Story No. 17

One year, Muhammad Khwarazmshah, may God have mercy on him, made peace with Cathay for the sake of some interest. I entered the great mosque of Kashgar and saw a boy studying grammar, perfectly balanced in build and utterly beautiful, the kind of person of whom people say: Your teacher taught you nothing but flirtation and stealing hearts, he taught you cruelty, coyness, scolding, and tyranny. I have never seen a human of such form, temperament, stature, and manner; surely he learned these ways from the fairies. He held Zamakhshari's introduction to grammar and was reciting: 'Zayd struck Amr, and the object was Amr.' I said: Boy, Khwarazm and Cathay have made peace, and yet the quarrel between Zayd and Amr still goes on? He laughed and asked where I was from. I said: the soil of Shiraz. He said: What do you have of Saadi's words? I said: I am tormented by a grammarian who attacks me in anger, like Zayd standing against Amr, bent over dragging a hem, never lifting his head; and can any rising come from one bound to a falling case? He thought for a while and said: Most of his poetry in this region is in Persian; if you spoke Persian it would be easier to grasp, for one should speak to people according to their understanding. I said: The moment your nature turned toward the whims of grammar, it wiped the very image of patience from my heart. The hearts of lovers are all caught in your snare; we are absorbed in you, and you are busy with Amr and Zayd? In the morning, when I had firmly decided to travel, they told him: that man is Saadi. He came running, spoke kindly, and grieved, saying: For all this time, why didn't you tell me who you were, so I could gird myself to serve you and honor the arrival of the great? I said: In your presence, no cry of 'here I am' can escape me. He said: What if you rested in this land a while, so I might benefit from serving you? I said: I cannot, because of this tale: I once saw a great man in the mountains, content to leave the world behind and live in a cave. I asked: Why won't you come into the city, so you might loosen at least one burden from your heart? He said: There, lovely fairy-faced ones dwell; and when the mud is deep, even elephants slip and fall. Having said this, we kissed each other's head and face and said farewell. What good is kissing the face of a friend, when in that very moment you must bid him goodbye? You would say the apple is bidding the orchard farewell, red on this side and pale yellow on the other. If I did not die of grief on the day of parting, do not count me fair or true in love.