Chapter VI: Wise Sayings of the Rabbis (2)

Our author, as we have seen, enlivens his moral discourses occasionally with humorous stories, and one or two more of these may fittingly close the present section: One of the slaves of Amrúlais having run away, a person was sent in pursuit of him and brought him back. The vazír, being inimical to him, commanded him to be put to death in order to deter other slaves from committing the like offence. The slave prostrated himself before Amrúlais and said: "Whatever may happen to me with your approbation is lawful--what plea can the slave offer against the sentence of his lord? But, seeing that I have been brought up under the bounties of your house, I do not wish that at the resurrection you shall be charged with my blood. If you are resolved to kill your slave, do so comformably to the interpretation of the law, in order that at the resurrection you may not suffer reproach." The king asked: "After what manner shall I expound it?" The slave replied: "Give me leave to kill the vazír, and then, in retaliation for him, order me to be put to death, that you may kill me justly." The king laughed, and asked the vazír what was his advice in this matter. Quoth the vazír: "O my lord, as an offering to the tomb of your father, liberate this rogue, in order that I may not also fall into this calamity. The crime is on my side, for not having observed the words of the sages, who say, 'When you combat with one who flings clods of earth, you break your own head by your folly: when you shoot at the face of your enemy, be careful that you sit out of his aim.'"--And not a little wit, too, did the kází exhibit when detected by the king in an intrigue with a farrier's daughter, and his Majesty gave order that he should be flung from the top of the castle, "as an example for others"; to which the kází replied: "O monarch of the universe, I have been fostered in your family, and am not singular in the commission of such crimes; therefore, I ask you to precipitate some one else, in order that I may benefit by the example." The king laughed at his wit, and spared his life.--Nor is this tale without a spice of humour: An astrologer entered his house and finding a stranger in company with his wife abused him, and called him such opprobrious names that a quarrel and strife ensued. A shrewd man, being informed of this, said to the astrologer: "What do you know of the heavenly bodies, when you cannot tell what goes on in your own house?"[10]--Last, and perhaps best of all, is this one: I was hesitating about concluding a bargain for a house, when a Jew said: "I am an old householder in that quarter; inquire of me the description of the house, and buy it, for it has no fault." I replied: "Excepting that you are one of the neighbours!"

[10] There is a similar story to this in one of our old
English jest-books, _Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 1535,
as follows (I have modernised the spelling): As an
astronomer [i.e. an astrologer] sat upon a time in the
market place, and took upon him to divine and to show
what their fortunes and chances should be that came to
him, there came a fellow and told him (as it was indeed)
that thieves had broken into his house, and had borne
away all that he had. These tidings grieved him so sore
that, all heavy and sorrowfully, he rose up and went his
way. When the fellow saw him do so, he said: "O thou
foolish and mad man! goest thou about to divine other
men's matters, and art ignorant of thine own?"

III

ANECDOTES AND APHORISMS FROM THE "GULISTÁN," WITH ANALOGUES--CONCLUSION.

Besides the maxims comprised in the concluding chapter of the _Gulistán_, under the heading of "Rules for the Conduct of Life," many others, of great pith and moment, are interspersed with the tales and anecdotes which Saádí recounts in the preceding chapters, a selection of which can hardly fail to prove both instructive and interesting.

It is related that at the court of Núshírván, king of Persia, a number of wise men were discussing a difficult question; and Buzurjmihr (his famous prime minister), being silent, was asked why he did not take part in the debate. He answered: "Ministers are like physicians, and the physician gives medicine to the sick only. Therefore, when I see your opinions are judicious, it would not be consistent with wisdom for me to obtrude my sentiments. When a matter can be managed without my interference it is not proper for me to speak on the subject. But if I see a blind man in the way of a well, should I keep silence it were a crime." On another occasion, when some Indian sages were discoursing on his virtue, they could discover in him only this fault, that he hesitated in his speech, so that his hearers were kept a long time in suspense before he delivered his sentiments. Buzurjmihr overheard their conversation and observed: "It is better to deliberate before I speak than to repent of what I have said."[11]

[11] The sayings of Buzurjmihr, the sagacious prime minister
of King Núshírván, are often cited by Persian writers,
and a curious story of his precocity when a mere youth
is told in the _Latá'yif at-Taw'áyif_, a Persian
collection, made by Al-Káshifí, of which a translation
will be found in my "Analogues and Variants" of the
Tales in vol. iii of Sir R. F. Burton's _Supplemental
Arabian Nights_, pp. 567-9--too long for reproduction
here.

A parallel to this last saying of the Persian vazír is found in a "notable sentence" of a wise Greek, in this passage from the _Dictes, or Sayings of Philosophers_, printed by Caxton (I have modernised the spelling):

"There came before a certain king three wise men, a Greek, a Jew, and a Saracen, of whom the said king desired that each of them would utter some good and notable sentence. Then the Greek said: 'I may well correct and amend my thoughts, but not my words.' The Jew said: 'I marvel of them that say things prejudicial, when silence were more profitable.' The Saracen said: 'I am master of my words ere they are pronounced; but when they are spoken I am servant thereto.' And it was asked one of them: 'Who might be called a king?' And he answered: 'He that is not subject to his own will.'"

