1.13.7
“Next I proceeded to a poet whom I knew to be a great flatterer, a mouth-twisting faux-Arabic patterer, a would-be master of classical lays and spouter of praise, a gusher and self-pusher, and I said to him, ‘Here’s something off which you can make some money and that may make you renowned. Show me which of the two forms is the more brilliant in style, and let the truth resound!’ Said he, ‘Eulogies and poems of love are all I write; in the first I express my pain, in the second my delight. Be patient while I review my Collected Works, leafing through it from cover to cover; if I find the panegyrics there more numerous than the sonnets, the good things of this world must be the fewer.’ I added him then to his friends the jurisprudent and the teacher, remarking, ‘How many a wound from how many a speaker!’
1.13.8
“Then I set off for the scribe of the emir, one whose skills of discernment and careful accounting were acknowledged far and near, but before putting the question, I praised him to his face and said, ‘None but you could possibly suffice.’ Said he, ‘Happiness for me lies in being content with my emir and his contentment, unhappiness in resenting him and feeling his resentment. At this point, given the fighting and all that goes with it that there’s been, I’ve forgotten both any anger and any content that I may have seen. If you can wait for a month into the future, so I may inscribe in my ledger all that I meet with from him that is sweet and all that is sour, all that is gold and all that is pewter, I’ll inform you of the answer in due time; till then, I must decline.’ I added him then to the three, making him number four,225 and thought, ‘I really must consult someone who’s still young, for pride of place has left of the brains of those who hold high rank and office not a trace, and there’s nothing left for those who knock at their door.’
1.13.9
“To the Fāriyāq then I went, to find him o’er his copying bent, on his visage the first signs of transmogrification, eyes, as I beheld, deeply sunken, hands suffering from desiccation, cheekbones as though from the face’s surface hewn, skin as tight as the shade at noon, so that I deplored his state and came close to staying silent for pity at his plight. When he saw me, though, he rose and came toward me, saying, ‘Is there some service you require me to perform, or private word you need to convey?’ ‘Thus and so,’ I said, ‘have come my way, so settle this question, God save you from harm,’ at which he pulled from inside his tattered coat a scrap of paper and on it wrote without a qualm:
1.13.10
You came to me seeking an answer—
One to mindful men226 already known — to a question.
Good, compared to evil,
Is, over a life span, as a drop to an ocean.
See you not how, if one man has the mange,
To a whole city he spreads his disease,
Yet no one infects his fellows, no matter how close,
Who’s healthy and lives a life of ease?
How many a sickness afflicts the child from the day he cuts his teeth,
And with him to the grave’s consigned?
How he, from the first sprouting of his hair and nails,
No pleasure and no joy can find?
Any limb’s more easy broken
Than it is mended
And that, like the eye, whose corruption will fast destroy you,
You’ll ne’er fix, till time is ended.
Mourning for a child rends his father’s heart
Wears through his every bone,
And in his birth there is no joy
Equal to the sorrow of his death, by which the greater harm is done.
Pleasure cannot come from thinking,
Nor from recollection; that’s naught but an illusion
When you think upon it well — one that may occur
To the dimwit or victim of delusion.
Can a patient who for the past month’s been sick,
By picturing a cure, his illness treat?
Can one who in winter’s depth grows cold
Feel warm by recalling the days of heat?
This world of ours, to those who know,
Is naught but loss and tribulation that we must endure.
Man’s born enslaved, not free,
And so he dies, of that you may be sure.
1.13.11
“Thus his words, and as I took the scrap, my gaze upon it bent, and started thinking what it meant, I realized that these words of his were the most wise, those of the others mere drivel and lies, and I told him, ‘Blessed be the Lord for an age that has brought us the likes of you, and guided seekers after knowledge to your good sense and superior view, and shame upon the people of this earth, should they fail to recognize your worth!’ Then I departed from where he was, calling blessings down upon his head, and heedful of everything he’d said.”
CHAPTER 14: A SACRAMENT
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