The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The...

I met a fat blockhead decked in rich apparel, and mounted on an Arab horse, with a turban of fine Egyptian linen on his head. A person said: "O Sa'di, how comes it that you see these garments of the learned on this ignorant beast?" I replied: "It is a vile epistle which has been written in golden letters:—'Verily this ass, with the resemblance of a man, has the carcase of a calf, and the voice or bleating of a calf.'—Thou canst not say that this brute appears like a man, unless in his garments, turban, and outward form. Examine into all the ways and means of his existence, and thou shalt find nothing lawful but the shedding of his blood:—though a man of noble birth be reduced to poverty, imagine not that his lofty dignity can be lowered; and though he may secure his silver threshold with a hasp of gold, conclude not that a Jew can be thereby ennobled."