The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan, Volume 2 by Various
page 81 of 163 (49%)
page 81 of 163 (49%)
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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 |
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