you. Thou canst have no fellow-feeling for my disorder; a companion to
suit me must have the self-same malady, that I may sit by him the
livelong day repeating my tale; for by rubbing two pieces of dry
fire-wood one upon another they will burn all the brighter:--_had that
grove of verdant reeds heard the murmurings of love which in detail of
my mistress's story have passed through my ear, it would somehow have
sympathised in my pain. Tell it, O my friends, to such as are ignorant
of love; would ye could be aware of what wrings me to the soul_:--the
anguish of a wound is not known to the hale and sound; we must detail
our aches only to a fellow-sufferer. It were idle to talk of a hornet to
him who has never during his life smarted from its sting. Till thy
condition may in some sort resemble mine, my state will seem to thee an
idle fable. Compare not my pain with that of another man; he holds salt
in his hand, but I hold it on a wounded limb."

* * * * *

XX

There was a handsome and well-disposed young man, who was embarked in a
vessel with a lovely damsel. I have read that, sailing on the mighty
deep, they fell together into a whirlpool. When the pilot came to offer
him assistance, saying: "God forbid that he should perish in that
distress," he was answering from the midst of that overwhelming vortex:
"Leave me, and take the hand of my beloved!" The whole world admired him
for this speech which, as he was expiring, he was heard to make. Learn
not the tale of love from that faithless wretch who can neglect his
beloved when exposed to danger. In this manner ended the lives of those
lovers. Listen to what has happened, that you may understand; for Sa'di
knows the ways and forms of courtship as well as the Tazi, or modern
Arabic, is understood at Bagdad. Devote your whole heart to the
heart-consoler you have chosen (namely, God), and let your eyes be shut
to the whole world beside. Were Laila and Mujnun to return into life,
they might read the history of love in this chapter.

CHAPTER VI

Of Imbecility and Old Age

I

In the metropolitan mosque at Damascus I was engaged in a disputation
with some learned men, when a youth suddenly entered the door, and said:
"Does any of you understand the Persian language?" They directed him to
me, and I answered: "It is true." He continued: "An old man of a hundred
and fifty years of age is in the agonies of death, and is uttering
somethi