Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/271

On Rules for Conduct of Life I visited a hermit in the country of Bilqân, and requested him to purge me of ignorance by instruction.

He replied: "Be patient like earth, O lawyer! Or else, bury under the earth all thy learning."

ill-humoured man is captive in the hands of a foe, from the grasp of whose punishment he cannot be delivered wherever he may go. If from the hand of calamity an ill-natured man escapes into the sky, the evil disposition of his own nature retains him in calamity.

thou perceivest that discord is in the army of the foe, be thou at ease; but if they are united, be apprehensive of thy own distress.

Go and sit in repose with thy friends when thou seest war among the enemies; but if thou perceivest that they all agree, span thy bow, and carry stones upon the rampart.

all the artifices of an enemy have failed he shakes the chain of friendship, and thereon performs acts of friendship which no enemy is able to do.

the head of a serpent with the hand of a foe, because one of two advantages will result: If the enemy succeeds thou hast killed the snake, and if the latter, thou hast been delivered from a foe.