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.'"
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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."