and said: "Cleanse me of ignorance by thy instruction?"
He replied: "O fakir, or theologician! go and bear things patiently like
the earth; or whatever thou hast read let it all be buried under the
earth."

XXII

An evil-disposed man is a captive in the hands of an enemy (namely,
himself); for wherever he may go he cannot escape from the grasp of that
enemy's vengeance:--Let a wicked man ascend up to heaven, that he may
escape from the grasp of calamity; even thither would the hand of his
own evil heart follow him with misfortune.

XXIII

When you see discord raging among the troops of your enemy, be on your
side quiet; but if you see them united, think of your own dispersed
state:--When thou beholdest war among thy foes, go and enjoy peace with
thy friends; but if thou findest them of one soul and mind, string thy
bow, and range stones around thy battlements.

* * * * *

XXVI

Keep to yourself any intelligence that may prove unpleasant, till some
person else has disclosed it:--Bring, O nightingale! the glad tidings of
the spring, and leave to the owl to be the harbinger of evil.

* * * * *

XXVIII

Whoever is counselling a self-sufficient man stands himself in need of a
counsellor.

XXIX

Swallow not the wheedling of a rival, nor pay for the sycophancy of a
parasite; for that has laid the snare of treachery, and this whetted the
palate of gluttony. The fool is puffed up with his own praise, like a
dead body, which on being stretched upon a bier shows a momentary
corpulency:--Take heed and listen not to the sycophant's blandishments,
who expects in return some small compensation; for shouldst thou any day
disappoint his object he would in like style sum up two hundred of thy
defects.

XXX

Till some person may show its defects, the speech of the orator will
fail of correctness:--Be not vain of the eloquence of thy discourse
because it has the fool's good opinion, and thine own approbation.

XXXI

Every person thinks his own intellect perfect, and his own child
handsome:--A Mussulman and a Jew were warm in argument to such a degree
that I smiled at their subject. The Mussulman said in wrath: "If this
deed of conveyance be not authentic may I, O God, die a Jew!" The Jew
replied: "On the Pentateuch I swear, if what I say be false, I am a
Mussulman like you!" Were intellect to be annihilated from the face of
the earth, nobody