will give up foreign
commerce and settle myself in a warehouse." He went on in this
melancholy strain till he was quite exhausted with speaking. He said: "O
Sa'di! do you too relate what you have seen and heard." I
replied:--"Hast thou not heard that in the desert of Ghor as the body of
a chief merchant fell exhausted from his camel, he said, 'Either
contentment or the dust of the grave will fill the stingy eye of the
worldly-minded.'"

* * * * *

XXIV

A weak fisherman got a strong fish into his net, but not having the
power of mastering it, the fish got the better of him, and, dragging the
net from his hand, escaped:--A bondsman went that he might take water
from the brook; the brook came to rise and carried off the bondsman. On
most occasions the net would bring out the fish; on this occasion the
fish escaped, and took away the net. The other fishermen expressed their
vexation, and reproached him, saying, "Such a fish came into your net,
and you were not able to master it." He replied: "Alas! my brethren,
what could be done? It was not my day of fortune, and the fish had in
this way another day left it. And they have said: 'Unless it be his lot,
the fisherman cannot catch a fish in the Tigris; and, except it be its
fate, the fish will not die on the dry shore.'"

XXV

A person without hands or feet killed a milleped. A good and holy man
passed by him at the time, and said: "Glory be to God! notwithstanding
the thousand feet he had when his destiny overtook him, he was unable to
escape from one destitute of hand or foot."--When the life-plundering
foe comes up behind, fate arrests the speed of the swift-going warrior.
At the moment when the enemy might approach step by step it were useless
to bend the kayani, or Parthian bow.

XXVI

I met a fat blockhead decked in rich apparel, and mounted on an Arab
horse, with a turban of fine Egyptian linen on his head. A person said:
"O Sa'di, how comes it that you see these garments of the learned on
this ignorant beast?" I replied: "It is a vile epistle which has been
written in golden letters:--'_Verily this ass, with the resemblance of a
man, has the carcase of a calf, and the voice or bleating of a
calf_.'--Thou canst not say that this brute appears like a man, unless
in his garments, turban, and outward form. Examine into all the ways and
means of his existence, and thou shalt find nothing lawful but the
shedding of his blood:-