Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh

ϖPersian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The
Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan , by Anonymous, et al, Translated by James Ross
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan
Author: Anonymous
Release Date: July 30, 2004 [eBook #13060]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERSIAN LITERATURE, VOLUME 2, COMPRISING THE SHAH NAMEH, THE RUBAIYAT, THE DIVAN, AND THE GULISTAN ***
E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Karen Lofstrom, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Notes: Volume 1 of this work can be found in Project Gutenberg's library. See http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/10315
A few original typesetter's errors (inconsistent spelling, superfluous quotation marks, and the like) have been corrected in the interests of producing a smooth-reading text.
The reader will also occasionally find a line of asterisks between sections. These are found in the original and they indicate a missing section. It is not clear why the translator skipped these sections. Reference to another, complete, translation of the Gulistan shows no appreciable differences, in length or subject, between the sections included and those excluded.

PERSIAN LITERATURE
comprising
THE SHáH NáMEH, THE RUBáIYáT THE DIVAN, AND THE GULISTAN
Revised Edition, Volume 2
1900
With a special introduction by RICHARD J. H. GOTTHEIL, Ph.D. Professor of Rabbinical Literature and the Semitic Languages at Columbia University

CONTENTS
THE GULISTAN
Introduction

CHAPTER
I. Of the Customs of Kings
II. Of the Morals of Dervishes
III. On the Preciousness of Contentment
IV. On the Benefit of Being Silent
V. On Love and Youth
VI. Of Imbecility and Old Age
VII. Of the Impressions of Education
VIII. Of the Duties of Society

THE GULISTAN
BY
SA'DI
[Translation by James Ross]

INTRODUCTION
The Persian poet Sa'di, generally known in literary history as Muslih-al-Din, belongs to the great group of writers known as the Shirazis, or singers of Shiraz. His "Gulistan," or "Rose Garden," is the mature work of his life-time, and he lived to the age of one hundred and eight. The Rose Garden was an actual thing, and was part of the little hermitage, to which he retired, after the vicissitudes and travels of his earlier life, to spend his days in religious contemplation, and the embodiment of his experience in reminiscences, which took the form of anecdotes, sage and pious reflections, _bon-mots_, and exquisite lyrics. When a friend visited him in his cell and had filled a basket with nosegays from the garden of the poet with roses, hyacinths, spikenards, and sweet-basils, Sa'di told him of the book he was writing, and added:--"What can a nosegay of flowers avail thee? Pluck but one leaf from my Rose Garden; the rose from yonder bush lasts but a few days, but this Rose must bloom to all eternity."
Sa'di has been proved quite correct in this estimate of his own work. The book is indeed a sweet garden of unfading freshness. If we compare Sa'di with Hafiz, we find that both of them based their theory of life upon the same Sufic pantheism. Both of them were profoundly religious men. Like the strong and life-giving soil out of whose bosom sprang the rose-tree, wherein the nightingales sang, was the fixed religious confidence, which formed the support of each poet's mind, amid all the vagaries of fancy, and the luxuriant growth of fruit and flower which their genius gave to the world. Hafiz is the Persian Anacreon. As he raises his voice of thrilling and unvarying sweetness, his steps reel, he waves the thyrsus, and his flushed cheek shows the inspiration of the vine. To him the Supreme Being has much in common with the Indian or Thracian Dionysus, the god of perennial youth, joyous revel, and exhilaration. Hafiz can never be the guide, though he may be the cheerer of mortals, adding more to the gayety than to the wisdom of life. But both in the western and in the eastern world Sa'di must always be looked upon as the guide and enlightener of those who taste life, and love poetry. It has been said by a wise man that poetry is the great instructor of mature minds. Many a man turning away in weariness from the controversies, the insincerities, and the pretentiousness of the intellectualists around him, has exclaimed, "Give me my Horace." But Horace with all his bonhommie, his common sense, and his acuteness, is but the representative of a narrow Roman coterie of the Augustan age. How thin, flimsy, and unspiritual does he appear in comparison with the marvellous depth, the spiritual insight, the tenderness and power of expression which characterized Sa'di.
Sa'di had begun his life as a student of the Koran