MARZIALS. "Notwithstanding the mass of matter that has been printed relating to Dickens and his works ... we should, until we came across this volume, have been at a loss to recommend any popular life of England's most popular novelist as being really satisfactory. The difficulty is removed by Mr. Marzials's little book." Atheiiceum. LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. By J. KNIGHT. "Mr. Knight's picture of the great poet and painter is the fullest and best yet presented to the public." The Graphic. LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. By COLONEL F. GRANT. "Colonel Grant has performed his task with diligence, sound judgment, good taste, and accuracy." Illustrated London Sews. LIFE OF DARWIN. By G. T. BETTANT. " Mr. G. T. Bettany's Life of Darwin is a sound and conscientious work.- Saturday Review. LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE. By A. BIRRELL. " Those who know much of Charlotte Bronte will learn more, and those who know nothing about her will find all that is best worth learning in Mr. Birrell's pleasant book." St. James" Gazette. LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE. By R. GARNETT, LL.D. "This is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous and fairer than the way in which he takes us through Carlyle's life and works." Pali Mall Gazette. London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. GREAT WRITERS continued. LIFE OF ADAM SMITH. By R. B. HALDANE, M.P. "Written with a perspicuity seldom exemplified when dealing with economic science." Scotsman. LIFE OF KEATS. By W. M. ROBSBTTI. "Valuable for the ample information which it contains." Cambridge Independent. LIFE OF SHELLEY. By WILLIAM SHARP. "The criticisms . . . entitle this capital monograph to be ranked with the best biographies of Shelley." Wettminster Review. LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By DAVID HANNAY. " A capable record of a writer who still remains one of the great masters of the English novel." Saturday Review. LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. By AUSTIN DOBSON. 11 The story of bis literary and social life in London, with all its humorous and pathetic vicissitudes, is here retold, as none could tell it better." Daily A'ewt. LIFE OF SCOTT. By PROFESSOR YONQE. "This is a most enjoyable book." Aberdeen Free Presi. LIFE OF BURNS. By PROFESSOR BLACKIB. " The editor certainly made a hit when he persuaded Blackie to write about Bums." Pall Mall Gazette. LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO. By FRANK T. MARZIALS. "Mr. Marzials's volume presents to us, in a more handy form than any English or even French handbook gives, the summary of what is known about the life of the great poet." Saturday Review. LIFE OF EMERSON. By RICHARD GARXBTT, LL.D. " No record of Emerson's life could be more desirable." Saturday Review. LIFE OF GOETHE. By JAMES SIMB. "Mr. James Sime's competence as a biographer of Goethe is beyond question." ilanehener Guardian. LIFE OF CONGP,EVK By EDMUND GOSSE. " Mr. Qosse has written an admirable biography." Academy. LIFE OF BUNT AN. By CANON VENABLES. "A most, intelligent, appreciative, and valuable memoir." Scotsman. LIFE OF CRABBE. By T. E. KEBBEL. " No English poet since Shakespeare has observed certain aspects of nature and of human life more closely." Athenaeum, LIFE OF HEINE. By WILLIAM SHARP. " An admirable monograph . . . more fully written up to the level of recent knowledge and criticism than any other English work." Scotunan. London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. GREAT WRITERS continued. LIFE OP MILL. By W. L. COURTNEY. " A most sympathetic and discriminating memoir." Glasgow Herald. LIFE OF SCHILLER. By HBNBT W. NEVINSON. " Presents the poet's life in a neatly rounded picture." Scotsman. LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARRYAT. By DAVID HANNA*. "We have nothing but praise for the manner in which Mr. Hannay ha* done justice to him." Saturday Review. LIFE OF LESSING. By T. W. ROLLESTON. " One of the best books of the series." Manchester Guardian. LIFE OF MILTON. By RICHAKD GARNETT, LL.D. " Has never been more charmingly or