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4
1189-1198

  • At first a man is greedy for bread, because food and bread are the pillar (support) of life.
  • On account of greed and expectation he runs every risk in the way of earning his livelihood and seizing property by violence and (employing) a hundred devices. 1190
  • When, (as happens) rarely, he becomes independent of (earning his) bread, he is in love with fame and the praise of poets,
  • In order that they may give fruit to (may adorn) his root and branch and may set up a pulpit to declare his excellence,
  • So that his pomp and magnificence and lavishing of gold may yield a perfume, like (that of) ambergris, in (their) song.
  • God created us in His image: our qualities are instructed by (are modeled upon) His qualities.
  • Inasmuch as the Creator desires thanksgiving and glorification, it is also the nature of man to desire praise, 1195
  • Especially the man of God, who is active in (showing) excellence: he becomes filled with that wind (of praise), like an undamaged leathern bag;
  • But if he (the recipient of praise) be not worthy, the bag is rent by that wind of falsehood: how should it receive lustre?
  • I have not invented this parable, O comrade: do not hear it (as though it were) silly, if thou art worthy and restored to thy senses.