The _Dictes, or Sayings of Philosophers_, of which, I believe, but one perfect copy is extant, was translated from the French by Earl Rivers, and printed by Caxton, at Westminister, in the year 1477, as we learn from the colophon. I am not aware that any one has taken the trouble to trace to their sources all the sayings comprised in this collection, but I think the original of the above is to be found in the following, from the preface to the Arabian version (from the Pahlaví, the ancient language of Persia) of the celebrated Fables of Bidpaï, entitled _Kalíla wa Dimna_, made in the year 754:

"The four kings of China, India, Persia, and Greece, being together, agreed each of them to deliver a saying which might be recorded to their honour in after ages. The king of China said: 'I have more power over that which I have not spoken than I have to recall what has once passed my lips.' The king of India: 'I have been often struck with the risk of speaking; for if a man be heard in his own praise it is unprofitable boasting, and what he says to his own discredit is injurious in its consequences.' The king of Persia: 'I am the slave of what I have spoken, but the master of what I conceal.' The king of Greece: 'I have never regretted the silence which I had imposed upon myself; though I have often repented of the words I have uttered;[12] for silence is attended with advantage, whereas loquacity is often followed by incurable evils.'"

[12] Simonides used to say that he never regretted having
held his tongue, but very often had he felt sorry for
having spoken.--_Stobæus_: Flor. xxxiii, 12.

The Persian poet Jámí--the last of the brilliant galaxy of genius who enriched the literature of their country, and who flourished two centuries after Saádí had passed to his rest--reproduces these sayings of the four kings in his work entitled _Baháristán_, or Abode of Spring, which is similar in design to the _Gulistán_.

Among the sayings of other wise men (whose names, however, Saádí does not mention) are the following: A devotee, who had quitted his monastery and become a member of a college, being asked what difference there is between a learned man and a religious man to induce him thus to change his associates, answered: "The devotee saves his own blanket out of the waves, and the learned man endeavours to save others from drowning."--A young man complained to his spiritual guide of his studies being frequently interrupted by idle and impudent visitors, and desired to know by what means he might rid himself of the annoyance. The sage replied: "To such as are poor lend money, and of such as are rich ask money, and, depend upon it, you will never see one of them again."

Saádí's own aphorisms are not less striking and instructive. They are indeed calculated to stimulate the faltering to manly exertion, and to counsel the inexperienced. It is to youthful minds, however, that the "words of the wise" are more especially addressed; for it is during the spring-time of life that the seeds of good and evil take root; and so we find the sage Hebrew king frequently addressing his maxims to the young: "My son," is his formula, "my son, attend to my words, and bow thine ear to my understanding; that thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge." And the "good and notable sentences" of Saádí are well worthy of being treasured by the young man on the threshold of life. For example:

"Life is snow, and the summer advanceth; only a small portion remaineth: art thou still slothful?"

This warning has been reiterated by moralists in all ages and countries;--the Great Teacher says: "Work while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work." And Saádí, in one of his sermons (which is found in another of his books), recounts this beautiful fable, in illustration of the fortunes of the slothful and the industrious:

It is related that in a certain garden a Nightingale had built his nest on the bough of a rose-bush. It so happened that a poor little Ant had fixed her dwelling at the root of this same bush, and managed as best she could to store her wretched hut of care with winter provision. Day and night was the Nightingale fluttering round the rose-bower, and tuning the barbut[13] of his soul-deluding melody; indeed, whilst the Ant was night and day industriously occupied, the thousand-songed bird seemed fascinated with his own sweet voice, echoing amidst the trees. The Nightingale was whispering his secret to the Rose,[14] and that, full-blown by the zephyr of the dawn, would ogle him in return. The poor Ant could not help admiring the coquettish airs of the Rose, and the gay blandishments of the Nightingale, and incontinently remarking: "Time alone can disclose what may be the end of this frivolity and talk!" After the flowery season of summer was gone, and the black time of winter was come, thorns took the station of the Rose, and the raven the perch of the Nightingale. The storms of autumn raged in fury, and the foliage of the grove was shed upon the ground. The cheek of the leaf was turned yellow, and the breath of the wind was chill and blasting. The gathering cloud poured down hailstones, like pearls, and flakes of snow floated like camphor on the bosom of the air. Suddenly the Nightingale returned into the garden, but he met neither the bloom of the Rose nor fragrance of the spikenard; notwithstanding his thousand-songed tongue, he stood stupified and mute, for he could discover no flower whose form he might admire, nor any verdure whose freshness he might enjoy. The Thorn turned round to him and said: "How long, silly bird, wouldst thou be courting the society of the Rose? Now is the season that in the absence of thy charmer thou must put up with the heart-rending bramble of separation." The Nightingale cast his eye upon the scene around him, but saw nothing fit to eat. Destitute of food, his strength and fortitude failed him, and in his abject helplessness he was unable to earn himself a little livelihood. He called to his mind and said: "Surely the Ant had in former days his dwelling underneath this tree, and was busy in hoarding a store of provision: now I will lay my wants before her, and, in the name of good neighbourship, and with an appeal to her generosity, beg some small relief. Peradventure she may pity my distress and bestow her charity upon me." Like a poor suppliant, the half-famished Nightingale presented himself at the Ant's door, and said: "Generosity is the harbinger of prosperity, and the capital stock of good luck. I was wasting my precious life in idleness whilst thou wast toiling hard and laying up a hoard. How considerate and good it were of thee wouldst thou spare me a portion of it." The Ant replied:

"Thou wast day and night occupied in idle talk, and I in attending to the needful: one moment thou wast taken up with the fresh blandishment of the Rose, and the next busy in admiring the blossoming spring. Wast thou not aware that every summer has its fall and every road an end?"[15]

[13] The name of a musical instrument.

