Story 17- The Morals of Dervishes - gulistaan-e-sa.adii

A bareheaded and barefooted pedestrian who had arrived from Kufah with the Hejaz-caravan of pilgrims joined us, strutted about and recited:

'I am neither riding a camel nor under a load like a camel.

I am neither a lord of subjects nor the slave of a potentate.

Grief for the present, or distress for the past, does not

trouble me.

I draw my breath in comfort and thus spend my life.'

A camel-rider shouted to him: 'O dervish, where art thou going? Return, for thou wilt expire from hardships.' He paid no attention but entered the desert and marched. When we reached the station at the palm-grove of Mahmud, the rich man was on the point of death and the dervish, approaching his pillow, said: 'We have not expired from hardship but thou hast died on a dromedary.'

A man wept all night near the head of a patient.

When the day dawned he died and the patient revived.

Many a fleet charger had fallen dead

While a lame ass reached the station alive.

Often healthy persons were in the soil

Buried and the wounded did not die.

A bareheaded and barefooted pedestrian who had arrived from Kufah with the Hejaz-caravan of pilgrims joined us, strutted about and recited:

'I am neither riding a camel nor under a load like a camel.

I am neither a lord of subjects nor the slave of a potentate.

Grief for the present, or distress for the past, does not

trouble me.

I draw my breath in comfort and thus spend my life.'

A camel-rider shouted to him: 'O dervish, where art thou going? Return, for thou wilt expire from hardships.' He paid no attention but entered the desert and marched. When we reached the station at the palm-grove of Mahmud, the rich man was on the point of death and the dervish, approaching his pillow, said: 'We have not expired from hardship but thou hast died on a dromedary.'

A man wept all night near the head of a patient.

When the day dawned he died and the patient revived.

Many a fleet charger had fallen dead

While a lame ass reached the station alive.

Often healthy persons were in the soil

Buried and the wounded did not die.