Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/38

The Manners of Kings viziers, having kissed the foot of the King's throne and placed the face of intercession upon the ground, said: "This boy has not yet eaten any fruit from the garden of life, and has not yet enjoyed the pleasures of youth. I hope your majesty will generously and kindly confer an obligation upon your slave by sparing his life." The King, being displeased with this request, answered:

"He whose foundation is bad will not take instruction from the good; to educate unworthy persons is like throwing nuts on a cupola. It is preferable to extirpate the race and offspring of these people, and better to dig up their roots and foundations, because it is not the part of wise men to extinguish fire and to leave burning coals, or to kill a viper and leave its young ones."


 * If a cloud should rain the water of life, 
 * Never sip it from the branch of a willow-tree. 
 * Associate not with a base fellow,
 * Because thou canst eat sugar from a mat-reed. 

The vizier heard these sentiments, approved of them nolens volens, praised the opinion of the King, and said: "What my lord has uttered is the very truth itself, because if the boy had been brought up in the company of those wicked men, he would have become of themselves. But your slave hopes that he will, in the society of pious men, profit by education and will acquire the disposition of wise persons; being yet a child the rebellious and perverse temper of that band has not yet taken