[14] The fancied love of the nightingale for the rose is a
favourite theme of Persian poets.

[15] Cf. the fable of Anianus: After laughing all summer at
her toil, the Grasshopper came in winter to borrow part
of the Ant's store of food. "Tell me," said the Ant,
"what you did in the summer?" "I sang," replied the
Grasshopper. "Indeed," rejoined the Ant. "Then you may
dance and keep yourself warm during the winter."

These are a few more of Saádí's aphorisms:

Riches are for the comfort of life, and not life for the accumulation of riches.[16]

[16] Auvaiyár, the celebrated Indian poetess, in her
_Nalvali_, says:

Hark! ye who vainly toil and wealth
Amass--O sinful men, the soul
Will leave its nest; where then will be
The buried treasure that you lose?

The eye of the avaricious man cannot be satisfied with wealth, any more than a well can be filled with dew.

A wicked rich man is a clod of earth gilded.

The liberal man who eats and bestows is better than the religious man who fasts and hoards.

Publish not men's secret faults, for by disgracing them you make yourself of no repute.

He who gives advice to a self-conceited man stands himself in need of counsel from another.

The vicious cannot endure the sight of the virtuous, in the same manner as the curs of the market howl at a hunting-dog, but dare not approach him.

When a mean wretch cannot vie with any man in virtue, out of his wickedness he begins to slander him. The abject, envious wretch will slander the virtuous man when absent, but when brought face to face his loquacious tongue becomes dumb.

O thou, who hast satisfied thy hunger, to thee a barley loaf is beneath notice;--that seems loveliness to me which in thy sight appears deformity.

The ringlets of fair maids are chains for the feet of reason, and snares for the bird of wisdom.

When you have anything to communicate that will distress the heart of the person whom it concerns, be silent, in order that he may hear it from some one else. O nightingale, bring thou the glad tidings of the spring, and leave bad news to the owl!

It often happens that the imprudent is honoured and the wise despised. The alchemist died of poverty and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure under a ruin.

Covetousness sews up the eyes of cunning, and brings both bird and fish into the net.

Although, in the estimation of the wise, silence is commendable, yet at a proper season speech is preferable.[17]

[17] "Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we
are not athirst for information; but, to be quite fair,
we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due
to the lack of matter. Speech is often barren, but
silence does not necessarily brood over a full nest.
Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all
the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it
takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that
addled delusion."--George Eliot's _Felix Holt_.

Two things indicate an obscure understanding: to be silent when we should converse, and to speak when we should be silent.

Put not yourself so much in the power of your friend that, if he should become your enemy, he may be able to injure you.

* * * * *

Our English poet Young has this observation in his _Night Thoughts_:

Thought, in the mine, may come forth gold or dross;
When coined in word, we know its real worth.

He had been thus anticipated by Saádí: "To what shall be likened the tongue in a man's mouth? It is the key of the treasury of wisdom. When the door is shut, who can discover whether he deals in jewels or small-wares?"

The poet Thomson, in his _Seasons_, has these lines, which have long been hackneyed:

Loveliness
Needs not the aid of foreign ornament,
But is when unadorned adorned the most.

Saádí had anticipated him also: "The face of the beloved," he says, "requireth not the art of the tire-woman. The finger of a beautiful woman and the tip of her ear are handsome without an ear-jewel or a turquoise ring." But Saádí, in his turn, was forestalled by the Arabian poet-hero Antar, in his famous _Mu'allaka_, or prize-poem, which is at least thirteen hundred years old, where he says: "Many a consort of a fair one, whose beauty required no ornaments, have I laid prostrate on the field."

Yet one Persian poet, at least, namely, Nakhshabí, held a different opinion: "Beauty," he says, "adorned with ornaments, portends disastrous events to our hearts. An amiable form, ornamented with diamonds and gold, is like a melodious voice accompanied by the rabáb." Again, he says: "Ornaments are the universal ravishers of hearts, and an upper garment for the shoulder is like a cluster of gems. If dress, however," he concedes, "may have been at any time the assistant of beauty, beauty is always the animator of dress." It is remarkable that homely-featured women dress more gaudily than their handsome sisters generally, thus unconsciously bringing their lack of beauty (not to put too fine a point on it) into greater prominence.

In common with other moralists, Saádí reiterates the maxim that learning and virtue, precept and practice, should ever go hand in hand. "Two persons," says he, "took trouble in vain: he who acquired wealth without using it, and he who taught wisdom without practising it." Again: "He who has acquired knowledge and does not practise it, is like unto him that ploughed but did not sow." And again: "How much soever you may study science, when you do not act wisely, you are ignorant. The beast that they load with books is not profoundly wise and learned: what knoweth his empty skull whether he carrieth fire-wood or books?" And yet again: "A learned man without temperance is like a blind man carrying a lamp: he showeth the way to others, but does not guide himself."

