CHAPTER XIV. ON ABSTAINING FROM REGARD TO THE VICISSITUDES OF TIME, AND THE BASING ONE'S ACTIONS ON THE DECREES AND WILL OF GOD. INTRODUCTION. When the clime-adorning king had heard this story full of advantage, which may be regarded as a treasure fraught with the gems of wisdom, and a store-house filled with the coins of admonition, being bound heart and soul in obligation to the perfect and accomplish sage, he said, STANZA. 'Thou from the ocean of whose radiant mind, The weary wanderers in inquiry's plain, To slake their thirst, pure streams of wisdom find! I have already wearied your highness, possessed of wisdom, beyond all bounds, and have carried the excess of my importunities to the limits of disrespect, and the point has been almost reached for the chain of your sublime discourse to be severed. Since then, you have acquainted me with the signification of the thirteenth precept, and I have heard the tale of kings in reference to their patronage of counsellors and near dependants, and have been informed of the mischiefs which spring from associating with the mean and base: now be so condescendingly gracious as to set forth a detailed explanation of the last precept and discourse on this subject, viz. Why the beneficent and intellectual sage is fettered by the bonds of calamity, and broken by the wounds of adverse fortune, while the vile ignorant person, fatuously careless, passes his life in ease and enjoyment? why neither the former is assisted by his good sense and sagacity, nor the latter overthrown by his ignorance and fatuity. Say, moreover, what kind of stratagem is to be employed to secure advantage and repel injury? and by what counsel one may enjoy the happy influences of felicity, and by what service our roads may lead to the halting-place wishedfor?' The Brahman replied, 'O king! there are first steps and sources of 1 Lit, 'Tent-rope.' felicity, which when a person has secured, he will become more deserving of rank and authority, and more fit for an honorable and exalted position; but the results and fruits thereof are dependent on the Divine decree and God's will; and the king's command may be viewed as the first source of all, and means and appliances will, if destiny so requires it, prove abortive and ineffectual. For many wise persons who have been in the enjoyment of deserved good-fortune, have suddenly been excluded even from food sufficient for a single day; while many ignorant persons, without the aid of puissance and virtue, have been seated on the throne of sovereignty. STANZA. They royal treasures on the base bestow, Yet cannot for the worthy crumbs afford; But ne'er, e'en by mistake, 1 a place afford, And assuredly this state of things cannot but be in connection with the Divine decree and the command of God Most Holy. And although one may possess perfect understanding, so that in that way he might procure a maintenance; or a very lucrative profession, whence he might provide the means of support; or fascinating beauty by which he might capture hearts, and so secure advantages: yet when the Divine will yields not assistance thereto, the party will reap no fruit, nor will he see such gainful results from the antecedents of beauty and wisdom and perfection. And a Prince wrote this proposition on the gate of the city of Nustúr, and there is a beautiful story and sweet tale connected with this.' The King asked, 'How was that?' STORY I. The Brahman said, 'They have related that in certain countries of Rúm there was a prosperous king and mighty sovereign. COUPLET. Of mighty wisdom with high spirit blent, His arm was strong, his heart intelligent. He had two sons adorned with a variety of accomplishments, and graced with a multitude of eminent qualities. COUPLET. That by his mercy hearts did captivate, This by his justice souls reänimate. When the king accepted, with the phrase 'Here I am!', the invitation of his Creator, the elder brother appropriated, with the hand of predominant power, the treasury of his father; and having secured the hearts of the Pillars 1 Or bi-ghalat may mean with the rest of the sentence, 'Through error, they do not give a place to the wise even at the threshold,' of the State, and of the ministers of the late king with the lasso of courtesy and winning demeanour, and captured them with his perfect humanity and mildness, seated himself in his father's place. COUPLET. A prince of happy fortune, in a yet more happy hour, His father's rules obeying, assumed the reins of power. The younger brother, when he saw that the Humá of empire overshadowed the star-reaching head of his elder brother, and that the leader, Fortune, had given the reins of the courser of the age to the grasp of his authority and option; through fear that he might act perfidiously towards him, placed the equipage of travel on the back of the dromedary of flight; and voluntarily submitting to the affliction of exile and the perils of travel, and taking along with him supplies of grief and lamentation, set out on his journey. COUPLET. I am weary of my fatherland, on my travels I will go, But no provisions for my journey, save my grief for thee, I know. The Prince set out alone on a long and distant expedition, and, as day closed, reached a halting-place; and there grieving and lamenting over his solitary and wretched state, he exclaimed, COUPLET. 