Tales from the Gulistan/Chapter 6

by Sa'di

VI

ON WEAKNESS AND OLD AGE

“WHEN THOU ART OLD . . .”

[p. 187

STORY CXLVIII

I was holding a disputation with a company of learned men in the cathedral mosque of Damascus, when a youth stepped among us, asking whether anyone knew Persian, whereon most of them pointed to me. I asked him what the matter was, and he said that an old man, aged one hundred and fifty years, was in the agony of death, but saying something in Persian which nobody could understand, and that if I were kindly to go and see him I might obtain the information whether he was perhaps desirous of making his last will. When I approached his pillow, he said:

"A while ago I said I shall take some rest,
But alas! The way of my breath is choked.
Alas, that from the variegated banquet of life
We were eating a while, and told it is enough!"

I interpreted these words in the Arabic language to the Damascenes, and they were astonished that, despite of his long life, he regretted the termination of it so much. I asked him how he felt, and he replied:

"What shall I say? Hast thou not seen what misery he feels, the teeth of whose mouth are being extracted? Consider what his state will be at the hour when life, so precious to him, abandons his body."

I told him not to worry his imagination with the idea of death, and not to allow a hallucination to obtain dominion over his nature, because Ionian philosophers have said, that although the constitution may be good, no reliance is to be placed on its permanence, and although a malady may be perilous, it does not imply a full indication of death. I asked: "If thou art willing I shall call a physician to treat thee."

He lifted his eyes and said, smiling: "The skilled doctor strikes his hands together on beholding a rival prostrate like a potsherd. A gentleman is engaged in adorning his hall with paintings whilst the very foundation of the house is ruined. An aged man was lamenting in his last agony whilst his old spouse was rubbing him with sandal.^[1] When the equilibrium of the constitution is destroyed, neither incantations nor medicines are of any avail."

STORY CXLIX

I was in Diarbekr, the guest of an old man, who possessed abundant wealth and a beautiful son. One night he narrated to me that he had all his life no other son but this boy, telling me that in the locality people resorted to a certain tree in the valley to offer petitions, and that he had during many nights prayed at the foot of the said tree, till the Almighty granted him this son.

I overheard the boy whispering to his companion: "How good it would be if I knew where that tree is, that I might pray for my father to die."

Moral: The gentleman is delighted that his son is intelligent, and the boy complains that his father is a dotard.

Years elapse without thy visiting the tomb of thy father. What good hast thou done to him to expect the same from thy son?

STORY CL

One day, in the pride of youth, I had travelled hard, and arrived, perfectly exhausted, in the evening at the foot of an acclivity. A weak old man, who had likewise been following the caravan, came and asked me why I was sleeping, this not being the place for it. I replied: "How am I to travel, having lost the use of my feet?"

He said: "Hast thou not heard that it is better to walk gently, and to halt now and then, than to run and to become exhausted? O thou who desirest to reach the station, take my advice and learn patience. An Arab horse gallops twice in a race; a camel ambles gently night and day."

STORY CLI

The active, graceful, smiling, sweet-tongued youth happened once to be in the circle of our assembly. His heart had been entered by no kind of grief, and his lips were scarcely ever closed from laughter. After some time had elapsed I accidentally met him again, and I learned that he had married a wife, and be- gotten children; but I saw that the root of merriment had been cut, and the roses of his countenance were withered. I asked him how he felt, and what his circumstances were.

He replied: "When I had obtained children, I left off childishness."

When thou art old, abstain from puerility, leave play and jokes to youths. Seek not a youth's hilarity in an old man, for the water gone from the brook returns no more. When the harvest-time of a field arrives, it will no longer wave in the breeze like a young crop.

The period of youth has departed,
Alas for those heart-enchanting times.
The force of the lion's claws is gone;
Now we are satisfied with cheese like a leopard.

An old hag had dyed her hair black. I said to her: "O little mother of ancient days, thou hast cunningly dyed thy hair, but consider that thy bent back will never be straight."

STORY CLII

In the folly of youth I one day shouted at my mother, who then sat down with a grieved heart in a corner and said, weeping: "Hast thou forgotten thy infancy that thou art harsh towards me? If thou hadst remembered the time of thy infancy, how helpless thou wast in my arms, thou wouldst this day not have been harsh, for thou art a lion-like man, and I an old woman."

 

STORY CLIII

The son of a wealthy but avaricious old man, having fallen sick, his well-wishers advised him that it would be proper to get the whole Quran recited [for his recovery] or else to offer a sacrifice. He meditated a while and then said: "It is preferable to read the Qurân, because the flock is at a distance."

A holy man who had heard this afterwards remarked: "He selected the reading of the Qurân because it is at the tip of the tongue, but the money at the bottom of the heart. It is useful to bend the neck in prayers, if they are to be accompanied by almsgiving. For one dinâr he would remain sticking in mud like an ass, but if thou askest for Alhamdu^[2] he will recite it a hundred times."

1. Probably an ointment is meant of which sandalwood was an ingredient.
2. 'Alhamdu,' 'The Praise,' is one of the names of the first chapter of the Qurân.