Ingratitude is denounced by all moralists as the lowest of vices. Thus Saádí says: "Man is beyond dispute the most excellent of created beings, and the vilest animal is the dog; but the sages agree that a grateful dog is better than an ungrateful man. A dog never forgets a morsel, though you pelt him a hundred times with stones. But if you cherish a mean wretch for an age, he will fight with you for a mere trifle." In language still more forcible does a Hindú poet denounce this basest of vices: "To cut off the teats of a cow;[18] to occasion a pregnant woman to miscarry; to injure a Bráhman--are sins of the most aggravated nature; but more atrocious than these is ingratitude."

[18] The cow is sacred among the Hindús.

The sentiment so tersely expressed in the Chinese proverb, "He who never reveals a secret keeps it best," is thus finely amplified by Saádí: "The matter which you wish to preserve as a secret impart not to every one, although he may be worthy of confidence; for no one will be so true to your secret as yourself. It is safer to be silent than to reveal a secret to any one, and tell him not to mention it. O wise man! stop the water at the spring-head, for when it is in full stream you cannot arrest it."[19]

[19] Thus also Jámí, in his _Baháristán_ (Second "Garden"):
"With regard to a secret divulged and one kept
concealed, there is in use an excellent proverb, that
the one is an arrow still in our possession, and the
other is an arrow sent from the bow." And another
Persian poet, whose name I have not ascertained,
eloquently exclaims: "O my heart! if thou desirest ease
in this life, keep thy secrets undisclosed, like the
modest rose-bud. Take warning from that lovely flower,
which, by expanding its hitherto hidden beauties when in
full bloom, gives its leaves and its happiness to the
winds."

The imperative duty of active benevolence is thus inculcated: "Bestow thy gold and thy wealth while they are thine; for when thou art gone they will be no longer in thy power. Distribute thy treasure readily to-day, for to-morrow the key may be no longer in thy hand. Exert thyself to cast a covering over the poor, that God's own veil may be a covering to thee."

In the following passage the man of learning and virtue is contrasted with the stupid and ignorant blockhead:

"If a wise man, falling into company with mean people, does not get credit for his discourse, be not surprised, for the sound of the harp cannot overpower the noise of the drum, and the fragrance of ambergris is overcome by fetid garlic. The ignorant fellow was proud of his loud voice, because he had impudently confounded the man of understanding. If a jewel falls in the mud it is still the same precious stone,[20] and if dust flies up to the sky it retains its original baseness. A capacity without education is deplorable, and education without capacity is thrown away. Sugar obtains not its value from the cane, but from its innate quality. Musk has fragrance of itself, and not from being called a perfume by the druggist. The wise man is like the druggist's chest, silent, but full of virtues; while the blockhead resembles the warrior's drum, noisy, but an empty prattler. A wise man in the company of those who are ignorant has been compared by the sages to a beautiful girl in the company of blind men, and to the Kurán in the house of an infidel."--The old proverb that "an evil bird has an evil egg" finds expression by Saádí thus: "No one whose origin is bad ever catches the reflection of the good." Again, he says: "How can we make a good sword out of bad iron? A worthless person cannot by education become a person of any worth." And yet again: "Evil habits which have taken root in one's nature will only be got rid of at the hour of death."

[20] Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was if
it is not praised?--_Marcus Aurelius_.

If glass be used to decorate a crown,
While gems are taken to bedeck a foot,
'Tis not that any fault lies in the gem,
But in the want of knowledge of the setter.

--_Panchatantra_, a famous Indian book of Fables.

Firdausí, the Homer of Persia (eleventh century), has the following remarks in his scathing satire on the sultan Mahmúd, of Ghazní (Atkinson's rendering):

Alas! from vice can goodness ever spring?
Is mercy hoped for in a tyrant king?
Can water wash the Ethiopian white?
Can we remove the darkness from the night?
The tree to which a bitter fruit is given
Would still be bitter in the bowers of heaven;
And a bad heart keeps on its vicious course,
Or, if it changes, changes for the worse;
Whilst streams of milk where Eden's flow'rets blow
Acquire more honied sweetness as they flow.

The striking words of the Great Teacher, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" find an interesting analogue in this passage by Saádí: "There is a saying of the Prophet, 'To the poor death is a state of rest.' The ass that carries the lightest burden travels easiest. In like manner, the good man who bears the burden of poverty will enter the gate of death lightly loaded, while he who lives in affluence, with ease and comfort, will, doubtless, on that very account find death very terrible. And in any view, the captive who is released from confinement is happier than the noble who is taken prisoner."

