Then Solomon sent Hudh-hudh to seek the wild dove—Hudh-hudh, the bird of gold, created by the witchcraft of Balkis, Queen of Sheba, the sorceress of sorceresses; and the golden bird brought back with him Boutimar, the wild dove, most loving of all living creatures. Then it was that Solomon repeated the words of the song which he had written: "O my dove that dwellest in the clifts of the rock, in the secret hiding-places of the stairs, let me see thy face, let me hear thy voice!... Is it meet that thy lord, Solomon, shall drink of the waters of youth and know the bliss of earthly immortality?"
Then the wild dove, speaking in the tongue of birds known to Solomon only among mortals, asked the prophet-king, saying: "How shall a creature of air answer the source of wisdom? how may so feeble a mind advise thy supernal intelligence? Yet, if I must counsel, let me ask thee, O Solomon, whether the Water of Life brought hither by this perfumed spirit be for thee alone, or for all with whom thy heart might incline thee to share it?"
But Solomon answered: "It hath been sent to only me, nor is there enough within the cup for any other."
"O prophet of God!" answered Boutimar, in the tongue of birds, "how couldst thou desire to be living alone, when each of thy friends and of thy counselors and of thy children and of thy servants and of all who loved thee were counted with the dead? For all of these must surely drink the bitter waters of death, though thou shouldst drink the Water of Life. Wherefore desire everlasting youth, when the face of the world itself shall be wrinkled with age, and the eyes of the stars shall be closed by the black fingers of Azrael? When the love thou hast sung of shall have passed away like a smoke of frankincense, when the dust of the heart that beat against thine own shall have long been scattered by the four winds of heaven, when the eyes that looked for thy coming shall have become a memory, when the voices grateful to thine ear shall have been eternally stilled, when thy life shall be one oasis in a universal waste of death, and thine eternal existence but a recognition of eternal absence—wilt thou indeed care to live, though the wild dove perish when its mate cometh not?"
And Solomon, without reply, silently put out his arm and gave back the cup, so that the white hand came forth and took it, and withdrew into the odorous cloud, and the cloud dissolved and passed away forever. But upon the prophet-king's rich beard, besprinkled with powder of gold, there appeared another glitter as of clear dew—the diamond dew of the heart, which is tears.
[THE SON OF A ROBBER]
... A bud from the Rose-Garden of the Gulistan, planted in the six hundred and fifty-sixth year of the Hejira by the Magician of Speech, the Sheikh Moslih-Eddin Sadi of Shiraz, and arranged after eight divisions corresponding with the Eight Gates of Paradise.... In the reign of the King of Kings, Abou-Bequer ben Sad, the Most Magnificent, Viceregent of Solomon, Shadow of the Most High God upon Earth.... In the Name of God the Most Merciful.