Chapter Seven: On the Effect of Education

One of the ministers had a dull-witted son. He sent the boy to a scholar and said, 'Give him some education, perhaps he will grow wise.' The scholar taught him for a while, but it had no effect. He sent word to the father: 'This boy will not become wise, and he has driven me mad.' When the raw material is of fine quality, then training leaves its mark upon it. No polish can ever set things right for iron that is made of poor stuff. Wash a dog in all the seven seas; once it is wet it only grows filthier. Take even the donkey of Jesus to Mecca; when it comes back it is still a donkey.

A wise man kept advising his sons: Dear children, learn a craft, for the power and wealth of this world cannot be trusted, and gold and silver are dangerous to carry on a journey; either a thief steals them all at once, or the owner spends them bit by bit. But a skill is a flowing spring, a lasting fortune. Even if the skilled person loses their wealth, there is no grief, because the skill itself is a fortune. Wherever they go they are valued and given a seat of honor, while the unskilled beg for crumbs and suffer hardship. It is hard to take orders after once holding rank, hard for one used to comfort to endure people's cruelty. Once, when unrest broke out in Syria, everyone fled, each from their own corner. The learned sons of villagers rose to become the king's ministers. While the minister's own foolish sons went begging out in the villages.

One of the learned men was tutoring a prince, beating him without mercy and punishing him beyond all reason. Once, the boy, unable to bear it, complained to his father and pulled his shirt off his aching body. The father's heart was stirred. He said to the teacher: You do not treat the sons of ordinary subjects with as much cruelty and reproach as you do my son. What is the reason? The teacher replied: The reason is that words must be spoken with thought and deeds performed becomingly, by everyone in general and by kings in particular. For whatever their hands and tongues do is repeated on every lip, while the words and actions of common people carry no such weight. If a poor man does a hundred improper things, his friends will not notice even one of them. But if a king utters a single jest, they carry it from region to region. So it is right that the tutor of a prince strive harder to refine the character of these noble children, whom God has raised with fine nurture, than he would for the common folk. Whoever is not disciplined in childhood will find no success in adulthood. Bend a green branch however you wish, but once dry it will only straighten by fire. The scholar's sound reasoning and his well put answer pleased the king. He gave him a robe of honor and rich gifts, and raised him to a high position.

In the West I once saw a schoolmaster: sour faced, bitter tongued, foul tempered, a tormentor of people, greedy by nature and lacking all restraint. The sight of him ruined the good spirits of the Muslims, and hearing him recite the Quran turned people's hearts black. A group of clean bright boys and unmarried girls were trapped in the grip of his cruelty, with no courage to laugh and no permission to speak. Sometimes he would slap one child's silvery cheek, and sometimes he would torture another's crystal ankle. In short, I heard that some of his wicked ways came to light; they beat him, drove him out, and gave his school to a decent man, a pious, gentle, kind soul who spoke only when necessary and never let a word slip from his tongue that would hurt anyone. The awe of the first teacher faded from the children's minds, and once they saw the angelic manners of the second, one by one they turned into little devils. Trusting his gentleness, they abandoned their studies. Most of the time they sat down together to play, and before finishing their lessons they would break their writing tablets over each other's heads. When the teacher who instructs is too gentle, the children play leapfrog in the marketplace. Two weeks later I passed by that school again and saw that they had won the first teacher back and returned him to his post. I was honestly upset and cried out, 'Good heavens, why have they made Satan the teacher of angels once more?' A witty, worldly old man replied: A king sent his son off to school and set a silver tablet at his side. On the top of that tablet was written in gold: 'A teacher's harshness is better than a father's love.'

