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1
882-906

  • The perfumes of our (good) words ascend even unto Him, ascending from us whither God knoweth.
  • Our breaths soar up with the choice (words), as a gift from us, to the abode of everlastingness;
  • Then comes to us the recompense of our speech, a double (recompense) thereof, as a mercy from (God) the Glorious;
  • Then He causes us to repair to (makes us utter) good words like those (already uttered), that His servant may obtain (something more) of what he has obtained. 885
  • Thus do they (our good words) ascend while it (the Divine mercy) descends continually: mayst thou never cease to keep up that (ascent and descent)!
  • Let us speak Persian: the meaning is that this attraction (by which God draws the soul towards Himself) comes from the same quarter whence came that savour (spiritual delight experienced in and after prayer).
  • The eyes of every set of people remain (turned) in the direction where one day they satisfied a (longing for) delight.
  • The delight of (every) kind is certainly in its own kind (congener): the delight of the part, observe, is in its whole;
  • Or else, that (part) is surely capable of (attachment to) a (different) kind and, when it has attached itself thereto, becomes homogeneous with it, 890
  • As (for instance) water and bread, which were not our congeners, became homogeneous with us and increased within us (added to our bulk and strength).
  • Water and bread have not the appearance of being our congeners, (but) from consideration of the end (final result) deem them to be homogeneous (with us).
  • And if our delight is (derived) from something not homogeneous, that (thing) will surely resemble the congener.
  • That which (only) bears a resemblance is a loan: a loan is impermanent in the end.
  • Although the bird is delighted by (the fowler's) whistle, it takes fright when it (sees him and) does not find its own congener. 895
  • Although the thirsty man is delighted by the mirage, he runs away when he comes up to it, and seeks for water.
  • Moreover, the insolent are pleased with base gold, yet that (gold) is put to shame in the mint.
  • (Take heed) lest gildedness (imposture) cast you out of the (right) way, lest false imagination cast you into the well.
  • Seek the story (illustrating this) from (the book of) Kalíla (and Dimna), and search out the moral (contained) in the story.
  • Setting forth how the beasts of chase told the lion to trust in God and cease from exerting himself.
  • A number of beasts of chase in a pleasant valley were continually harassed by a lion. 900
  • Inasmuch as the lion was (springing) from ambush and carrying them away, that pasturage had become unpleasant to them all.
  • They made a plot: they came to the lion, saying, “We will keep thee full-fed by means of a (fixed) allowance.
  • Henceforth do not come in quest of any prey in order that this grass may not become bitter to us.”
  • How the lion answered the beasts and explained the advantage of exertion.
  • “Yes,” said he, “if I see (find) good faith (on your part), not fraud, for often have I seen (suffered) frauds from Zayd and Bakr.
  • I am done to death by the cunning and fraud of men, I am bitten by the sting of (human) snake and scorpion; 905
  • (But) worse than all men in fraud and spite is the man of the flesh (nafs) lying in wait within me.