On Love and Youth
I
They asked Husan Maimandi: "How comes it that Sultan Mahmud, who has so
many handsome bondswomen, 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 favor 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.
* * * * *
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 may'st 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 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.
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 disposition 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' intention 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 overwhelmed in the ocean of love and passion that he
absolutely could not utter a word:--"Couldst thou in fact repeat the
seven Saba, or whole Koran by heart, if distracted with love, thou
wouldst forget the alphabet":--the princess continued: "Why do you not
answer me? for I too am one of the sect of dervishes, nay, I am their
most devoted slave." On the strength of this sympathizing 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 camest 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 person 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 harboring 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: "In like manner, as you inspect my duties,
also animadvert on my tendency to vice, in order that if you discern any
immorality in my behavior, 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.
* * * * *
VII
A person who had not seen his friend for a length of time, said to him:
"Where were you? for I have 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 Sa'di! 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 myself, and say: Nobody can have a
satiety of that!"
IX
I saw a learned gentleman the captive of attachment 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 attachment 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 labor 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 her with
kindness, or drive me from her with harshness 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 behavior having displeased me, I
withdrew the skirt of communication, 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 distressed 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 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 (Sa'di) 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. Sa'di 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 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."
* * * * *
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
demeanor!--_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
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 companionship, 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 however 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
offensive.--An assemblage is formed of roses and tulips, and thou art
stuck up amidst them like a withered 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 companion 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 tantalizing 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
dervishes." 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 commence hostilities, and violate the compact? I relinquished
all manner of society, and plighted my heart 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 decrepit 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 samurn, 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 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 dropped 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
metropolitan mosque at Kashghar, and met a youth incomparably lovely,
and exquisitely handsome; 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 Sa'di's
compositions?" I replied: "_I am enamoured with 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 Sa'di'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."
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 Sa'di; 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 Sa'di, 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, thou
wouldst charge me with being insincere in my attachments_."
XVII
A ragged dervish accompanied us along with the caravan for Hijaz, and a
certain Arab prince presented 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 adventure. 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 Cabah, 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 loveliness 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:--'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 bring him into his presence;
and he reproved him, and spoke, saying: "What have you seen unworthy in
the noble nature of man that you should assume the manners of a brute,
and forsake the enjoyment of human society?"
Mujnun wept and answered:--"_Many of my friends reproach me for my love
of her, 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 might 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 behoove you, O king, to
contemplate the charms of Laila through the wicket of a Mujnun's eye,
in order that the miracle of such a spectacle might be illustrated to
you. Thou canst have no fellow-feeling for my disorder; a companion to
suit me must have the self-same malady, that I may sit by him the
livelong day repeating my tale; for by rubbing two pieces of dry
fire-wood one upon another they will burn all the brighter:--_had that
grove of verdant reeds heard the murmurings of love which 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."
* * * * *
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 answering 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
beloved when exposed to danger. In this manner ended the lives of those
lovers. Listen to what has happened, that you may understand; for Sa'di
knows the ways and forms of courtship as well as the Tazi, or modern
Arabic, is understood at Bagdad. 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.