The Falcon’s Advice to Its Youngster

You know that in essence all falcons are one; a mere handful of feathers, but with the heart of a lion.

Conduct yourself well and let your strategy be well considered; be daring, maintain your dignity, and hunt big game.

Do not mix with partridges, pheasants, and starlings; unless you want them as prey.

What a lowly, fearful lot they are: They wipe their beaks clean with dusts!

A falcon that copies the ways of his prey becomes prey himself.

Many a predator, descending to earth, has perished on associating with grain-eaters.

Guard yourself and live the life of one of good cheer, brave, robust and rugged.

Let the quail have his soft and delicate body; grow a vein hard as a deer’s horn.

All the joy in the world comes from hardship, toil, and fullness of breath.

What fine advice it was that the eagle gave its son: A single drop of blood is better than the purest wine!

Do not seek out company like the deer or sheep, but go into seclusion as your ancestors did.

I remember the old falcons’ advice: ‘Do not make your nest on the branch of a tree.’

We do not make nests in a garden or a field – we have our own paradise in mountains and deserts.

We regard picking up grain from the ground as an error, for God has given us the vastness of the skies.

If a bird of noble stock scrapes his feet on the ground, he becomes more despicable than a house bird.

The kingly falcon uses rocks like a carpet walking on them sharpens his claws.

You are one of the yellow-eyed of the desert, and, like the simurgh, are of noble nature;

You are that noble youth who, on the day of battle, plucks out the pupil of the tiger’s eye.

You fly with the majesty of angels, and in your veins is the blood of the kafuri falcon.

Under this humpbacked, revolving sky eat what you catch, whether it is soft or hard:

Do not take food from the hand of another; be good and take advice from the good.