A singular anecdote is told of another celebrated Persian poet, which may serve as a kind of commentary on this last-cited passage: Faridú 'd-Dín 'Attár, who died in the year 1229, when over a hundred years old, was considered the most perfect Súfí[21] philosopher of the time in which he lived. His father was an eminent druggist in Nishapúr, and for a time Faridú 'd-Dín followed the same profession, and his shop was the delight of all who passed by it, from the neatness of its arrangements and the fragrant odours of drugs and essences. 'Attár, which means druggist, or perfumer, Faridú 'd-Dín adopted for his poetical title. One day, while sitting at his door with a friend, an aged dervish drew near, and, after looking anxiously and closely into the well-furnished shop, he sighed heavily and shed tears, as he reflected on the transitory nature of all earthly things. 'Attár, mistaking the sentiment uppermost in the mind of the venerable devotee, ordered him to be gone, to which he meekly rejoined: "Yes, I have nothing to prevent me from leaving thy door, or, indeed, from quitting this world at once, as my sole possession is this threadbare garment. But O 'Attár, I grieve for thee: for how canst thou ever bring thyself to think of death--to leave all these goods behind thee?" 'Attár replied that he hoped and believed that he should die as contentedly as any dervish; upon which the aged devotee, saying, "We shall see," placed his wooden bowl upon the ground, laid his head upon it, and, calling on the name of God, immediately resigned his soul. Deeply impressed with this incident, 'Attár at once gave up his shop, and devoted himself to the study of Súfí philosophy.[22]

[21] The Súfís are the mystics of Islám, and their poetry,
while often externally anacreontic--bacchanalian and
erotic--possesses an esoteric, spiritual signification:
the sensual world is employed to symbolise that which is
to be apprehended only by the _inward_ sense. Most of
the great poets of Persia, Afghanistán, and Turkey are
generally understood to have been Súfís.

[22] Sir Gore Ouseley's _Biographical Notices of Persian Poets_.

The death of Cardinal Mazarin furnishes another remarkable illustration of Saádí's sentiment. A day or two before he died, the cardinal caused his servant to carry him into his magnificent art gallery, where, gazing upon his collection of pictures and sculpture, he cried in anguish, "And must I leave all these?" Dr. Johnson may have had Mazarin's words in mind when he said to Garrick, while being shown over the famous actor's splendid mansion: "Ah, Davie, Davie, these are the things that make a death-bed terrible!"

Few passages of Shakspeare are more admired than these lines:

And this our life, exempt from public haunts,
Finds _tongues in trees_, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.[23]

[23] Cf. these lines, from Herrick's "Hesperides":

But you are _lovely leaves_, where we
May read, how soon things have
Their end, tho' ne'er so brave;
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you, a while, they glide
Into the grave.

Saádí had thus expressed the same sentiment before him: "The foliage of a newly-clothed tree, to the eye of a discerning man, displays a whole volume of the wondrous works of the Creator." Another Persian poet, Jámí, in his beautiful mystical poem of _Yúsuf wa Zulaykhá_, says: "Every leaf is a tongue uttering praises, like one who keepeth crying, 'In the name of God.'"[24] And the Afghan poet Abdu 'r-Rahman says: "Every tree, every shrub, stands ready to bend before him; every herb and blade of grass is a tongue to mutter his praises." And Horace Smith, that most pleasing but unpretentious writer, both of verse and prose, has thus finely amplified the idea of "tongues in trees":

Your voiceless lips, O Flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers,
From loneliest nook.

'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth,
And tolls its perfume on the passing air,
Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth
A call to prayer;--

Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column
Attest the feebleness of mortal hand,
But to that fane, most catholic and solemn,
Which God hath planned:

To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply;
Its choir, the winds and waves, its organ, thunder,
Its dome, the sky.

There, amid solitude and shade, I wander
Through the green aisles, and, stretched upon the sod,
Awed by the silence, reverently ponder
The ways of God.

[24] "In the name of God" is part of the formula employed by
pious Muslims in their acts of worship, and on entering
upon any enterprise of danger or
uncertainty--_bi'smi'llahi ar-rahman ar-rahimi_, "In the
name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!" These
words are usually placed at the beginning of Muhammedan
books, secular as well as religions; and they form part
of the Muslim Confession of Faith, used in the last
extremity: "In the name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate! There is no strength nor any power save
in God, the High, the Mighty. To God we belong, and
verily to him we return!"

* * * * *

When Saádí composed his _Gulistán_, in 1278, he was between eighty and ninety years of age, with his great mind still vigorous as ever; and he lived many years after, beloved and revered by the poor, whose necessities he relieved, and honoured and esteemed by the noble and the learned, who frequently visited the venerable solitary, to gather and treasure up the pearls of wisdom which dropped from his eloquent tongue. Like other poets of lofty genius, he possessed a firm assurance of the immortality of his fame. "A rose," says he, "may continue to bloom for five or six days, but this Rose-Garden will flourish for ever"; and again: "These verses and recitals of mine will endure after every particle of my dust has been dispersed." Six centuries have passed away since the gifted sage penned his _Gulistán_, and his fame has not only continued in his own land and throughout the East generally, but has spread into all European countries, and across the Atlantic, where long after the days of Saádí "still stood the forests primeval."

ORIENTAL WIT AND HUMOUR.

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter shaking both his sides.--_L' Allegro_.

I

MAN A LAUGHING ANIMAL--ANTIQUITY OF POPULAR JESTS--"NIGHT AND DAY"--THE PLAIN-FEATURED BRIDE--THE HOUSE OF CONDOLENCE--THE BLIND MAN'S WIFE--TWO WITTY PERSIAN LADIES--WOMAN'S COUNSEL--THE TURKISH JESTER: IN THE PULPIT; THE CAULDRON; THE BEGGAR; THE DRUNKEN GOVERNOR; THE ROBBER; THE HOT BROTH--MUSLIM PREACHERS AND MUSLIM MISERS.