A rich man's son inherited a boundless fortune from the estate of Oman. He plunged into vice and debauchery and made a career of squandering. In short, there was no sin he did not commit and no wine he did not drink. One day I gave him this advice: My son, income is like flowing water and enjoyment like a turning mill; that is, only someone with a steady income can afford to spend freely. When you have no income, spend more carefully, for the sailors have a song they sing: If no rain falls in the mountains, in a year even the Tigris becomes a dry riverbed. Choose sense and good conduct and give up play and pleasure, for when your wealth runs out you will suffer hardship and drown in regret. The young man, drunk on the pleasures of music and wine, would not let this advice reach his ears. He objected to my words and said: Spoiling present comfort with worry about future misfortune goes against the judgment of the wise. Why should those who enjoy fortune and good luck endure hardship for fear of hardship to come? Go and be happy, my heart-lighting friend; today is no day to grieve for tomorrow. How much less should I, who sit at the head of generosity, wear the badge of chivalry, and whose gifts are talked of on everyone's lips? Whoever is famed for openhandedness and generosity should not put a lock on his money. Once a good name has gone out into the streets, you cannot shut the door on it again. I saw that he would not accept advice and that my warm breath had no effect on his cold iron. So I gave up counseling him and turned my face from his company, following the saying of the wise: Deliver your message; if they will not accept it, that is no longer your burden. Even if you know they will not listen, say it anyway, all that you know out of goodwill and good counsel. Soon enough you will see the reckless one fallen, both feet caught in the trap. He wrings his hands and cries in vain: I did not heed the wise man's words. After a while, what I had feared appeared before my eyes in the ruin of his state: he was stitching rags together and hoarding crumbs of bread. My heart ached at his misery, and I saw no decency in scratching a poor man's wound with blame and rubbing salt into it in such a state. So I said to myself: The low companion, in the depths of his drunkenness, gives no thought to the day of poverty. The tree scatters its blossoms in spring, and in winter, of course, is left with no leaves.

A king handed his son over to a scholar and said: This is your child now. Raise him as you would raise one of your own. The tutor served faithfully and took on the task. For several years he worked hard on the boy but got nowhere, while the tutor's own sons reached the heights of learning and eloquence. The king took the scholar to task and rebuked him: You broke your promise and failed to keep your word. The tutor replied: Let it not be hidden from the king's wise judgment that the teaching was the same, but the natures were different. Though silver and gold come out of stone, not every stone holds silver and gold. The star Canopus shines over the whole world, yet in one place it ripens leather, in another mere sackcloth.

I heard of a wise old teacher who said to his disciple: My son, a person is so consumed with worrying about his daily bread; if only he cared as much about the One who provides it, he would rise above the angels in rank. God did not forget you even then, when you were a buried, unconscious seed of life. He gave you a soul, a nature, reason, and understanding, beauty, speech, judgment, thought, and wit. He arranged ten fingers neatly on your palm, and set two strong arms upon your shoulders. So now, you of little faith, do you imagine that He would forget to give you your bread?

I saw a Bedouin telling his son: My boy, on the Day of Judgment they will ask you what you have done, not who your father is. In other words, they will question you about your own deeds, not about whose child you are. The cloth that drapes the Kaaba, the one people kiss, did not earn its fame from any noble silkworm. It simply sat beside something precious for a few days, and so, naturally, it too became honored.

The philosophers wrote in their books that the scorpion is not born in the usual way, as other animals are. Instead, its young devour their mother's insides, tear open her belly, and head out into the wild; and those hollow shells one finds in a scorpion's nest are the remains of this. Once I mentioned this point to a wise elder, and he said: 'My heart bears witness that this is true, and it could be no other way. Since they treat their mother and father this way in infancy, no wonder they end up so fortunate and beloved in their prime!' A father gave his son this counsel: 'Lucky boy, remember this advice.' Whoever breaks faith with his own family will never win affection or good fortune. They asked the scorpion: 'Why don't you come out in winter?' It replied: 'What welcome do I get in summer, that I should show up in winter too?'

A poor dervish woman was pregnant, near the end of her term, and this dervish had never had a child in all his life. He said: if the mighty and glorious God gives me a son, I will give everything I own to the poor, except for this robe I wear. As it happened, she gave birth to a son, and he laid out a table for the poor, as he had vowed. Some years later, returning from a journey to Syria, I passed through my friend's neighborhood and asked how he was faring. They told me he was locked in the police prison. I asked the reason. Someone said: his son drank wine, picked a drunken fight, spilled a man's blood, and then fled. Because of him, the father now has a chain around his neck and heavy irons on his feet. I said: this is the very disaster he begged from mighty and glorious God! You clear-headed man, if pregnant women gave birth to snakes at the hour of delivery, in the eyes of the wise that would be better than bringing crooked, wayward children into the world.