'Since each two steps have made my eyes of bloody tears a gushing spring, In short he passed that night solitarily. Next day when the fair-faced beauty of the sun showed her comeliness from the curtain of the horizon, and the sweetheart of day's luminary displayed from behind the veil of blue her bright cheeks and radiant countenance, COUPLET. Heaven's wheel the sun's gate open threw meanwhile, the Prince prepared to set off, and a youth of fair countenance and curling hair, of excessive sprightliness and infinite grace met him. The Prince looked and beheld a lovely stripling, such that thou wouldst say they had sewed the garment1 of perfection on his person, and had consumed the heart of the moon with the heat of envy at his beauty. His down was like a fresh violet budding close to a green rose-leaf, or a ring of moist ambergris on the surface of a tulip loaded with dew. 1 The kaba is a long gown with flaps in the skirt, the skirt and breast open, and sometimes slits in the arm-pits: Kánún-i Islám : appendix, Dress, x. VERSE. With beard like ants near a rose fresh blowing,' Which from the hyacinth scents gathering stray; When the royal youth beheld that captivating down and glowing cheek, COUPLET. That down of rarest beauty with those bright cheeks seemed to blend, Like the wondrous grass that sprang up from the furnace of God's friend,2 he said to himself, 'Perhaps I could bear the burthen of the woes of travel with the support of the society of this stripling, and obtain security under the shadow of this cypress with cheeks like the rose, from the heat of this fire-raining desert. HEMISTICH. 'T is sweet for him to wander who a comrade has like thee.' Then those two jasmins of youth's garden, and those two tender trees by the rivulet of life, being pleased with each other's society, regarded the distressful wilderness as the rose-garden of Iram, and fancied the thorny brakes of toil to be the joy-augmenting flower-parterres of Paradise. QUATRAIN. Were nought but woes and cruel wounds from thy tresses all my gain, On th' inhabitants of Eden, I still with scorn should look: And to Paradise without thee they might me call in vain, For Eden's self without thee, my soul, this heart could never brook.) At the next stage, a merchant's son, (a youth intelligent and experienced, of just counsels, far-seeing, and of perfect understanding, such that by his perfect wisdom, when good sense was required, he could bind the cord of night on the neck of day, and at the time of dealing, could, by his sharpness and cleverness, obtain the sterling gold of the sun from the four-streeted market of the sky. COUPLET. Acute, sharp-witted, and of honeyed speech, By long experience skilled his ends to reach ;) joined company with them; and thus was brought about the felicitous appearance of that trine. On the third day a robust and lusty young peasant, (who possessed universal intelligence on agricultural matters and perfect skill in all the varieties of farming occupations, the felicity of whose operations was such in planting, that every dry stick which he set in the 4 1 His black moustachios near his red lips looked like ants near a rose,, 2 When Namrúd, or Nimrod as we call him, cast Abraham, God's friend,' into a furnace, the fire turned into a verdant meadow. See Kur'an, Sale's Trans., p. 247, note a. 3 There is doubtless an allusion to astrology here. These three handsome youths formed, as it were, a trine, or conjunction of three fortunate stars. The editions have dihkání repeated three times in this sentence, which is altogether opposed to the spirit of Persian authors, who delight to exhibit their 'copia verborum.' I would, therefore, with one of my MSS. read bághbani for one of this dihkani group. one of his friends, and ascertain what had occurred. All of a sudden he saw the pilgrim, and, displaying the utmost joy, conducted him with respect and reverence to his own abode. After the usual inquiries, he again minutely detailed his adventures, and his exclusion from attendance on the king, and the degradation of rank which had befallen him, and the sums of money and property that he had lost. The pilgrim consoled him, and said, 'O brother! if thy means of support have been impaired, and the pillars of thy opulence have been crushed by the hurricane of accidents, grieve not, for I have some pieces of sterling gold, and also an ornament containing many jewels; and thou art sagacious in discerning the worth of gold and gems. Sell them carefully and kindly, and take what thou wilt, for there will be no difficulty as to that.' The Goldsmith sent for the ornament, and when he saw it, he beheld the ornament of the princess. Then putting on a cheerful countenance, he said to the pilgrim, 'The value of these jewels exceeds the power of the calculator of the imagination to compute. Be of good cheer! for I will this very moment set thy mind at ease; and so, rest thou here in peace until I return.' The Goldsmith then reflected, 'I have got a fine opportunity, and secured a rare advantage. If I am remiss and let this slip, I shall prove myself quite devoid of all the advantages of caution and cleverness. Previous to this, the king's mind has been changed towards me, and at this moment, when they have conveyed to him the news of his daughter's murder, of course he is grieved and anxious, and on the look-out for the assassin of his daughter. I can have no better recommendation to him than to consign the pilgrim to the king's hands, that he may bring him to justice. Perhaps, the king, being pleased with me, I shall again rise to my former station.' He then resolved on treachery, and went to the palace and announced that he had caught the murderer of the princess, and secured the ornament. The king sent for him, and seeing the ornament, sent some persons to bring the pilgrim iuto his presence. When the hapless pilgrim saw who was the instrument of this deed, he said, COUPLET. 'Thou hast in friendship slain me, and yet none Was e'en, by foes, so cruelly undone. This is my punishment, and I deserve a thousand times as much.' The king supposed that he was a criminal, and that he was uttering these words in acknowledgment of his misdeeds; and the ornament, too, was corroborative of that suspicion. He commanded, therefore, that they should parade him round the city, and having imprisoned him, should the next day, when they had finished putting him to the usual torture, inflict on him retaliation for 1 The lithographed edition reads here, rightly as I suppose, mi talabad for the mi talabd of the printed edition and of some MSS. |