Certain philosophers have described man as a cooking animal, others as a tool-making animal, others, again, as a laughing animal. No creature save man, say the advocates of the last definition, seems to have any "sense of humour." However this may be, there can be little doubt that man in all ages of which we have any knowledge has possessed that faculty which perceives ridiculous incongruities in the relative positions of certain objects, and in the actions and sayings of individuals, which we term the "sense of the ludicrous." It is not to be supposed that a dog or a cat--albeit intelligent creatures, in their own ways--would see anything funny or laughable in a man whose sole attire consisted in a general's hat and sash and a pair of spurs! Yet _that_ should be enough to "make even a cat laugh"! Certainly laughter is peculiar to our species; and gravity is as certainly not always a token of profound wisdom; for

The gravest beast's an ass;
The gravest bird's an owl;
The gravest fish's an oyster;
And the gravest man's a _fool_.

Many of the great sages of antiquity were also great humorists, and laughed long and heartily at a good jest. And, indeed, as the Sage of Chelsea affirms, "no man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether, irreclaimably bad. How much lies in laughter!--the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man!... The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem." Let us, then, laugh at what is laughable while we are yet clothed in "this muddy vesture of decay," for, as delightful Elia asks, "Can a ghost laugh? Can he shake his gaunt sides if we be merry with him?"

It is a remarkable fact that a considerable proportion of the familiar jests of almost any country, which are by its natives fondly believed to be "racy of the soil," are in reality common to other peoples widely differing in language and customs. Not a few of these jests had their origin ages upon ages since--in Greece, in Persia, in India. Yet they must have set out upon their travels westward at a comparatively early period, for they have been long domiciled in almost every country of Europe. Nevertheless, as we ourselves possess a goodly number of droll witticisms, repartees, and jests, which are most undoubtedly and beyond cavil our own--such as many of those which are ascribed to Sam Foote, Harry Erskine, Douglas Jerrold, and Sydney Smith; though they have been credited with some that are as old as the jests of Hierokles--so there exist in what may be termed the lower strata of Oriental fiction, humorous and witty stories, characteristic of the different peoples amongst whom they originated, which, for the most part, have not yet been appropriated by the European compilers of books of facetiæ, and a selection of such jests--choice specimens of Oriental Wit and Humour--gleaned from a great variety of sources, will, I trust, amuse readers in general, and lovers of funny anecdotes in particular.

* * * * *

To begin, then--_place aux dames_! In most Asiatic countries the ladies are at a sad discount in the estimation of their lords and masters, however much the latter may expatiate on their personal charms, and in Eastern jests this is abundantly shown. For instance, a Persian poet, through the importunity of his friends, had married an old and very ugly woman, who turned out also of a very bad temper, and they had constant quarrels. Once, in a dispute, the poet made some comparisons between his aged wife and himself and between Night and Day. "Cease your nonsense," said she; "night and day were created long before us." "Hold a little," said the husband. "I know they were created long before me, but whether before _you_, admits of great doubt!" Again, a Persian married, and, as is customary with Muslims, on the marriage night saw his bride's face for the first time, when she proved to be very ugly--perhaps "plain-looking" were the more respectful expression. A few days after the nuptials, she said to him: "My life! as you have many relatives, I wish you would inform me before which of them I may unveil." (Women of rank in Muslim countries appear unveiled only before very near relations.) "My soul!" responded the husband, "if thou wilt but conceal thy face from _me_, I care not to whom thou showest it." And there is a grim sort of humour in the story of the poor Arab whose wife was going on a visit of condolence, when he said to her: "My dear, if you go, who is to take care of the children, and what have you left for them to eat?" She replied: "As I have neither flour, nor milk, nor butter, nor oil, nor anything else, what can I leave?" "You had better stay at home, then," said the poor man; "for assuredly _this_ is the true house of condolence." And also in the following: A citizen of Tawris, in comfortable circumstances, had a daughter so very ugly that nothing could induce any one to marry her. At length he resolved to bestow her on a blind man, hoping that, not seeing her personal defects, he would be kind to her. His plan succeeded, and the blind man lived very happily with his wife. By-and-by, there arrived in the city a doctor who was celebrated for restoring sight to many people, and the girl's father was urged by his friends to engage this skilled man to operate upon his son-in-law, but he replied: "I will take care to do nothing of the kind; for if this doctor should restore my son-in-law's eyesight, _he_ would very soon restore my daughter to me!"

But occasionally ladies are represented as giving witty retorts, as in the story of the Persian lady who, walking in the street, observed a man following her, and turning round enquired of him: "Why do you follow me, sir?" He answered: "Because I am in love with you." "Why are you in love with me?" said the lady. "My sister is much handsomer than I; she is coming after me--go and make love to her." The fellow went back and saw a woman with an exceedingly ugly face, upon which he at once went after the lady, and said to her: "Why did you tell me what was not true?" "Neither did you speak the truth," answered she; "for if you were really in love with me, you would not have turned to see another woman." And the Persian poet Jámí, in his _Baháristán_, relates that a man with a very long nose asked a woman in marriage, saying: "I am no way given to sloth, or long sleeping, and I am very patient in bearing vexations." To which she replied: "Yes, truly: hadst thou not been patient in bearing vexations thou hadst not carried that nose of thine these forty years."

