Having become tired of my friends in Damascus, I went into the desert of Jerusalem and associated with animals till the time when I became a prisoner of the Franks, who put me to work with infidels in digging the earth of a moat in Tarapolis, when one of the chiefs of Aleppo, with whom I had formerly been acquainted, recognized me and said: ‘What state is this?’ I recited:
‘I fled from men to mountain and desert Wishing to attend upon no one but God. Imagine what my state at present is When I must be satisfied in a stable of wretches.
The feet in chains with friends Is better than to be with strangers in a garden.’
He took pity on my state and ransomed me for ten dinars from the captivity of the Franks, taking me to Aleppo where he had a daughter and married me to her with a dowry of one hundred dinars. After some time had elapsed, she turned out to be ill-humoured, quarrelsome, disobedient, abusive in her tongue and embittering my life:
A bad wife in a good man’s house Is his hell in this world already. Alas for a bad consort, alas! Preserve us, O Lord from the punishment of fire.
Once she lengthened her tongue of reproach and said: ‘Art thou not the man whom my father purchased from the Franks for ten dinars?’ I replied: ‘Yes, he bought me for ten dinars and sold me into thy hands for one hundred dinars.’
I heard that a sheep had by a great man Been rescued from the jaws and the power of a wolf. In the evening he stroked her throat with a knife Whereon the soul of the sheep complained thus: Thou hast snatched me away from the claws of a wolf, But at last I see thou art thyself a wolf.’
زمین
دریغ صحبت دیرین و حق دید و شناخت
که سنگ تفرقه ایام در میان انداخت
سعدیمواعظغزلیاتغزل شمارهٔ 5
تنی چند از بندگانِ محمود گفتند حسنِ میمندی را که: سلطان امروز تو را چه گفت در فلان مصلحت؟ گفت: بر شما هم پوشیده نباشد. گفتند: آنچه با تو گوید، به امثالِ ما گفتن روا ندارد. گفت: به اعتمادِ آن که داند که نگویم، پس چرا همیپرسید؟
نه هر سخن که برآید، بگوید اهلِ شناخت
سعدیگلستانباب چهارم در فواید خاموشیحکایت شمارهٔ 8