When I was a child, I asked a wise man about coming of age. He said the books mention three signs: turning fifteen, the first wet dream, and the growth of hair below. But in truth there is only one sign: that you care more about pleasing God, exalted and sublime, than about satisfying your own desires. Anyone who lacks this quality, the true scholars do not count as grown up. A drop of water takes on human form only after forty days settled in the womb. But if a man of forty has no reason or manners, in truth he does not deserve to be called human. Humanity means generosity and kindness; don't think this brute physical shape is all there is. Skill is what matters, since anyone can paint a form on palace walls with red and green pigment. When a person has no virtue and does no good, what difference is there between a human and a picture on a wall? Winning the world is no great skill; if you can, win over a single heart instead.

One year a brawl broke out among the pilgrims on foot, and I too was traveling on foot that trip. To be fair, we went at each other's heads and faces and gave a full account of cursing and fighting. I heard a man riding in a litter say to his seatmate: How strange! When the ivory pawn of chess crosses the board it becomes a queen, meaning it turns out better than it was; yet these pilgrims crossed the desert and only got worse. Tell that pilgrim who preys on people, the one who claws the coat off others' backs to hurt them: You are no true pilgrim, the camel is, for the poor beast eats thorns and carries the load.

A man was learning how to hurl flaming naphtha. A wise man told him: your own house is made of reeds; this is no game for you. Until you are sure your words are exactly right, say nothing; and whatever you know has no worthy answer, leave unsaid.

A man came down with an eye ache and went to a veterinarian to be cured. The vet applied to his eye the very thing he used for the eyes of livestock, and the man went blind. They took the case to a judge, who ruled that no compensation was owed: if he were not an ass, he would not have gone to a vet. The point of this tale is for you to know that anyone who hands a great task to the untried, besides suffering regret, is counted by wise people as a fool. A clear thinking, intelligent person does not give weighty tasks to the base and unfit. A weaver of straw mats, skilled as he may be, is never brought into a silk workshop.

One of the great religious leaders lost a son. People asked him what they should write on the coffin at his grave. He said: The verses of the holy Quran have too much dignity and honor to be written in such places, where in time they wear away, crowds walk over them, and dogs urinate on them. If out of necessity something must be written, this couplet is enough: How my heart used to rejoice, every time the fresh grass sprang up in the garden. Pass by, my friend, when spring comes round, and you will see grass sprouting from my dust.

A holy man passed by one of the wealthy, who had bound a servant hand and foot and was punishing him. He said: Son, God, mighty and glorious, has made a creature like yourself subject to your command and given you the advantage over him. Give thanks for the blessing of the Most High and do not inflict such cruelty on him. Take care that tomorrow on the Day of Judgment he does not prove better than you, leaving you in shame. Do not unleash so much anger on your servant. Do not wrong him or wound his heart. You bought him for ten coins; after all, you did not create him by your own power. How long will this ordering about, this pride and rage go on? There is a Lord greater than you. You who own servants named Arsalan and Aghush, do not forget the One who commands you. It is reported from the Master of the world, peace be upon him, that he said: The greatest regret on the Day of Judgment will be when a righteous servant is taken to paradise and his corrupt master to hell. Toward the servant who obeys you willingly, do not drive boundless anger or grow harsh. For it will be a disgrace on the Day of Reckoning to see the servant free and the master in chains.

One year I was traveling from Balkh to Bamiyan, and the road was full of danger from bandits. A young man came along to escort me: a shield fighter, a slinger, a warrior of tremendous strength. It would take ten strong men to string his bow, and no strongman on earth could throw him to the ground. Yet, as you know, he was pampered and raised in the shade, not seasoned by the world or by travel. The thunder of the warriors' war drums had never reached his ears, nor had he seen the lightning of the horsemen's swords. He had never fallen captive into an enemy's hands, nor had a rain of arrows ever poured down around him. As it happened, this young man and I ran along together, one after the other. Every old wall he came upon, he would knock down with the strength of his arms; every huge tree he saw, he would tear up by the roots with the power of his grip, and boasting, he would say: Where is the elephant, to see the shoulders and arms of these heroes? Where is the lion, to see the fists and grip of these men? We were in this state when two Indians raised their heads from behind a rock and set out to kill us. One held a stick, the other carried a clod-breaking mallet under his arm. I said to the young man: what are you waiting for? Show us the manhood and strength you have, for the enemy has walked to his own grave on his own feet. I saw the bow and arrow drop from the young man's hands, and a trembling seize his very bones. Not everyone who can split a hair with an arrow, piercing armor, can hold his ground on the day the warriors charge. We saw no choice but to leave behind our gear, weapons, and clothes, and to carry our lives out safely. Send the experienced man for heavy tasks, for he can drag a raging lion down under the loop of his lasso. A young man, however thick-necked and elephant-bodied he may be, in battle with the enemy will fall apart from sheer terror. Combat is clear to the one who has tested the battlefield, just as a point of religious law is clear to the scholar.

