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 contentment! 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, 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
sufficiently express my grateful sense of this blessing, that I possess
not the means of injuring my fellow-creatures?"
III
I heard of a dervish 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, are more
commendable than petitioning the great for every new garment.'" By my
troth, I swear it were equal to the torments of hell to enter into
paradise through the interest of a neighbor.
IV
One of the Persian kings sent a skilful physician to attend Mohammed
Mustafa, 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!
V
A certain person would be making vows of abstinence and breaking them.
At last a reverend 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 dervishes of Khorasan were fellow-companions 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 a fortnight it was
discovered that they were innocent, 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
circumstances, 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 moderation, 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 regorged 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 surfeit, whereas a crust of bread, eaten after a long
interval, will relish like conserve of roses."
XI
In a battle with the Tartars, a gallant young man was grievously
wounded. Somebody said to him, "A certain merchant has a stock of the
mummy antidote; if you would ask him, he might perhaps accommodate 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 daylight 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 obligation, 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 honorable
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 favorable opinion of his
character. This one 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 may'st 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
vapor_.--He added to my means of subsistence, but took from my
reputation; absolute starving were better than the disgrace of begging."
XIII
A dervish had a pressing call for money. Somebody 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 dervish 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 may'st be ruffled by his ill-nature. If
thou tellest the sorrows of thy heart let it be to him in whose
countenance thou may'st be assured of prompt consolation."
* * * * *
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 fagot 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 dervish who had buried his
body, in his want of clothes to cover it, in the sand. He said: "O
Moses, 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 succor him.
Some days afterwards, as he was returning from a conference with God on
Mount Sinai, he met that dervish 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 precipitate thyself into destruction? Would
that the ant might not have the 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 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 wish: that a stream of water might dash against my knees,
and I could fill my leathern flask or stomach with it_."
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 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 mendicant, 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 goodness 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 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 handsome 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 condescension 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
realized I will repay it and 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 burden 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 Turkestan, 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." 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 Sa'di! I have one more
journey in view, and, that once accomplished, 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 glassware 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
Sa'di! 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.'"
* * * * *
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.'"
XXV
A person without hands or feet killed a milleped. 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 Sa'di, 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."
XXVII
A thief said to a mendicant: "Are you not ashamed when you hold forth
your hand to every mean fellow for a barleycorn 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."
* * * * *
XXIX
I saw a dervish 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 favor me by partaking of my bread and salt, by becoming my
guest." The shaikh, or holy man, consented; for the acceptance of such
an invitation accorded with the sunnat, or law and tradition of the
prophet. Next day the king went to apologize 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 kindness 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 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.