adequately told." Scottish Leader. LIFE OF BALZAC. By FREDERICK WBDMORB. " Mr. Wedmore's monograph on the greatest of French writers of fiction, whose greatness is to be measured by comparison with his successors, is a, piece of careful and critical composition, neat and nice in style." Daily News. LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. By OSOAB BROWNING. "A book of the character of Mr. Browning's, to stand midway be tween the bulky work of Mr. Cross and the very slight sketch of Mi-r. Blind, was much to be desired, and Mr. Browning has done his work witt, rivacity, and not without skill." Manchester Guardian. LIFE OF JANE AUSTEN. By GOLDWIN SMITH. "Mr. Ooldwin Smith has added another to the not inconsiderable roll of eminent men who have found their delight in Miss Austen. . . . His little book upon her, just published by Walter Scott, is certainly a fas- cinating book to those who already know her and love her well : and we hare little doubt that it will prove also a fascinating book to those who have still to make her acquaintance." Spectator. LIFE OF BROWNING. By WILLIAM SHARP. "This little volume is a model of excellent English, and in every respect it seems to us what a biography should be." Public Opinion. LIFE OF BYRON. By HON. RODBN NOEL. " The Hon. Roden Noel's volume on Byron is decidedly one of the most readable in the excellent ' Great Writers ' series." Scottish Leader. LIFE OF HAWTHORNE. By MONCURB CONWAT. " It is a delightful causerie -pleasant, genial talk about a most interest- ing man. Easy and conversational as the tone is throughout, no important fact is omitted, no valueless fact is recalled ; and it is entirely exempt from platitude and conventionality." The Speaker. LIFE OF SCHOPENHAUER. By PROFESSOR WALLACE. "We can speak very highly of this little book of Mr. Wallace's. It is, perhaps, excessively lenient in dealing with the man, and it cannot be said to be at all ferociously critical in dealing with the philosophy." Saturday Review. London: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. GREAT WRITERS continued. LIFE OF SHERIDAN. By LLOYD SANDERS. "To say that Mr. Lloyd Sanders, in this little volume, has produced the best existing memoir of Sheridan, is really to award much fainter praise than the work deserres." Manchester Examiner. LIFE OF THACKERAY. By HERMAN MERIVALE and F. T. MARZIALS. "The monograph just published is well worth reading, . . . and the book, with its excellent bibliography, is one which neither the student nor the general reader can well afford to miss." Pall Mall Gazette. LIFE OF CERVANTES. By W. E. WATTS. " We can commend this book as a worthy addition to the useful series to which it belongs." London Daily Chronicle. LIFE OF VOLTAIRE. By FRANCIS ESMNASSE. LIBRARY EDITION OF " GREAT WRITERS," Demy Svo, 2s. 64 London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. THE NOVELTY OF THE SEASON. SELECTED THREE-VOL. SETS IN NEW BROCADE BINDING. 6s. per Set, in Shell Case to match. THE FOLLOWING SETS CAN BE OBTAINED POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. KEATS. SHELLEY. COLERIDGE. SOUTHEY. COWPER. EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. CHAUCER. SPENSER. LONGFELLOW. WHITTIER. EMERSON. HOGG. ALLAN RAMSAY. SCOTTISH MINOR POETS. BORDER BALLADS. JACOBITE SONGS. OSSIAN. HORACE. GREEK ANTHOLOGY. LANDOR. CAVALIER POETS. LOVE LYRICS. HERRICK. GOLDSMITH. MOORE. IRISH MINSTRELSY. SHAKESPEARE. BEN JONSON. MARLOWE. CHRISTIAN YEAR. IMITATION OF CHRIST. HERBERT. WOMEN POETS. CHILDREN OF POET& SEA MUSIC. SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY. SONNETS OF EUROPE. AMERICAN SONNETS. PRAED. HUNT AND HOOD. DOBELL. MEREDITH. MARSTON. LOVE LETTERS. AMERICAN HUMOR- OUS VERSE. ENGLISH HUMOROUS VERSE. BALLADES AND RONDEAUS. HEINE. GOETHE. HUGO. SELECTED TWO-VOLUME SETS IN NEW BROCADE BINDING. 45, per Set, in Shell Case to match. SCOTT (Lady of the Lake, etc.). SCOTT (Marmion, etc.). BURNS (Songs). BURNS (Poems). BYRON (Don Juan, etc.}. BYRON (Miscellaneous). MILTON (Paradise Lost). MILTON (Paradise Regained, etc.). London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. SELECTED THREE-VOL. SETS IN NEW BROCADE BINDING. 