I saw the son of a rich man sitting at his father's grave, arguing with a poor man's boy. He said: 'Our tomb's chest is solid stone, the inscription is bright with color, marble slabs cover the floor, and turquoise tiles are set into it. What does your father's grave amount to? A couple of bricks laid down, and two handfuls of dirt sprinkled over them.' The poor man's son heard this and said: 'By the time your father manages to stir himself under those heavy stones, my father will already have reached paradise.' A donkey given a lighter load will surely travel the road with more ease. The poor man who carried the burden of hardship and want comes to the door of death lightly loaded. But the one who lived in comfort, ease, and plenty, no doubt his dying will come hard, after all of that. In every case, a captive who breaks free of his chains is better off than a prince who falls into bondage.

I asked a wise man the meaning of this saying: 'Your worst enemy is the self that lives within you.' He said: because any enemy you treat with kindness becomes a friend, except the self; the more gently you handle it, the more it turns against you. A person becomes angel-natured by eating little; but eat like the beasts, and you sink to a lifeless stone. Grant anyone's wish and they obey your command, unlike the self, which only orders you around once its wish is met.

I once saw a man in the guise of dervishes but not of their character, sitting in a gathering, weaving insults, having opened a book of complaints and begun to slander the rich. His words came to this point: that the poor have their hands of power tied, and the rich have the feet of goodwill broken. The generous have no coins in their hands, and those blessed with wealth have no kindness. As one raised on the bounty of great men, this speech struck me hard. I said: My friend, the rich are the income of the poor and the treasure of the reclusive, the goal of pilgrims and the shelter of travelers, bearers of heavy burdens for the ease of others. They stretch their hand to food only after their dependents and servants have eaten, and the leftovers of their generosity reach widows, elders, relatives, and neighbors. The rich have endowments and vows and hospitality, alms and charity, freeing slaves and offerings and sacrifice. How can you reach their good fortune, when all you can manage is these two units of prayer, and even those with a hundred distractions? Whether it is the power to give or the strength to worship, both come easily to the rich, for they own purified wealth, clean clothing, protected honor, and an untroubled heart. The strength for devotion lies in a good meal, and the health of worship in clean garments. Clearly, what strength comes from an empty stomach, what generosity from an empty hand, what pace from a thirsty foot, what good from a hungry hand? At night he sleeps scattered and restless, the one who cannot see where tomorrow's bread will come from. The ant gathers in summer so that it may live at ease through winter. Peace of mind and poverty do not go together, and composure cannot take shape in destitution. One man begins his evening prayer, another sits waiting for a meal. How can these two ever be alike? The man of means is free to devote himself to truth; the one whose living is scattered has a scattered heart. So the worship of these people is more deserving of acceptance, for they are collected and present, not distracted and scattered in mind. Their means of living are arranged, so they turn to the litanies of worship. The Arabs say: 'I seek refuge in God from crushing poverty and from the company of one I do not love,' and a saying goes: 'Poverty is the blackening of the face in both worlds.' He said: Have you not heard that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, 'Poverty is my pride'? I said: Be silent, for the master's words, peace be upon him, refer to the poverty of those who are champions in the field of God's pleasure and surrendered to the arrow of fate, not to these who wear the cloak of the righteous while selling off their portion of charity. You loud-booming drum, empty inside, what plan will you make for the journey with no provisions? Turn your face of greed away from people, if you are a man; do not twist a thousand-bead rosary through your fingers. The ignorant dervish knows no rest until his poverty ends in unbelief. 