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2
315-324

  • Give ear heedfully to these (sayings), O squinting one: apply the eye-salve by way of the ear. 315
  • Holy words, then, do not abide in blind hearts, (but) go to the Light whence they came,
  • While the (guileful) spell of the Devil goes into crooked (perverse) hearts as a crooked shoe on to a crooked foot.
  • Though you may learn Wisdom by rote, it becomes quit of you when you are unworthy (to receive it);
  • And though you write it and note it (down), and though you brag (about it) and expound it,
  • It withdraws its face from you, O disputatious one: it snaps its bonds and (takes) flight from you. 320
  • (But) if you read not and it sees your ardour (of love), Knowledge will be a bird docile (and obedient) to your hand.
  • It does not abide with every unskilled tiro: (it is) like a peacock (which does not stay) in the house of a peasant.
  • How the King found his falcon in the house of a decrepit old woman.
  • Religion is not (like) the falcon that fled from the King to the old crone who was sifting flour
  • That she might cook tutmáj for her children. (When) she saw the beautiful well-born falcon,