Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh | Page 2

Roman
coterie of the Augustan age. How thin, flimsy, and unspiritual does he
appear in comparison with the marvellous depth, the spiritual insight,
the tenderness and power of expression which characterized Sa'di.
Sa'di had begun his life as a student of the Koran and became early
imbued with the quietism of Islam. The cheerfulness and exuberant joy
which characterize the poems he wrote before he reached his fortieth
year, had bubbled up under the repressions of severe discipline and
austerity. But the religion of Mohammed was soon exchanged by him,
under the guidance of a famous teacher, for the wider and more
transcendental system of Sufism. Within the area of this magnificent
scheme, the boldest ever formulated under the name of religion, he
found the liberty which his soul desired. Early discipline had made him
a morally sound man, and it is the goodness of Sa'di that lends such a
warm and endearing charm to his works. The last finish was given to
his intellectual training by the travels which he took after the Tartar
invasion desolated Persia, in the thirteenth century. India, Arabia, Syria,
were in turn visited. He found Damascus a congenial halting-place, and
lived there for some time, with an increasing reputation as a sage and
poet. He preached at Baalbec on the fugitiveness of human life, on faith,
love, and rest in God. He wandered, like Jerome, in the wilderness
about Jerusalem, and worked as a slave in Africa in the trenches of
Tripoli: he travelled the length and breadth of Asia Minor. When he
arrived back at Shiraz, he had passed the limit of three-score years and
ten, and there he remained in his hermitage and his garden, to arrange
the result of all his studies, his experiences, and his sufferings, in that
consummate work which he has named the "Rose Garden," after the
little cultivated plot in which he spent his declining days and drew his
last breath.

The "Gulistan" is divided into eight chapters, each dealing with a
specific subject and partaking of the nature of an essay: although these
chapters are composed of disjointed paragraphs, generally beginning
with an aphorism or an anecdote and closing with an original poem of a
few lines. Sometimes these paragraphs are altogether lyrical. We are
struck, first of all, by the personal character of these paragraphs; many
of them relate the experience of the poet in some part of his travels,
expressing his comment upon what he had seen and heard. His
comments generally take the form of practical wisdom, or religious
suggestion. He gives us the impression that he knows life and the
human heart thoroughly. It may be said of him, as Arnold said of
Sophocles, he was one "who saw life steadily, and saw it whole." On
the other hand, there is not the slightest trace of cynical acerbity in his
writings. He has passed through the world in the independence of a
self-possessed soul, and has found it all good, saving for the folly of
fools and the wretchedness and degradation of the depraved. There is
no bitter fountain in the "Rose Garden," and the old man's heart is as
fresh as when he left Shiraz, thirty years before; the sprightliness of his
poetry has only been ripened and tempered to a more exquisite flavor,
by the increase of wisdom and the perfecting of art.
Above all, we find in Sa'di the science of life, as comprising morality
and religion, set forth in a most suggestive and a most attractive form.
In some way or other the "Rose Garden" may remind us of the "Essays"
of Bacon, which were published in their complete form the year before
the great English philosopher died. Both works cover a large area of
thought and experience; but the Englishman is clear, cold, and
sometimes cynical, while the Persian is more spiritual, though not less
acute, and has the fervor of the poet which Bacon lacks, and the
religious devotion which the "Essays" altogether miss. The "Rose
Garden" has maxims which are not unworthy of being cherished amid
the highest Christian civilization, while the serenity of mind, the poetic
fire, the transparent sincerity of Sa'di, make his writings one of those
books which men may safely take as the guide and inspirer of their
inmost life. Sa'di died at Shiraz about the year 1292 at the reputed age
of one hundred and ten.
E.W.

CHAPTER I
Of the Customs of Kings
I
I have heard of a king who made the sign to put a captive to death. The
poor wretch, in that state of desperation, began to abuse the king in the
dialect which he spoke, and to revile him with asperity, as has been
said; whoever shall wash his hands of life will utter whatever he may