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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=512079" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ch 01 Manner Of Kings Story 04</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A band of Arab brigands having taken up their position on the top of<br>a mountain and closed the passage of caravans, the inhabitants of<br>the country were distressed by their stratagems and the troops of<br>the sultan foiled because the robbers, having obtained an inaccessible<br>spot on the summit of the mountain, thus had a refuge which they<br>made their habitation. The chiefs of that region held a consultation<br>about getting rid of the calamity because it would be impossible to<br>offer resistance to the robbers if they were allowed to remain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> A tree which has just taken root<br> May be moved from the place by the strength of a man<br> But, if thou leavest it thus for a long time,<br> Thou canst not uproot it with a windlass.<br> The source of a fountain may be stopped with a bodkin<br> But, when it is full, it cannot be crossed on an elephant.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The conclusion was arrived at to send one man as a spy and to wait<br>for the opportunity till the brigands departed to attack some people<br>and leave the place empty. Then several experienced men, who had<br>fought in battles, were despatched to keep themselves in ambush in a<br>hollow of the mountain. In the evening the brigands returned from<br>their excursion with their booty, divested themselves of their arms,<br>put away their plunder and the first enemy who attacked them was<br>sleep, till about a watch of the night had elapsed:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The disk of the sun went into darkness.<br> Jonah went into the mouth of the fish.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The warriors leapt forth from the ambush, tied the hands of every<br>one of the robbers to his shoulders and brought them in the morning to<br>the court of the king, who ordered all of them to be slain. There<br>happened to be a youth among them, the fruit of whose vigour was<br>just ripening and the verdure on the rose-garden of whose cheek had<br>begun to sprout. One of the veziers, having kissed the foot of the<br>king's throne and placed the face of intercession upon the ground,<br>said: 'This boy has not yet eaten any fruit from the garden of life<br>and has not yet enjoyed the pleasures of youth. I hope your majesty<br>will generously and kindly confer an obligation upon your slave by<br>sparing his life.' The king, being displeased with this request,<br>answered:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 'He whose foundation is bad will not take instruction from the good,<br> To educate unworthy persons is like throwing nuts on a cupola.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 'It is preferable to extirpate the race and offspring of these<br>people and better to dig up their roots and foundations, because it is<br>not the part of wise men to extinguish fire and to leave burning coals<br>or to kill a viper and leave its young ones.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> If a cloud should rain the water of life<br> Never sip it from the branch of a willow-tree.<br> Associate not with a base fellow<br> Because thou canst not eat sugar from a mat-reed.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The vezier heard these sentiments, approved of them nolens volens,<br>praised the opinion of the king and said: 'What my lord has uttered is<br>the very truth itself because if the boy had been brought up in the<br>company of those wicked men, he would have become one of themselves.<br>But your slave hopes that he will, in the society of pious men, profit<br>by education and will acquire the disposition of wise persons. Being<br>yet a child the rebellious and perverse temper of that band has not<br>yet taken hold of his nature and there is a tradition of the prophet<br>that every infant is born with an inclination for Islam but his<br>parents make him a Jew, a Christian or a Majusi.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The spouse of Lot became a friend of wicked persons.<br> His race of prophets became extinct.<br> The dog of the companions of the cave for some days<br> Associated with good people and became a man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> When the vezier had said these words and some of the king's<br>courtiers had added their intercession to his, the king no longer<br>desired to shed the blood of the youth and said: 'I grant the<br>request although I disapprove-of it.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Knowest thou not what Zal said to the hero Rastam:<br> 'An enemy cannot be held despicable or helpless.<br> I have seen many a water from a paltry spring<br> Becoming great and carrying off a camel with its load.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> In short, the vezier brought up the boy delicately, with every<br>comfort, and kept masters to educate him, till they had taught him<br>to address persons in elegant language as well as to reply and he<br>had acquired every accomplishment. One day the vezier hinted at his<br>talents in the presence of the king, asserting that the instructions<br>of wise men had taken effect upon the boy and had expelled his<br>previous ignorance from his nature. The king smiled at these words and<br>said:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 'At last a wolf's whelp will be a wolf<br> Although he may grow up with a man.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> After two years had elapsed a band of robbers in the locality joined<br>him, tied the knot of friendship and, when the opportunity presented<br>itself, he killed the vezier with his son, took away untold wealth and<br>succeeded to the position of his own father in the robber-cave where<br>he established himself. The king, informed of the event, took the<br>finger of amazement between his teeth and said:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> 'How can a man fabricate a good sword of bad iron?<br> O sage, who is nobody becomes not somebody by education.<br> The rain, in the beneficence of whose nature there is no flaw,<br> Will cause tulips to grow in a garden and weeds in bad soil.<br> Saline earth will not produce hyacinths.<br> Throw not away thy seeds or work thereon.<br> To do good to wicked persons is like Doing evil to good men.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Sa+di">Sa di</a><div class=q>
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a mountain and closed the passage of caravans, the inhabitants of
the country were distressed by their stratagems and the troops of
the sultan foiled because the robbers, having ..."></div>
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