XXVI
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Sadi and Ross, James
They tell a story of a tyrant who bought fire-wood from the poor at a low price, and sold it to the rich at an advance. A good and holy man went up to him and said, "Thou art a snake, who bitest everybody thou seest; or an owl, who diggest up and makest a ruin of the place where thou sittest:—Although thy injustice may pass unpunished among us, it cannot escape God, the knower of secrets. Be not unjust with the people of this earth, that their complaints may not rise up to heaven."
They say the unjust man was offended at his words, turned aside his face, and showed him no civility, as they have expressed it (in the Koran):—He, the glorified God, overtook him amidst his sins:—till one night, when the fire of his kitchen fell upon the stack of wood, consumed all his property, and laid him from the bed of voluptuousness upon the ashes of hell torments. That good and holy man happened to be passing and observed that he was remarking to his friends, "I cannot fancy whence this fire fell upon my dwelling." He said, "From the smoke of the hearts of the poor!—Guard against the smoke of the sore-afflicted heart, for an inside sore will at last gather into a head. Give nobody's heart pain so long as thou canst avoid it, for one sigh may set a whole world into a flame."
They have related that these verses were inscribed in golden letters upon Kai-khosráu's crown:—"How many years, and what a continuance of ages, that mankind shall on this earth walk over my head. As the kingdom came to me from hand to hand, so it shall pass into the hands of others."