'Poverty is close to becoming unbelief,' for only with the presence of wealth can one clothe the naked or work to free a captive. How can people of our kind ever reach their rank? How can the giving upper hand resemble the receiving lower hand? Do you not see that God, mighty and exalted, in the firm revelation, speaks of the bliss of the people of paradise: 'For them there is a known provision,' so that you may know that the one absorbed in just getting by is deprived of the wealth of contentment, and the kingdom of ease lies under the seal of an assured living. To the thirsty in their dreams the whole world appears to their eyes as a spring of water. The moment I finished this speech, the reins of the dervish's patience slipped from the hand of endurance. He drew the sword of his tongue and drove the horse of eloquence into the field of insolence, charging at me, and said: You have exaggerated so much in praising them and spoken such muddled words that one might imagine they are an antidote for all ills, or the key to the treasury of livelihood. A handful of arrogant, deluded, self-admiring, disdainful men, absorbed in wealth and comfort, seduced by rank and riches, who speak only foolishness and look only with contempt. They dismiss scholars as beggars and mock the poor as vagabonds. On the strength of the wealth they hold and the rank they imagine, they seat themselves above everyone and see themselves as better than all, too proud to raise their heads for anyone, ignorant of the saying of the wise: whoever is less than others in devotion and more in wealth is rich in appearance but a pauper in truth. If a talentless man grows proud over a sage because of his wealth, count him a donkey's backside, even if he is a musk-scented ox. I said: Do not permit yourself to slander these people, for they are lords of generosity. He said: You are mistaken, they are slaves of money. What use are they? They are like the clouds of spring that do not rain, like the fountain of the sun that shines on no one. They ride the mount of ability but do not spur it forward. They take not a step for God, and give not a coin without reproach and insult. They gather wealth with hardship, keep it with meanness, and leave it behind with regret, as the wise say: the miser's silver comes up from the ground only when he himself goes into it. One man wins wealth through toil and effort, and another comes and carries it off with no effort or pain. I said to him: You have discovered the stinginess of the wealthy only because of your begging. Otherwise, to anyone who sets greed aside, generous and miser look the same. The touchstone knows what gold is, and the beggar knows who the tightfisted man is. He said: I say this from experience, for they station dependents at the door and post rough, harsh doorkeepers so as not to admit the noble, and to shove back the chests of discerning men, saying 'No one is home,' and they would be telling the truth: Of the man who has no reason, ambition, judgment, or wisdom, well said the doorkeeper: there is no one in the house. I said: Excuse them, for they are worn to the bone by beggars and driven to complaint by their petitions. And it is beyond reason for the sand of the desert to turn to pearls before a beggar's eyes are filled. The eyes of the greedy will never be filled by the wealth of this world, just as a well is never filled by dew. Wherever you see a hardship-worn, bitterness-tasting man, out of greed he throws himself into dangerous deeds, heedless of their consequences, unafraid of God's punishment, unable to tell the lawful from the forbidden. If a clod of earth strikes a dog on the head, it leaps up with joy, thinking, 'This is a bone.' And if two men carry a bier on their shoulders, the base-natured one imagines it is a banquet spread. But the man of wealth is watched by the eye of God's favor and kept safe from the forbidden by the lawful. Suppose I had not stated this argument, still I expect fairness from you: have you ever seen a hand chained to the shoulder in prayer, or a wretch sitting in prison, or the honor of an innocent torn, or a palm severed from the wrist, except because of poverty? Brave men, by force of need, have been caught in break-ins and had their ankles pierced. And it may be that desire tempts one of the poor, and when he has no strength to marry, he falls into sin, for belly and loins are twins, children of one womb: as long as one is content, the other stays quiet. I heard that a dervish was caught with a youth in a foul act. Beyond the shame he felt, there was the danger of stoning. He said: O Muslims, I have not the means to marry nor the patience to abstain, what shall I do? There is no monasticism in Islam. And among the things that grant calm and inner composure to the rich is this: that each night he takes a beauty in his arms, and each day is renewed in youth by her; the bright dawn presses its hand to its heart, ashamed before her radiance, and the swaying cypress sinks its foot in the mud out of embarrassment. She has dipped her fingertips in the blood of the beloved, staining them the red of jujube. It is impossible that with such beauty before him he would circle around sins or set his mind on corruption. A heart that a heavenly houri has seized and plundered, how could it turn its glance toward the idols of the Yaghma? Whoever has before him the dates he craves needs not go pelting the grape clusters for fruit. Most of the poor stain the skirt of their chastity with sin, and the hungry steal bread. When a ravenous dog finds meat, it does not ask whether this is the she-camel of Salih or the donkey of the Antichrist. How many chaste souls, through poverty, have fallen into utter ruin, giving up their precious honor to the wind of ill repute. With hunger, the strength to abstain does not