Story 5 Galenus saw a fool hanging on with his hands to the...

Story 5 Galenus saw a fool hanging on with his hands to the collar of a learned man and insulting him, whereon he said: 'If he were learned he would not have come to this pass with an ignorant man.' Two wise men do not contend and quarrel Nor does a scholar fight with a contemptible fellow. If an ignorant man in his rudeness speaks harshly An intelligent man tenderly reconciles his heart. Two pious men keep a hair between them untorn And so does a mild with a headstrong man.

If however both sides are fools If there be a chain they will snap it. An ill-humoured man insulted someone. He bore it and replied: 'O man of happy issue, I am worse than thou canst say that I am Because I know thou art not aware of my faults as I am.

Story 6 Subhan Vail is considered to have had no equal in rhetorics because he had addressed an assembly during a year and had not repeated the same word but, when the same meaning happened to occur, he expressed it in another manner and this is one of the accomplishments of courtiers and princes. A word if heart-binding and sweet Is worthy of belief and of approbation. When thou hast once said it do not utter it again Because sweets, once partaken of, suffice.

Story 7 I heard a philosopher say that no one has ever made a confession of his own folly except he who begins speaking, whilst another has not yet finished his talk. Words have a head, O shrewd man, and a tail. Do not insert thy words between words of others. The possessor of deliberation, intelligence and shrewdness Does not say a word till he sees silence. Story 8 Several officials of Sultan Mahmud asked Hasan Muimandi one day what the sultan had told him about a certain affair.

He replied: 'You must yourselves have heard it.' They rejoined: 'What he says to thee he does not think proper to communicate to the like of us.' He answered: 'Because he trusts that I shall not reveal it. Then why do you ask me to do so?' A knowing man will not utter every word which occurs to him. It is not proper to endanger one's head for the king's secret.

Story 9 I was hesitating in the conclusion of a bargain for the purchase of a house when a Jew said: 'Buy it for I am one of the landholders of this ward. Ask me for a description of the house as it is and it has no defect.' I replied: 'Except that thou art the neighbour of it.' A house which has a neighbour like thee Is worth ten dirhems of a deficient standard But the hope must be entertained That after thy death it will be worth a thousand.