whose sight his virtue can seem vice. Hadst thou but one perfection
and seventy faults, the lover could discern only that one perfection.

* * * * *

VII

A person who had not seen his friend for a length of time, said to him:
"Where were you? for I have been very solicitous about you." He replied,
"It is better to be sought after than loathed." Thou hast come late, O
intoxicating idol! I shall not in a hurry quit my hold on thy
skirt:--that mistress whom they see but seldom is at last more desired
than she is whom they are cloyed with seeing.

The charmer that can bring companions along with her has come to
quarrel; for she cannot be void of jealousy and discontent:--_Whenever
thou contest to visit me attended with comrades or rivals, though thou
comest in peace yet thy object is hostile_:--for one single moment that
my mistress associated with a rival, it went well-nigh to slay me with
jealousy. Smiling, she replied: "O Sa'di! I am the torch of the
assembly; what is it to me if the moth consume itself?"

VIII

In former times, I recollect, a friend and I were associating together
like two kernels within one almond shell. I happened unexpectedly to go
on a journey. After some time, when I was returned, he began to chide
me, saying: "During this long interval you never sent me a messenger." I
replied: "It vexed me to think that the eyes of a courier should be
enlightened by your countenance, whilst I was debarred that
happiness:--Tell my old charmer not to impose a vow upon me with her
tongue; for I would not repent, were she to attempt it with a sword.
Envy stings me to the quick, lest another should be satiated with
beholding thee, till I recollect myself, and say: Nobody can have a
satiety of that!"

IX

I saw a learned gentleman the captive of attachment for a certain
person, and the victim of his reproach; and he would suffer much
violence, and bear it with great patience. On one occasion I said, by
way of admonition: "I know that in your attachment for this person you
have no bad object, and that this friendship rests not on any criminal
design; yet, under this interpretation, it accords not with the dignity
of the learned to expose yourself to calumny, and put up with the
rudeness of the rabble." He replied: "O my friend, withdraw the hand of
reproach from the skirt of my fatality, for I have frequently reflected
on this advice which you offer me, and find it easier