COUNSELS AND ADMONITIONS[771]
My son, I will now give thee sage counsel: do thou give ear to my
advice and store it up in thy mind; for so shalt thou find future
salvation and present success.
_Monition the First._ Be not a liar. Although it is said, and commonly
believed, that all sportsmen are liars, still do thou employ no
falsehood. Shayk͟h Saʿdī says:—
“Truth-speaking God hath high in favour set
Nor will he e’er the truthful man forget.”[772]
_Second._ Act not perfidiously with thy friends and companions. Should
the hawk of a rival “put in” its partridge and “fall at mark,” and
none see it but thee, conceal not the fact from the enquiring owner;
nay, more, go thyself and point out to him the lost hawk, for perhaps
some day he may be able to return the favour.
_Third._ Steal not the hawk or hound of an acquaintance, for theft
is one of the vilest qualities in a man. Moreover thou wilt live in
dread lest the owner should come along and proclaim thee dog-stealer
and hawk-stealer. If thou findest a lost hawk, proclaim it or return
it to the owner,[773] so shalt thou lay up great merit for thyself in
the world to come, and also prove thy nobility of mind in this. Just
think of the enormity of ensnaring a lost hawk and bearing it home,
while the anxious and distressed owner wanders in the snow, from peak
to peak, calling her and searching for her—you in your snug home the
while.
As noble deeds are recompensed in kind
So evil acts an ill requital find.
Certainly the Almighty will not be pleased, and before many days
elapse, some retaliation[774] will overtake thee. My boy, copulating
with the penis of others is poor sport: refrain or you’ll fall into
evil repute.
_Fourth._ Should an enemy loose a hawk and the hawk happen to come
into thy possession, take it thyself and return it to him; for thy
generous action will remove his enmity, and, should it not do so, men
will extol thee and revile him: if thou do not act thus, then leave
his hawk alone and make as though thou hadst not seen it, for often
have I seen an evil man quarrel with his comrades about a single
partridge, and the next day the lost hawk of a comrade having by
chance fallen into his evil clutches he has killed it and buried it.
Do thou avoid such practices, else neither in this world nor the next
wilt thou escape punishment.
“Rend’ring evil for evil is easy to do;
If you’re manly do good to the man that wrongs you.”
FOOTNOTES:
[771] This chapter has been somewhat abridged.
[772] Eastwick’s translation.
[773] In India it was lawful to trap a man’s pigeon but not to keep
his lost hawk. In India if a hawk is caught the whole village knows
it, and the news at once spreads for a radius of thirty miles. I once
lost a hawk in Dera Ghazi Khan which was caught in Kapurthala, but the
news of its capture soon reached me. Such instances are common.
[774] _Qiṣāṣ_, “exact retaliation”; an eye for an eye.