The low estimation in which women are so unjustly held among Muhammedans is perhaps to be ascribed partly to the teachings of the Kurán in one or two passages, and to the traditional sayings of the Apostle Muhammad, who has been credited (or rather _discredited_) with many things which he probably never said. But this is not peculiar to the followers of the Prophet of Mecca: a very considerable proportion of the Indian fictions represent women in an unfavourable light--fictions, too, which were composed long before the Hindús came in contact with the Muhammedans. Even in Europe, during mediæval times, _maugre_ the "lady fair" of chivalric romance, it was quite as much the custom to decry women, and to relate stories of their profligacy, levity, and perversity, as ever it has been in the East. But we have changed all that in modern times: it is only to be hoped that we have not gone to the other extreme!--According to an Arabian writer, cited by Lane, "it is desirable, before a man enters upon any important undertaking, to consult ten intelligent persons among his particular friends; or if he have not more than five such friends let him consult each twice; or if he have not more than one friend he should consult him ten times, at ten different visits [he would be 'a friend indeed,' to submit to so many consultations on the same subject]; if he have not one to consult let him return to his wife and consult her, and whatever she advises him to do let him do the contrary, so shall he proceed rightly in his affair and attain his object."[25] We may suppose this Turkish story, from the _History of the Forty Vezírs_, to be illustrative of the wisdom of such teaching: A man went on the roof of his house to repair it, and when he was about to come down he called to his wife, "How should I come down?" The woman answered, "The roof is free; what would happen? You are a young man--jump down." The man jumped down, and his ankle was dislocated, and for a whole year he was bedridden, and his ankle came not back to its place. Next year the man again went on the roof of his house and repaired it. Then he called to his wife, "Ho! wife, how shall I come down?" The woman said, "Jump not; thine ankle has not yet come to its place--come down gently." The man replied, "The other time, for that I followed thy words, and not those of the Apostle [i.e., Muhammed], was my ankle dislocated, and it is not yet come to its place; now shall I follow the words of the Apostle, and do the contrary of what thou sayest [Kurán, iii, 29.]" And he jumped down, and straightway his ankle came to its place.

[25] "Bear in mind," says Thorkel to Bork, in the Icelandic
saga of Gisli the Outlaw, "bear in mind that a woman's
counsel is always unlucky."--On the other hand, quoth
Panurge, "Truly I have found a great deal of good in the
counsel of women, chiefly in that of the old wives among
them."

* * * * *

In the Turkish collection of jests ascribed to Khoja Nasrú 'd-Dín Efendi[26] is the following, which has been reproduced amongst ourselves within comparatively recent years, and credited to an Irish priest:

One day the Khoja went into the pulpit of a mosque to preach to the people. "O men!" said he, "do you know what I should say unto you?" They answered: "We know not, Efendi." "When you do know," said the Khoja, "I shall take the trouble of addressing you." The next day he again ascended into the pulpit, and said, as before: "O men! do you know what I should say unto you?" "We do know," exclaimed they all with one voice. "Then," said he, "what is the use of my addressing you, since you already know?" The third day he once more went into the pulpit, and asked the same question. The people, having consulted together as to the answer they should make, said: "O Khoja, some of us know, and some of us do not know." "If that be the case, let those who know tell those who do not know," said the Khoja, coming down. A poor Arab preacher was once, however, not quite so successful. Having "given out," as we say, for his text, these words, from the Kurán, "I have called Noah," and being unable to collect his thoughts, he repeated, over and over again, "I have called Noah," and finally came to a dead stop; when one of those present shouted, "If Noah will not come, call some one else." Akin to this is our English jest of the deacon of a dissenting chapel in Yorkshire, who undertook, in the vanity of his heart, to preach on the Sunday, in place of the pastor, who was ill, or from home. He conducted the devotional exercises fairly well, but when he came to deliver his sermon, on the text, "I am the Light of the world," he had forgot what he intended to say, and continued to repeat these words, until an old man called out, "If thou be the light o' the world, I think thou needs snuffin' badly."

[26] The Khoja was contemporary with the renowned conqueror
of nations, Tímúr, or Tímúrleng, or, as the name is
usually written in this country, Tamarlane, though there
does not appear to be any authority that he was the
official jester at the court of that monarch, as some
writers have asserted. The pleasantries ascribed to the
Khoja--the title now generally signifies Teacher, or
School-master, but formerly it was somewhat equivalent
to our "Mr," or, more familiarly, "Goodman"--have been
completely translated into French. Of course, a large
proportion of the jests have been taken from Arabian and
Persian collections, though some are doubtless genuine;
and they represent the Khoja as a curious compound of
shrewdness and simplicity. A number of the foolish
sayings and doings fathered on him are given in my _Book
of Noodles_, 1888.

To return to the Turkish jest-book. One day the Khoja borrowed a cauldron from a brazier, and returned it with a little saucepan inside. The owner, seeing the saucepan, asked: "What is this?" Quoth the Khoja: "Why, the cauldron has had a young one"; whereupon the brazier, well pleased, took possession of the saucepan. Some time after this the Khoja again borrowed the cauldron and took it home. At the end of a week the brazier called at the Khoja's house and asked for his cauldron. "O set your mind at rest," said the Khoja; "the cauldron is dead." "O Khoja," quoth the brazier, "can a cauldron die?" Responded the Khoja: "Since you believed it could have a young one, why should you not also believe that it could die?"

