CHAPTER VI
ON WEAKNESS AND OLD AGE
Story 1
I was holding a disputation with a company of learned men in the
cathedral mosque of Damascus when a youth stepped among us, asking
whether anyone knew Persian, whereon most of them pointed to me. I
asked him what the matter was and he said that an old man, aged one
hundred and fifty years, was in the agony of death but saying
something in Persian which nobody could understand and that if I
were kindly to go and see him I might obtain the information whether
he was perhaps desirous of making his last will. When I approached his
pillow, he said:
‘A while ago I said I shall take some rest
But alas, the way of my breath is choked.
Alas, that from the variegated banquet of life
We were eating a while and told it is enough.’
I interpreted these words in the Arabic language to the Damascenes
and they were astonished that despite of his long life he regretted
the termination of it so much. I asked him how he felt and he replied:
‘What shall I say?’
Hast thou not seen what misery he feels,
The teeth of whose mouth are being extracted?
Consider what his state will be at the hour
When life, so precious to him, abandons his body.
I told him not to worry his imagination with the idea of death and
not to allow a hallucination to obtain dominion over his nature
because Ionian philosophers have said that although the constitution
may be good no reliance is to be placed on its permanence and although
a malady may be perilous it does not imply a full indication of death.
I asked: ‘If thou art willing, I shall call a physicianPhysician A person who is trained and licensed to practice medicine. Physicians help prevent, diagnose, treat, and manage injuries, diseases, and other conditions. There are many different types of physicians, including internists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and surgeons. to treat
thee?’ He lifted his eyes and said, smiling:
‘The skilled doctor strikes his hands together
On beholding a rival prostrate like a potsherd.
A gentlemanGentleman A non-Jewish. The word gentleman originally meant one who had a coat of arms and some landed property. When you called someone "a gentleman" you were not paying him a homage, but merely stating a fact. If you said he was not "a gentleman" you were not insulting him, but giving information. Aryan (Arya) is a courageous person, and Bhadralok is a well-mannered typically Bengali Babu. is engaged in adorning his hall with paintings
Whilst the very foundation of the house is ruined.
An aged man was lamenting in his last agony
Whilst his old spouse was rubbing him with sandal.
When the equilibrium of the constitution is destroyed
Neither incantations nor medicines are of any avail.’
Story 2
It is related that an old man, having married a girl, was sitting
with her privately in an apartment adorned with roses, fixing his eyes
and heart upon her. He did not sleep during long nights but spent them
in telling her jokes and witty stories, hoping to gain her affection
and to conquer her shyness. One night, however, he informed her that
luck had been friendly to her and the eye of fortune awake because she
had become the companion of an old man who is ripe, educated,
experienced in the world, of a quiet disposition, who had felt cold
and warm, had tried good and bad, who knows the diities of
companionship, is ready to fulfil the conditions of love, is
benevolent, kind, good-natured and sweet-tongued.
As far as I am able I shall hold thy heart
And if injured I shall not injure in return.
Though sugar may be thy food as of a parrot
I shall sacrifice sweet life to thy support.
Thou hast not fallen into the hands of a giddy youth, fun of
whims, headstrong, fickle minded, running about every moment in search
of another pleasure and entertaining another opinionOpinion A judge's written explanation of a decision of the court. In an appeal, multiple opinions may be written. The court’s ruling comes from a majority of judges and forms the majority opinion. A dissenting opinion disagrees with the majority because of the reasoning and/or the principles of law on which the decision is based. A concurring opinion agrees with the end result of the court but offers further comment possibly because they disagree with how the court reached its conclusion., sleeping every
night in another place and taking every day another friend.
Young men are joyous and of handsome countenance
But inconstant in fidelity to anyone.
Expect not faithfulness from nightingales
Who sing every moment to another rose.
Contrary to aged men who spend their lives according to wisdom and
propriety; not according to the impulses of folly and youth.
Find one better than thyself and consider it fortunate
Because with one like thyself thou wilt be disappointed.
The old man said: ‘I continued in this strain, thinking that I had
captivated her heart and that it had become my prey.’ She drew,
however, a deep sigh from her grief-filled heart and said: ‘All the
words thou hast uttered, weighed in the scales of my understanding,
are not equivalent to the maxim I once heard enounced in my tribe:
An arrow in the side of a young woman is better than an old man.’
When she perceived in the hands of her husband
Something pendant like the nether lip of a fasting man,
She said: ‘This fellow has a corpse with him
But incantations are for sleepers not for corpses.’
A woman who arises without satisfaction from a man
Will raise many a quarrel and contention.
An old man who is unable to rise from his place,
Except by the aid of a stick, how can his own stick rise?
In short, there being no possibility of harmony, a separation at
last took place. When the timeTime Where any expression of it occurs in any Rules, or any judgment, order or direction, and whenever the doing or not doing of anything at a certain time of the day or night or during a certain part of the day or night has an effect in law, that time is, unless it is otherwise specifically stated, held to be standard time as used in a particular country or state. (In Physics, time and Space never exist actually-“quantum entanglement”) of the lady’s uddat had terminated, she
was given in marriage to a young man who was violent, ill-humoured and
empty-handed. She suffered much from his bad temper and tyrannical
behaviour, and experienced the miseries of penury. She nevertheless
said: ‘Praise be to AllahAllah The Holy god of Muhammad, who revealed the Quran to him. In pre-Islamic Arabian culture, he had two daughters. He is al-ilāh. Il, el, or Eloah (Elohim= King in Torah) are the Semitic names of Allah. Allah's tawḥīd, wāḥid and aḥad were revealed to his Rusul. for having been delivered from that wretched
torment, and attained this permanent blessing.’
