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."