nd 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 Saadi's aphorisms:

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

[16] Auvaiyar, 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
de