112 The Kitabi Gulistan. 



scent to the evening air. The poet was one fine evening walking 

 with a friend in a garden in the neighborhood - of Bagdad; a 

 lovely and refreshing spot, he says, " its heart-gladdening groves 

 intertwining over our heads." He describes the moon shining 

 on the landscape, and making a sort of pattern on the ground 

 like a variegated carpet, from the reflection of the trees and 

 flowers. The walks, he says, looked in the gleaming light as if 

 strewed with spangles of crystal and clusters of fruit hung from 

 the trees, shining like the Pleiades. Such is, you know, the 

 Eastern style of description. He wandered about, conversing 

 with his friend, until the night was far advanced, and they began 

 to think of returning to the city. As they were about to take 

 their departure, he observed his friend gather up the skirt of his 

 robe, and fill it with flowers and sweet-scented herbs ; roses, 

 hyacinths, spikenard, and sweet-basil. The poet, turning to his 

 companion, observed that the treasures he had collected were 

 of little value, since they would last so short a time. " The 

 flower of the garden," said he, " has no continuance, nor can we 

 confide in the promise of the rose-bower ; and philosophers have 

 told us that whatever is not lasting, merits not our affections." 

 His friend inquired, " What, then, is the alternative ?" The 

 poet replied, I can write such a Kitabi Gulistan, or book of a 

 flower garden, that neither the rude storm of autumn shall be 

 able to lay the hand of usurpation on its leaves, nor the revolu- 

 tions of the seasons convert the serenity of summer into the 

 gloom of winter. " What," he exclaimed, " could a basket of 

 such fleeting flowers avail his friend ! Rather let him pluck a 

 single leaf from the flower garden of the poet. A rose gathered 

 from bowers that surrounded them, could only live a few days at 

 the utmost ; but the rose-bower he would himself raise in the 

 book he proposed to write, should bloom on for ever." His 

 friend dropped the flowers he had gathered, and seizing the robe 

 of the poet, said, in the words of an Arabian proverb, " As the 

 generous man promised, so he performed." Saadi willingly 

 pledged himself to perform his promise. The next day he wrote 

 two chapters, and he adds, « the rose still continued to flourish in 

 the garden when the book of the Gulistan was finished." 



Meadow Queen 



