From Saadi’s Bustan: Umar Ibn Abd al-Aziz Sacrifices A Jewel To Help the Starving
A Weekly Poem from 13th Century Iran
Dear Friends,
I am posting these translations—revised versions of those included in my Selections from Saadi’s Bustan—as a way of making Iran’s culture and literary history visible at a time when that visibility seems more important than ever.
Umar Ibn Abd al-Aziz Sacrifices A Jewel To Help the Starving
A man whom other men of wisdom follow
tells the story of Ibn Abd al-Aziz,
who owned a ring in which was set a stone
on which no jeweler could ever set a price.
At night, you’d swear it was the rising sun.
By day, its luster was the brightest pearl’s.
Once, when fate decreed a year of drought,
his people’s well-fed faces waned to crescents.
He knew the royal comfort he enjoyed
would unman him in his people’s eyes.
who could watch another swallow poison
then dare drink sweet-water in their sight?.
He ordered the stone to be sold for silver,
distributing the proceeds in one week
to anyone in whom he saw a need.
Right away his critics scolded him:
“You’ll never find again a gem like that!”
I’ve heard that when he answered them, tears
running down his cheeks like melted wax,
“A prince should not adorn himself with jewels
when poverty burdens the hearts of his people.
This ring without a stone looks fine on me,
but a grieving people’s heart is not becoming.
He will be happy who chooses their comfort
over concern for his own vanity.
Those who value virtue refuse to buy
their own joy with others’ pain and sorrow.
***
If the king sleeps content upon his throne,
I doubt the poor will sleep undisturbed,
but if he lights the night with watchful eyes,
sleep will bring his subjects a soothing calm.
Thank God the Atabeg, Abu Bakr ibn Saad,
has made the proper way to rule his own!
The only signs of trouble plaguing Pars
are the women whose lunar beauty turns our heads.
A verse from last night’s party caught my ear:
“I held my moon-faced lover while she slept
and wanted nothing more from life than that,
but the sight of her so fully lost in sleep
moved me. ‘Your slender grace shames the cypress.
Wash this sweet slumber from your narcissus-eyes;
smile, show us your lips like rose-petals;
sing for us with your nightingale voice.
Why let sleep hide the mischief your charms can do?
Come! Bring the ruby wine you poured last night.’
She opened one indignant eye, ‘You say
I’m mischievous, but rouse me nonetheless?’”
Under the rule of our enlightened king,
no other mischief dares to stir.
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