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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Death of the Poor Is Repose

By Sa’dī (c. 1213–1291)

From the ‘Rose-Garden’: Translation of the Kama Shastra Society

I NOTICED the son of a rich man, sitting on the grave of his father, and quarreling with a Dervish-hoy, saying:—“The sarcophagus of my father’s tomb is of marble, tessellated with turquoise-like bricks! But what resembles thy father’s grave? It consists of two contiguous bricks, with two handfuls of mud thrown over it.” The Dervish-boy listened to all this, and then observed: “By the time thy father is able to shake off those heavy stones which cover him, mine will have reached Paradise.”

  • An ass with a light burden
  • No doubt walks easily.
  • A Dervish who carries only the load of poverty
  • Will also arrive lightly burdened at the gate of death;
  • Whilst he who lived in happiness, wealth, and ease,
  • Will undoubtedly on all these accounts die hard;
  • At all events, a prisoner who escapes from all his bonds
  • Is to be considered more happy than an Amir taken prisoner.