6s. per Sef, in Shell Case to match. 0, W, HOLMES SERIES- Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table. The Professor at the Break- fast-Table. The Poet at the Breakfast Table. LANDQR SERIES- Lander's Imaginary Conver- sations. Pentameron. Pericles and Aspasia. THREE ENGLISH ESSAYISTS- Essays of Elia. Essays of Leigh Hunt. Essays of William Hazlitt THREE CLASSICAL MORALISTS- Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Teaching of Epictetus. Morals of Seneca. WALDEN SERIES- Thoreau's Walden. Thoreau's Week. Thoreau's Essays. FAMOUS LETTERS- Letters of Burns. Letters of Byron. Letters of Shelley. LOWELL SERIES- My Study Windows. The English Poets. The Biglow Papers. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. Crown 2>vo, about 350 //. each, Ctoth Cover, zs. 6d. per vol. Half-polished Morocco, gilt top, $s. COUNT TOLSTOI'S WORKS, The following Volumes are already issued A RUSSIAN PROPRIETOR. THE COSSACKS. IVAN ILYITCH, AND OTHER STORIES. THE INVADERS, AND OTHER STORIES. MY RELIGION. LIFE. MY CONFESSION. CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF WAR. ANNA KARENINA. (2 VOLS.) WHAT TO DO? WAR AND PEACE. (4 VOLS.) THE LONG EXILE, AND OTHER STORIES FOR CHILDREN. SEVASTOPOL. THE KREUTZER SONATA, AND FAMILY HAPPINESS. Uniform with the above. IMPRESSIONS OF RUSSIA. BY DR. GEORG BRANDES. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. IBSEN'S FAMOUS PROSE DRAMAS. EDITED BY WILLIAM ARCHER. Complete in Five Vols. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Price 3/6 each. Set of Five Vols., in Case, 17/6; in Half Morocco, in Case, 32/6. " We seem at last to be shown men and women as they are ; and at first it is more than we can endure. . . All Ibsen's characters speak and act as if they -were hypnotised, and under their creator's imperious demand to reveal themselves. There never was such a mirror held up to nature before : it is too terrible. . . . Yet we must return to Ibsen, with his remorseless surgery, his remorseless electric-light, until we, too, have grown strong and learned to face the naked if necessary, the flayed and bleeding reality." SPEAKER (London), VOL. I. "A DOLL'S HOUSE," "THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH," and "THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY." With Portrait cf the Author, and Biographical Introduction by WlLLIAMARCHER. VOL. II. "GHOSTS," "AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE," and "THE WILD DUCK." With an Introductory Note. VOL. III. "LADY INGER OF OSTRAT," "THE VIKINGS AT HELGELAND," "THE PRETENDERS." With an Introductory Note and Portrait of Ibsen. VOL. IV. "EMPEROR AND GALILEAN." With an Introductory Note by WILLIAM ARCHER. VOL. V. " ROSMERSHOLM," "THE LADY FROM THE SEA," "HEDDA GABLER." Translated by WILLIAM ARCHER. With an Introductory Note. The sequence of the plays in each volume is chronological ; the complete set of volumes comprising the dramas thus presents them in chronological order. "The art of prose translation does not perhaps enjoy a very high literary status in England, but we have no hesitation in numbering the present version of Ibsen, so far as it has gone (Vols. I. and II.), among the very best achievements, in that kind, of our generation." Academy. "We have seldom, if ever, met with a translation so absolutely idiomatic. " Glasgoiu Herald. LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 WARWICK LANE. THE CANTERBURY POETS. EDITED BY WILLIAM SHARP. IN I/- MONTHLY VOLUMES. Cloth, Red Edges . Is. Cloth, Uncut Edges - Is. Red Roan, Gilt Edges, 2s. 6d. Pad. Morocco, Gilt Edges, 5s. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR By the ROY. John Kebl COLERIDGE Edited by Joseph Skipaey. LONGFELLOW ~ Edited by E?a Hop*. CAMPBELL Edited by John Hogben. SHELLEY Edited by Joseph Skipsey. WORDSWORTH Edited by A. J. Symington. BLAKE ........ .... Edited by Joseph Skipsey. WJUJ.TT1ER .. Edited by Bra Hope. POE ....... ...... Edited by Joeph SMpsey. CHATTERTON .._, . ............ Edited by John Richmond. BURNS. Poems .,_ .. Edited by Joseph Skipsay. BURNS. Songa Edited by Joseph Skipsey. MARLOWE - Edited by Percy B. Pinkerton, KEATS .................