remain; destitution snatches the reins from the hand of piety. Hatim Ta'i, who lived in the desert, would have been driven to despair by the crush of beggars had he lived in a city, and they would have torn the clothes off his back. He said: No, I feel pity for their condition. I said: No, you envy their wealth. We were locked in this argument, both caught up together. Every pawn he pushed forward I moved to block, and every check he called I covered with my queen, until he had gambled away the coin from the purse of his ambition and shot every arrow from the quiver of his proof. Beware, do not throw down your shield before the eloquent man's assault, for he has nothing but that borrowed exaggeration. Practice faith and true knowledge, for the eloquent maker of rhymes carries weapons at the gate while no one guards the fortress within. When at last he had no argument left, I made him abject. He stretched out the hand of aggression and began to talk nonsense, for it is the way of the ignorant that when they fall short of an argument against a rival, they rattle the chain of hostility. Like Azar the idol-carver who, unable to prevail over his son with proof, rose to fight him: 'If you do not stop, I will surely stone you.' He cursed me, I cursed him back. He tore my collar, I seized his chin. He upon me and I upon him, and the people running after us, laughing. A whole world bit the finger of astonishment between its teeth at what we said and heard. In short, we took the dispute of these words before the judge and agreed to accept a just ruling, so that the arbiter of the Muslims might seek out the right course and draw a distinction between the rich and the poor. When the judge saw our trickery and heard our arguments, he sank his head into the collar of reflection, and after much thought raised it and said: You who praised the rich and thought it lawful to wrong the poor, know that wherever there is a rose there is a thorn, with wine comes a hangover, over a treasure lies a snake, and where there is a royal pearl, there is a man-eating crocodile. The sweetness of worldly life has the sting of death behind it, and the bliss of paradise has a wall of hardships before it. How can an enemy's cruelty harm you, if the seeker does not kill the friend? Treasure and snake, rose and thorn, sorrow and joy, all come together. Do you not see in the garden the sweet-scented willow and the dry stick side by side? Just so, among the ranks of the rich there are the grateful and the ungrateful, and in the circle of the poor there are the patient and the fretful. If every hailstone became a pearl, the market would fill with them like cheap shells. Those close to God, mighty and exalted, are the rich with the character of dervishes, and the dervishes with the ambition of the rich. The greatest of the rich is the one who feels the sorrow of the poor, and the best of the poor is the one who wants little from the rich. 'Whoever trusts in God, He is enough for him.' Then he turned the face of rebuke from me toward the dervish and said: You who claimed the rich are all absorbed in wealth, heedless, and drunk on amusements, yes, there is a group with the traits you described: low in ambition, ungrateful for blessings, who take and hoard and neither eat nor give, and even if the rain did not fall or a flood swept away the world, trusting in their own means they would not ask about the misery of the poor, nor fear God, mighty and majestic, and they say: If another perishes from want, I have plenty; what does a duck care about the flood? And the women riding their camels in litters do not turn to look at the one drowning in the sand dunes. The base ones, once they have carried out their own blanket, say: what sorrow is it if the whole world died? There is a group of this sort you have heard of, and there is another that lays out the table of bounty and opens the hand of generosity, seeking a good name and true knowledge, possessing this world and the next, like the servants of the court of the world's just king, supported, victorious, triumphant, holder of the reins of mankind, protector of the frontiers of Islam, heir to the kingdom of Solomon, most just of the kings of the age, victor of the world and the faith, Atabak Abu Bakr Sa'd, may God prolong his days and grant victory to his banners. A father never shows his son the kindness that your generous hand has shown to the house of Adam. God wished to have mercy on a world, so through His mercy He made you king of the world. When the judge brought his words to this end and rode the horse of exaggeration past the bounds of our reckoning, we submitted to the ruling of fate, let bygones be bygones, and after the quarrel took the path of gentleness. We turned to make amends, each stepping toward the other's foot, and kissed each other's head and face, and the speech ended with this: Do not complain of the turning of the world, O dervish, for you would have died wretched anyway had things stayed this way. O rich man, since you have both heart and a prospering hand, eat and give, for you have won both this world and the next.