Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/45

1864.] uniform force in his page, and, conspicuously, a tone of cheerfulness, which has almost made his name a synonyme for this grace. The word Saadi means Fortunate. In him the trait is no result of levity, much less of convivial habit, but first of a happy nature, to which victory is habitual, easily shedding mishaps, with sensibility to pleasure, and with resources against pain. But it also results from the habitual perception of the beneficent laws that control the world. He inspires in the reader a good hope. What a contrast between the cynical tone of Byron and the benevolent wisdom of Saadi!

Saadi has been longer and better known in the Western nations than any of his countrymen. By turns, a student, a water-carrier, a traveller, a soldier fighting against the Christians in the Crusades, a prisoner employed to dig trenches before Tripoli, and an honored poet in his protracted old age at home,—his varied and severe experience took away all provincial tone, and gave him a facility of speaking to all conditions. But the commanding reason of his wider popularity is his deeper sense, which, in his treatment, expands the local forms and tints to a cosmopolitan breadth. Through his Persian dialect he speaks to all nations, and, like Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne, is perpetually modern.

To the sprightly, but indolent Persians, conversation is a game of skill. They wish to measure wit with you, and expect an adroit, a brilliant, or a profound answer. Many narratives, doubtless, have suffered in the translation, since a promising anecdote sometimes heralds a flat speech. But Saadi's replies are seldom vulgar. His wit answers to the heart of the question, often quite over the scope of the inquirer. He has also that splendor of expression which alone, without wealth of thought, sometimes constitutes a poet, and forces us to ponder the problem of style. In his poem on his old age, he says,—"Saadi's whole power lies in his sweet words: let this gift remain to me, I care not what is taken."

The poet or thinker must always, in a rude nation, be the chief authority on religion. All questions touching its truth and obligation will come home to him, at last, for their answer. As he thinks and speaks will intelligent men believe. Therefore a certain deference must be shown him by the priests,—a result which conspicuously appears in the history of Hafiz and Saadi. In common with his countrymen, Saadi gives prominence to fatalism,—a doctrine which, in Persia, in Arabia, and in India, has had, in all ages, a dreadful charm. "To all men," says the Koran, "is their day of death appointed, and they cannot postpone or advance it one hour. Wilt thou govern the world which God governs? Thy lot is cast beforehand, and whithersoever it leads, thou must follow." "Not one is among you," said Mahomet, "to whom is not already appointed his seat in fire or his seat in bliss."

But the Sheik's mantle sits loosely on Saadi's shoulders, and I find in him a pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous soul. A certain intimate and avowed piety, obviously in sympathy with the feeling of his nation, is habitual to him. All the forms of courtesy and of business in daily life take a religious tinge, as did those of Europe in the Middle Age.

With the exception of a few passages, of which we need not stop to give account, the morality of the "Gulistan" and the "Bostan" is pure, and so little clogged with the superstition of the country that this does not interfere with the pleasure of the modern reader: he can easily translate their ethics into his own. Saadi praises alms, hospitality, justice, courage, bounty, and humility; he respects the poor, and the kings who befriend the poor. He admires the royal eminence of the dervish or religious ascetic. "Hunger is a cloud out of which falls a rain of eloquence and knowledge: when the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body." He