CHAPTER XI.
 
ON THE DETRIMENT OF SEEKING MORE, AND FAILING IN ONE’S OBJECT.
 
INTRODUCTION.

The world-subduing king after hearing this agreeable story, said, ‘O eloquent and right-counselling sage! thou hast set forth with clear proof* and perspicuous reasoning, the apologue of an evil-doer who without thought of consequences, went to excess in injuring and molesting [others], and on being himself involved in similar calamities, had recourse to repentance and contrition. I now request that thou wouldest recount a narrative comprising the import of the eleventh precept; and that thou wouldest set forth the true particulars of a person aiming at something not suitable to his condition, nor in accordance with his circumstances.’ The perfect sage, in a style which in purity and clearness resembled the water of life, and in sweetness and richness was the foster-sister of the beverage of the sugar-cane;

VERSE.
Words that in clearness did outvie the gem,
So sweet, that sweetness could not rival them.
Should to the ear those wondrous accents come,
E’en Plato’s self they’d strike with wonder dumb.

said, ‘O king! asylum of the world!

COUPLET.
Thy step tread ever on the skirt of hope!
Thy realm, thy life be boundless in their scope!

Ancient sages have pronounced, ‘For every action there are men, for every place its [proper] saying.’ In the wardrobe of the invisible world they have sewed on the lofty* stature of every person the garment of his own actions, and have carefully prepared for each in the treasury of the Divine bestowal, the robe of his special transactions suitable to his figure. Each individual has his task, and every man his actions that suit him.

VERSE.
They did not make the fly, to deck
It in the peacock’s star-bright pinion.
Nor magnified each insect speck,
With fabled ’Anká’s wide dominion.
And vinegar in vain may pine
To catch the luscious taste of wine.
The sullen thorn stands dry and bare,
When will the rose breathe fragrant there?

The cupbearer of the divine favors presents from the wine-cellar of ‘Every party rejoiceth in that which they follow,’* a cup suited to the condition of each, nor does He exclude one single person from the beverage of His bounty or the fountain of His grace.

COUPLET.
There is not one, who does not there his fit allotted portion find,
To one a sip, to one a cup, to all their rightful share’s assigned.

Wherefore every one ought to employ himself in that profession which the eternal Artificer has entrusted to him, and take steps to conduct that business by gradual progress, to the stage of perfection.

COUPLET.
A pack-saddle maker,* the best of his trade,
Surpasses a hatter, whose hats are ill made.

And whosoever quits his own employment and betakes himself to a business unsuited to him, and turns away from what he has received by hereditary descent or long previous acquisition, will undoubtedly be overtaken with embarrassment and perplexity. Consequently, by the way which he is then pursuing, he will not arrive at the wished-for station, and the return to his former road becomes impossible. Thus he remains stupefied and aghast between the two.

HEMISTICH.
No passage onward—no returning back.

Wherefore it behoves a man to plant his foot firmly in the path of his own profession, and not to be led by desire to stretch forth his hand to every branch of vain longing, and to lay aside the quest of greater things, since for the most part the final issue thereof is disappointment; and let him not soon or lightly surrender a thing whence he has experienced profit, and whose fruit he has found to be advantageous,* so that he may act in accordance with the import of the high tradition, ‘Whoever has had a thing bestowed on him, let him cling to it,’ and may escape from bewilderment and distress; and the words of the holy Maulaví,* who is a mine of the jewels of spirituality, alludes to this same circumstance, in the passage where he says,

COUPLET.
‘For the fig-vendor, say, my friend!
What better than his figs to vend?’

And of the stories that befit these premises, the story of that Devotee who spoke the Hebrew tongue is one, and of the versatile Guest who wished to learn that language.’ The king asked, ‘How was that?’