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1
231-280

  • You thought that he committed a foul crime, (but) in (the state of) purity how should the sublimation leave (any) alloy (behind)?
  • The purpose of this (severe) discipline and this rough treatment is that the furnace may extract the dross from the silver.
  • The testing of good and bad is in order that the gold may boil and bring the scum to the top.
  • If his act were not the inspiration of God, he would have been a dog that rends (its prey), not a king.
  • He was unstained by lust and covetousness and passion: (what) he did (was) good, but good that wore the aspect of evil. 235
  • If Khadir stove the boat in the sea, (yet) in Khadir's staving there are a hundred rightnesses.
  • The imagination of Moses, notwithstanding his (spiritual) illumination and excellence, was screened from (the comprehension of) that (act of Khadir). Do not thou fly without wings!
  • That (deed of the king) is a red rose (worthy of praise); do not call it blood (murder). He is intoxicated with Reason; do not call him a madman.
  • Had it been his desire to shed the blood of a Moslem, I am an infidel if I would have mentioned his name (with praise).
  • The highest heaven trembles at praise of the wicked, and by praise of him the devout man is moved to think evil. 240
  • He was a king and a very heedful king; he was elect and the elect (favourite) of God.
  • One who is slain by a king like this, he (the king) leads him to fortune and to the best (most honourable) estate.
  • Unless he (the king) had seen advantage to him (the goldsmith) in doing violence to him, how should that absolute Mercy have sought to do violence?
  • The child trembles at the barber's scalpel (but) the fond mother is happy at that moment.
  • He takes half a life and gives a hundred lives (in exchange): he gives that which enters not into your imagination. 245
  • You are judging (his actions) from (the analogy of) yourself, but you have fallen far, far (away from the truth). Consider well!
  • The story of the greengrocer and the parrot and the parrot's spilling the oil in the shop.
  • There was a greengrocer who had a parrot, a sweet-voiced green talking parrot.
  • (Perched) on the bench, it would watch over the shop (in the owner's absence) and talk finely to all the traders.
  • In addressing human beings it would speak (like them); it was (also) skilled in the song of parrots.
  • (Once) it sprang from the bench and flew away; it spilled the bottles of rose-oil. 250
  • Its master came from the direction of his house and seated himself on the bench at his ease as a merchant does.
  • (Then) he saw the bench was full of oil and his clothes greasy; he smote the parrot on the head: it was made bald by the blow.
  • For some few days it refrained from speech; the greengrocer, in repentance, heaved deep sighs,
  • Tearing his beard and saying, “Alas! the sun of my prosperity has gone under the clouds.
  • Would that my hand had been broken (powerless) at the moment when I struck (such a blow) on the head of that sweet-tongued one?” 255
  • He was giving presents to every dervish, that he might get back the speech of his bird.
  • After three days and three nights, he was seated on the bench, distraught and sorrowful, like a man in despair,
  • Showing the bird every sort of hidden (unfamiliar) thing (in the hope) that maybe it would begin to speak.
  • Meanwhile a bare-headed dervish, clad in a jawlaq (coarse woollen frock), passed by, with a head hairless as the outside of bowl and basin.
  • Thereupon the parrot cried to the dervish, as rational persons (might have done). 260
  • How were you mixed up with the bald, O baldpate? Did you, then, spill oil from the bottle?”
  • The bystanders laughed at the parrot's inference, because it deemed the wearer of the frock to be like itself.
  • Do not measure the actions of holy men by (the analogy of) yourself, though shér (lion) and shír (milk) are similar in writing.
  • On this account the whole world is gone astray: scarcely any one is cognisant of God's Abdál (Substitutes).
  • They set up (a claim of) equality with the prophets; they supposed the saints to be like themselves. 265
  • “Behold,” they said, “we are men, they are men; both we and they are in bondage to sleep and food.”
  • In (their) blindness they did not perceive that there is an infinite difference between (them).
  • Both species of zanbúr ate and drank from the (same) place, but from that one (the hornet) came a sting, and from this other (the bee) honey.
  • Both species of deer ate grass and drank water: from this one came dung, and from that one pure musk.
  • Both reeds drank from the same water-source, (but) this one is empty and that one full of sugar. 270
  • Consider hundreds of thousands of such likenesses and observe that the distance between the two is (as great as) a seventy years' journey.
  • This one eats, and filth is discharged from him; that one eats, and becomes entirely the light of God.
  • This one eats, (and of him) is born nothing but avarice and envy; that one eats, (and of him) is born nothing but the Light of the One (God).
  • This one is good (fertile) soil and that one brackish and bad; this one is a fair angel and that one a devil and wild beast.
  • If both resemble each other in aspect, it may well be (so): bitter water and sweet water have (the same) clearness. 275
  • Who knows (the difference) except a man possessed of (spiritual) taste? Find (him): he knows the sweet water from the brine.
  • Comparing magic with (prophetic) miracle, he (the ignorant one) fancies that both are founded on deceit.
  • The magicians (in the time) of Moses, for contention's sake, lifted up (in their hands) a rod like his,
  • (But) between this rod and that rod there is a vast difference; from this action (magic) to that action (miracle) is a great way.
  • This action is followed by the curse of God, (while) that action receives in payment the mercy (blessing) of God. 280