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 doth 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 understanding, 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 Imaam 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 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 may’st again see roses 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 tradition 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 be taken up to heaven, and the wicked master sent down to hell:— “Upon the bondsman, who is subservient 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 armor, 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 elephant, that he may behold the shoulder and arm of warriors? Where the lion, that he may feel the wrist and grip 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 experience 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 dervish holding forth and saying: “My father’s mausoleum is built of granite, the epitaph inscribed with letters of gold, the pavement and lining marble, and tessellated with slabs of turquoise; 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 burden: — the poor dervish, who suffers under a load of indigence, will in like sort enter the gates of death with an easy burden; but with him who luxuriates in peace, plenty, and affluence, it must be a real hardship to die amidst all these comforts. At all events consider the prisoner, who is released from his thraldom, as better off than the prince who is just fallen a captive.
* * * * *
XXI
I saw a certain person in the garb of dervishes, 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 burdens 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 neighbors and kindred: — The rich have their consecrated foundations, charitable endowments and rites of hospitality; their alms, oblations, manumissions, peace-offerings, and sacrifices. How shalt thou rise to this pomp of fortune who canst perform 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 giving tithes, and their apparel hallowed by cleanliness, 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 ardor 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 fortu
ne is bankrupt, so is his heart: — accordingly, 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, the infidel’: — And there is a tradition of the prophet — that ‘poverty has a gloomy aspect in this world and in the next!’”
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 dervish, 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 Mussulmans, 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 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 undermining 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 he may fall the victim of some accursed sin. 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 jujubes’: — 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 houris, or nymphs of Paradise, have captivated and plundered, show any way partial to the idols of Yaghma (a city in Turkestan 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 circumstances 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 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 dervish, 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 Providence; yet they are a proud, self-conceited, fastidious, 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 an ass, although he be the ambergris ox.”
I replied: “Do not calumniate the rich, for they are 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 anybody? 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 parsimony 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 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 replenished from the dew of night. And had Hatim Tayi, who dwelt 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 mendicant’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 made a show of arms over his gate, but has not a soldier within his fort”: — At length, having no syllogism left, I made 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 rancor; 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 overwhelm thee with 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 finger 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 physiognomies, 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 without 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 enjoyment has the sting of death in its rear; and between us and the felicity of Paradise stands a frightful 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 sympathizes 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.”
The Collected Works of Saadi Page 20