“I heard that a man once rescued a sheep from the mouth of a wolf, but at night drew his knife across its throat.  The expiring sheep thus complained:  ’You delivered me from the jaws of a wolf, but in the end I perceive you have yourself become a wolf to me.’”

Sir Gore Ouseley, in his Biographical Notices of Persian Poets, states that Saadi in the latter part of his life retired to a cell near Shiraz, where he remained buried in contemplation of the Deity, except when visited, as was often the case, by princes, nobles, and learned men.  It was the custom of his illustrious visitors to take with them all kinds of meats, of which, when Saadi and his company had partaken, the shaykh always put what remained in a basket suspended from his window, that the poor wood-cutters of Shiraz, who daily passed by his cell, might occasionally satisfy their hunger.

* * * * *

The writings of Saadi, in prose as well as verse, are numerous; his best known works being the Gulistan, or Rose-Garden, and the Bustan, or Garden of Odours.  Among his other compositions are:  an essay on Reason and Love; Advice to Kings; Arabian and Persian idylls, and a book of elegies, besides a large collection of odes and sonnets.  Saadi was an accomplished linguist, and composed several poems in the languages of many of the countries through which he travelled.  “I have wandered to various regions of the world,” he tells us, “and everywhere have I mixed freely with the inhabitants.  I have gathered something in each corner; I have gleaned an ear from every harvest.”  A deep insight into the secret springs of human actions; an extensive knowledge of mankind; fervent piety, without a taint of bigotry; a poet’s keen appreciation of the beauties of nature; together with a ready wit and a lively sense of humour, are among the characteristics of Saadi’s masterly compositions.  No writer, ancient or modern, European or Asiatic, has excelled, and few have equalled, Saadi in that rare faculty for condensing profound moral truths into short, pithy sentences.  For example: 

“The remedy against want is to moderate your desires.”

“There is a difference between him who claspeth his mistress in his arms, and him whose eyes are fixed on the door expecting her.”

“Whoever recounts to you the faults of your neighbour will doubtless expose your defects to others.”

His humorous comparisons flash upon the reader’s mind with curious effect, occurring, as they often do, in the midst of a grave discourse.  Thus he says of a poor minstrel:  “You would say that the sound of his bow would burst the arteries, and that his voice was more discordant than the lamentations of a man for the death of his father;” and of another bad singer:  “No one with a mattock can so effectually scrape clay from the face of a hard stone as his discordant voice harrows up the soul.”