Despite of all this violence and hasty nature
I shall try to please thee because thou art beauteous.
To be with thee in hell burning is for me
Better than to be with the other in paradise.
The smell of an onion from the mouth of a pretty face
Is indeed better than a rose from an ugly hand.
A nice face and a gown of gold brocade,
Essence of roses, fragrant aloes, paint, perfume and lust:
All these are ornaments of women.
Take a man; and his testicles are a sufficient ornament.
Story 3
I was in Diarbekr, the guest of an old man, who possessed abundant
wealth and a beautiful son. One night he narrated to me that he had
all his life no other son but this boy, telling me that in the
locality people resorted to a certain tree in a valley to offer
petitions and that he had during many nights prayed at the foot of the
said tree, till the Almighty granted him this son. I overheard the boy
whispering to his companion: ‘How good it would be if I knew where
that tree is that I might pray for my father to die.’ MoralMorality Mental frame. It can be high morality or low morality, savage morality or civilised morality or Christian morality, or Nazi morality. Decent Behaviour is acceptable norms of the nations. Christian morality starts with the belief that all men are sinners and that repentance is the cause of divine mercy. Putting Crucified Christ in between is the destruction of Christian morality and logic. Now morality shifted to the personal choice of Jesus. What Jesus did is 'good'. The same would be the case of Ram, Krishna, Muhammad, Buddha, Lenin, etc. Pure Human Consciousness degraded to pure followership. There exists no proof the animals are devoid of morality.: The
gentleman is delighted that his son is intelligent and the boy
complains that his father is a dotard.
Years elapse without thy visiting
The tomb of thy father.
What good hast thou done to him
To expect the same from thy son?
Story 4
One day, in the pride of youth, I had travelled hard and arrived
perfectly exhausted in the evening at the foot of an acclivity. A weak
old man, who had likewise been following the caravan, came and asked
me why I was sleeping, this not being the place for it. I replied:
‘How am I to travel, having lost the use of my feet?’ He said: ‘Hast
thou not heard that it is better to walk gently and to halt now and
then than to run and to become exhausted?’
O thou who desirest to reach the station
Take my advice and learn patience.
An Arab horse gallops twice in a race.
A camel ambles gently night and day.
Story 5
The active, graceful, smiling, sweet-tongued youth happened once
to be in the circle of our assembly. His heart had been entered by
no kind of grief and his lips were scarcely ever closed from laughter.
After some time had elapsed, I accidentally met him again and I
learned that he had married a wife and begotten children but I saw
that the root of merriment had been cut and the roses of his
countenance were withered. I asked him how he felt and what his
circumstances were. He replied: ‘When I had obtained children I left
off childishness.’
Where is youth when age has changed my ringlets?
And the change of time is a sufficient monitor.
When thou art old abstain from puerility.
Leave play and jokes to youths.
Seek not a youth’s hilarity in an old man
For the water gone from the brook returns no more.
When the harvest-time of a field arrives
It will no longer wave in the breeze like a young crop.
The period of youth has departed.
Alas, for those heart-enchanting times.
The force of the lion’s claws is gone.
Now we are satisfied with cheese Eke a leopard.
An old hag had dyed her hair black.
I said to her: ‘O little mother of ancient days,
Thou hast cunningly dyed thy hair but consider
That thy bent back will never be straight.’
Story 6
In the folly of youth I one day shouted at my mother who then sat
down with a grieved heart in a corner and said, weeping: ‘Hast thou
forgotten thy infancy that thou art harsh towards me?’
How sweetly said the old woman to her son
When she saw him overthrow a tiger, and elephant-bodied:
‘If thou hadst remembered the time of thy infancy
How helpless thou wast in my arms
Thou would’st this day not have been harsh
For thou art a lion-like man, and I an old woman.’
Story 7
The son of a wealthy but avaricious old man, having fallen sick, his
well-wishers advised him that it would be proper to get the whole
Quran recited or else to offer a sacrifice. He meditated a while and
then said: ‘It is preferable to read the Quran because the flock is at
a distance.’ A holy man, who had heard this, afterwards remarked:
‘He selected the reading of the Quran because it is at the tip of
the tongue but the money at the bottom of the heart.’
It is useful to bend the neck in prayers
If they are to be accompanied by almsgiving.
For one dinar he would remain sticking in mud like an ass,
But if thou askest for Alhamdu he will recite it a hundred times.
Story 8
An old man, having been asked why he did not marry, replied that
he could not be happy with an aged woman, and on being told that as he
was a man of property, he might take a young one, he said: ‘I being an
old man and unwilling to associate with an old woman, how could a
young one conceive friendship for me who am aged?’
Let not a man of seventy years make love.
Thou art confessedly blind, kiss her and sleep.
The lady wants strength, not gold.
One passage is preferable to her than ten mann of flesh.
Story 9
I have heard that in these days a decrepit aged man
Took the fancy in his old head to get a spouse.
He married a beauteous little girl, Jewel by name,
When he had concealed his casket of jewels from the eyes of men
A spectacle took place as is customary in weddings.
But in the first onslaught the organ of the sheikh fell asleep.
He spanned the bow but hit not the target; it being
impossible to sew
A tight coarse robe except with a needle of steel.
He complained to his friends and showed proofs
That his furniture had been utterly destroyed by her impudence.
Such fighting and contention arose between man and wife
That the affair came before the qazi; and Sa’di said:
‘After all this reproach and villainy the fault is not the girl’s.
Thou whose hand trembles, how canst thou bore a Jewel?’
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