__ Edited by John Hogben, HERBERT Edited by Ernest Rhys. HUGO Translated by Dean Carrington. OOWPER ^ Edited by Bra Hope. SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS, Etc. Edited by William Sharp. EMERSON _ Edited by Walter Lewin. SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY Edited by William Sharp. WHITMAN Jtdited by Ernest Rhys. SCOTT. Marmion, etc. Edited by William Sharp. SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc. Edited by Wflliam Sharp. PRAED Edited by Frederick Cooper. HOGG _ . Edited by his Daughter, Mrs. Garden. GOLDSMITH Edited by William Tirebuck. LOVE LETTERS. Etc. By Eric Mackay. SPENSER . Edited by Hon. Roden Noel CHILDREN OF THE POETS Edited by Eric S. Robertson. JONSON EditedbyJ. Addington Symonds. BYRON (2 Vola.) Edited by Mathilde Blind. THE SONNETS OF EUROPE ...... Edited by S. Waddington. RAMSAY ....... EditedbyJ. Logie Robertson. DOBELL .. . Edited by Mrs. DobelL London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. THE CANTERBURY POETS-continued. DAYS OF THE YEAR With Introduction by William Sharp POPE Edited by John Hogben. HEINE ~ Edited by Mrs. Kroeker. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER Edited by John S. Fletcher. BOWLES, LAMB, Ac. Edited by William Tirebuck. EARLY ENGLISH POETRY Edited by H. Macaulay Fitigibbon. SKA MUSIC Edited by Mrs Sharp- HERRICK . -...- Edited by Erneit Rhys. BALLADES AND RONDEAUS Edited by J. Gleeson White. IRISH MINSTRELSY Edited by H. Halliday Sparling. HILTON'S PARADISE LOST Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D. JACOBITE BALLADS Edited by O. S. Macquoid. AUSTRALIAN BALLADS Edited by D. B. W. Sladen, B.A. MOORE M Edited by John Dorrian. BORDER BALLADS Edited by Graham H. Tomaon. SONQ-TIDE ..~ By Philip Bourke Marrton. ODES OF HORACE Translation! by Sir Stephen de Vere, Bt. OSSIAN Edited by George Eyre-Todd. ELFIN MUSIC Edited by Arthur Edward Waite. SOUTHEY . . Edited by Sidney E. Thompson. CHAUCER Edited by Frederick Noel Paton. POEMS OF WILD LIFE Edited by Charles O. D. Roberta, M.A. PARADISE REGAINED Edited by J. Bradshaw, M. A., LL.D. CRABBE ....... Edited by E. Lamplough. DORA GREENWELL Edited by William Dorling. FAUST Edited by Elizabeth Craigmyle. AMERICAN SONNETS Edited by William Sharp. LANDOR'S POEMS Edited by Ernest Badford. GREEK ANTHOLOGY Edited by Graham B. Tomson. HUNT AND HOOD Edited by J. Harwood Panting. HUMOROUS POEMS Edited by Ralph H. Caine. LYTTON'S FLAYS Edited by R, Farquharson Sharp. GREAT ODES Edited by William Sharp. MEREDITH'S POEMS Edited by M. Betham-Edwards. PAINTER-POETS Edited by Kineton Parkes. WOMEN POETS Edited by Mrs. Sharp. LOVE LYRICS Edited by Percy Hulburd. AMERICAN HUMOROUS VERSE Edited by James Ban. MINOR SCOTCH LYRICS Edited by Sir George Douglas. CAVALIER LYRISTS Edited by Will H. Dircks. GERMAN BALLADS Edited by Elizabeth Craigmyle. SONGS OF BERANGER Translated by William Toynbee. London : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 Warwick Lane. Quarto, cloth elegant, gilt edges, emblematic design on cover, 6s. May also be had in a variety of Fancy Bindings. A MUSICIANS' BIRTHDAY BOOK. EDITED BY ELEONORE D'ESTERRE KEELING. THIS is a unique Birthday Book. Against each date are given the names of musicians whose birthday it is, together with a verse-quotation appropriate to the character of their different compositions or performances. A special feature of the book consists in the reproduction in fac-simile of auto- graphs, and autographic music, of living composers. Three sonnets by Mr. Theodore Watts, on the "Fausts" of Berlioz, Schumann, and Gounod, have been written specially for this volume. It is illustrated with designs of various musical instruments, etc.; autographs of Rubenstein, Dvorak, Grieg, Mackenzie, Villiers Stanford, etc., etc. " To musical amateurs this will certainly prove the most at- tractive birthday book ever published." Manchester Guardian. " One of those happy ideas that seems to have been yearning for fulfilment. . . . The book ought to have a place on every music stand." Scottish Leader. London : WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. A 001 431 370 4 L 005 76 7 COLLEGE L IB. PK G9R7 1890