“He that has money in the scales,” says Saádí, “has strength in his arms, and he who has not the command of money is destitute of friends in the world.”—Hundreds of similar sarcastic observations on the power of wealth might be cited from the Hindú writers, such as: “He who has riches has friends; he who has riches has relations; he who has riches is even a sage!” The following verses in praise of money are, I think, worth reproducing, if only for their whimsical arrangement:
Honey,
Our Money
We find in the end
Both relation and friend;
’Tis a helpmate for better, for worse.
Neither father nor mother,
Nor sister nor brother,
Nor uncles nor aunts,
Nor dozens
Of cousins,
Are like a friend in the purse.
Still regard the main chance;
’Tis the clink
Of the chink
Is the music to make the heart dance.
I’ve been post-processing Flowers from a Persian Garden, and Other Papers (1890) by W. A. Clouston since Februrary. Actually, I started it in February, set it aside for long months, and am now getting back to it.
It is a fabulous work! It’s a compilation of papers on Saádí’s Gulistán, “Oriental” humor (meaning Turkish, Arabic and Persian), the Tútí Náma (Tales of a Parrot), Rabbinical tales, “An Arabian Tale of Love” (the story of Majnún and Laylá), jokes about the clergy in the middle ages, and beards.
It’s chock-full of references to other works that I’d like to see and/or provide to PG. Some are there of course, like Clouston’s own [Book of Noodles][], but others, like the original translation into English of the Gulistán (by Francis Gladwin in 1808) are not. (There are a couple of other translations into English available on the net, but the point for me is to “complete the set.”)
One of the best things about this book, besides it’s sheer readability and humor, is its footnotes. They are extensive, complex and complete. No ibid.s here. They enhance the main text, give references for further reading, relate discussions about the variants of the stories, and have more jokes. Sometimes, like in the footnote I’ve replicated above, the information is there just because Clouston couldn’t bear to leave it out. Thank goodness for that!
It will be a while before the text is posted to PG (the index and cross-references are rather complicated), but I hope this excerpt will encourage you to watch for it!