The Khoja had a pleasant way of treating beggars. One day a man knocked at his door. "What do you want?" cried the Khoja from above. "Come down," said the man. The Khoja accordingly came down, and again said: "What do you want?" "I want charity," said the man. "Come up stairs," said the Khoja. When the beggar had come up, the Khoja said: "God help you"--the customary reply to a beggar when one will not or cannot give him anything. "O master," cried the man, "why did you not say so below?" Quoth the Khoja: "When I was above stairs, why did you bring me down?"

Drunkenness is punished (or punishable) by the infliction of eighty strokes of the bastinado in Muslim countries, but it is only flagrant cases that are thus treated, and there is said to be not a little private drinking of spirits as well as of wine among the higher classes, especially Turks and Persians. It happened that the governor of Súricastle lay in a state of profound intoxication in a garden one day, and was thus discovered by the Khoja, who was taking a walk in the same garden with his friend Ahmed. The Khoja instantly stripped him of his _ferage_, or upper garment, and, putting it on his own back, walked away. When the governor awoke and saw that his ferage had been stolen, he told his officers to bring before him whomsoever they found wearing it. The officers, seeing the ferage on the Khoja, seized and brought him before the governor, who said to him: "Ho! Khoja, where did you obtain that ferage?" The Khoja responded "As I was taking a walk with my friend Ahmed we saw a fellow lying drunk, whereupon I took off his ferage and went away with it. If it be yours, pray take it." "O no," said the governor, "it does not belong to me."

Even being robbed could not disturb the Khoja's good humour. When he was lying in bed one night a loud noise was heard in the street before his house. Said he to his wife: "Get up and light a candle, and I will go and see what is the matter." "You had much better stay where you are," advised his wife. But the Khoja, without heeding her words, put the counterpane on his shoulders and went out. A fellow, on perceiving him, immediately snatched the counterpane from off the Khoja's shoulders and ran away. Shivering with cold, the Khoja returned into the house, and when his wife asked him the cause of the noise, he said: "It was on account of our counterpane; when they got that, the noise ceased at once."

But in the following story we have a very old acquaintance in a new dress: One day the Khoja's wife, in order to plague him, served up some exceedingly hot broth, and, forgetting what she had done, put a spoonful of it in her mouth, which so scalded her that the tears came into her eyes. "O wife," said the Khoja, "what is the matter with you--is the broth hot?" "Dear Efendi," said she, "my mother, who is now dead, loved broth very much; I thought of that, and wept on her account." The Khoja, thinking that what she said was truth, took a spoonful of the broth, and, it burning his mouth, he began to bellow. "What is the matter with you?" said his wife. "Why do you cry?" Quoth the Khoja: "You cry because your mother is gone, but I cry because her daughter is here."[27]

[27] This is how the same story is told in our oldest English
jest-book, entitled _A Hundred Mery Talys_ (1525): A
certain merchant and a courtier being upon a time at
dinner, having a hot custard, the courtier, being
somewhat homely of manner, took part of it and put it in
his mouth, which was so hot that it made him shed tears.
The merchant, looking on him, thought that he had been
weeping, and asked him why he wept. This courtier, not
willing it to be known that he had brent his mouth with
the hot custard, answered and said, "Sir," quod he, "I
had a brother which did a certain offence, wherefore he
was hanged." The merchant thought the courtier had said
true, and anon, after the merchant was disposed to eat
of the custard, and put a spoonful of it into his mouth,
and brent his mouth also, that his eyes watered. This
courtier, that perceiving, spake to the merchant; and
said, "Sir," quod he, "why do ye weep now?" The merchant
perceived how he had been deceived, and said, "Marry,"
quod he, "I weep because thou wast not hanged when that
thy brother was hanged."

* * * * *

Many of the Muslim jests, like some our of own, are at the expense of poor preachers. Thus: there was in Baghdád a preacher whom no one attended after hearing him but once. One Friday when he came down from the pulpit he discovered that the only one who remained in the mosque was the muezzin--all his hearers had left him to finish his discourse as, and when, he pleased--and, still worse, his slippers had also disappeared. Accusing the muezzin of having stolen them, "I am rightly served by your suspicion," retorted he, "for being the only one that remained to hear you."--In Gladwin's _Persian Moonshee_ we read that whenever a certain learned man preached in the mosque, one of the congregation wept constantly, and the preacher, observing this, concluded that his words made a great impression on the man's heart. One day some of the people said to the man: "That learned man makes no impression on our minds;--what kind of a heart have you, to be thus always in tears?" He answered: "I do not weep at his discourse, O Muslims. But I had a goat of which I was very fond, and when he grew old he died. Now, whenever the learned man speaks and wags his beard I am reminded of my goat, for he had just such a voice and beard."[28] But they are not always represented as mere dullards; for example: A miserly old fellow once sent a Muslim preacher a gold ring without a stone, requesting him to put up a prayer for him from the pulpit. The holy man prayed that he should have in Paradise a golden palace without a roof. When he descended from the pulpit, the man went to him, and, taking him by the hand, said: "O preacher, what manner of prayer is that thou hast made for me?" "If thy ring had had a stone," replied the preacher, "thy palace should also have had a roof."