Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers Part 16

But the Talmudist, in his turn, was forestalled by Bhartrihari, an ancient Hindu sage, one of whose three hundred apothegms has been thus rendered into English by Sir Monier Williams:

Now for a little while a child; and now An amorous youth; then for a season turned Into a wealthy householder; then, stripped Of all his riches, with decrepit limbs And wrinkled frame, man creeps towards the end Of life's erratic course; and, like an actor, Pa.s.ses behind Death's curtain out of view.

Here, however, the Indian philosopher describes human life as consisting of only four scenes; but, like our own Shakspeare, he compares the world to a stage and man to a player. An epigram preserved in the _Anthologia_ also likens the world to a theatre and human life to a drama:

This life a theatre we well may call, Where every actor must perform with art; Or laugh it through, and make a farce of all, Or learn to bear with grace a tragic part.

It is surely both instructive and interesting thus to discover resemblances in thought and expression in the writings of men of comprehensive intellect, who lived in countries and in times far apart.

VI

WISE SAYINGS OF THE RABBIS.

"Concise sentences," says Bacon, "like darts, fly abroad and make impressions, while long discourses are flat things, and not regarded."

And Seneca has remarked that "even rude and uncultivated minds are struck, as it were, with those short but weighty sentences which antic.i.p.ate all reasoning by flas.h.i.+ng truths upon them at once." Wise men in all ages seem to have been fully aware of the advantage of condensing into pithy sentences the results of their observations of the course of human life; and the following selection of sayings of the Jewish Fathers, taken from the _Pirke Aboth_ (the 41st treatise of the Talmud, compiled by Nathan of Babylon, A.D. 200), and other sources, will be found to be quite as sagacious as the aphorisms of the most celebrated philosophers of India and Greece:

This world is like an ante-chamber in comparison with the world to come; prepare thyself in the ante-chamber, therefore, that thou mayest enter into the dining-room.

Be humble to a superior, and affable to an inferior, and receive all men with cheerfulness.

Be not scornful to any, nor be opposed to all things; for there is no man that hath not his hour, nor is there anything which hath not its place.

Attempt not to appease thy neighbour in the time of his anger, nor comfort him in the time when his dead is lying before him, nor ask of him in the time of his vowing, nor desire to see him in the time of his calamity.[96]

[96] "Do not," says Nakhshabi, "try to move by persuasion the soul that is afflicted with grief. The heart that is overwhelmed with the billows of sorrow will, by slow degrees, return to itself."

Hold no man responsible for his utterances in times of grief.

Who gains wisdom? He who is willing to receive instruction from all sources. Who is rich? He who is content with his lot. Who is deserving of honour? He who honoureth mankind. Who is the mighty man? He who subdueth his temper.[97]

[97] "He who subdueth his temper is a mighty man," says the Talmudist; and Solomon had said so before him: "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city" (Prov.

xvi, 32). A curious parallel to these words is found in an ancient Buddhistic work, ent.i.tled _Buddha's Dhammapada_, or Path of Virtue, as follows: "If one man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men, and if another conquer himself, he is the greatest of conquerors." (Professor Max Muller's translation, prefixed to _Buddhagosha's Parables_, translated by Captain Rogers.)

When a liar speaks the truth, he finds his punishment in being generally disbelieved.

The physician who prescribes gratuitously gives a worthless prescription.

He who hardens his heart with pride softens his brains with the same.

The day is short, the labour vast; but the labourers are still slothful, though the reward is great, and the Master presseth for despatch.[98]

[98] Cf. Saadi, _ante_, page 41, "Life is snow," etc.

He who teacheth a child is like one who writeth on new paper; and he who teacheth old people is like one who writeth on blotted paper.[99]

[99] Locke was antic.i.p.ated not only by the Talmudist, as above, but long before him by Aristotle, who termed the infant soul _tabula rasa_, which was in all likelihood borrowed by the author of the Persian work on the practical philosophy of the Muhammedans, ent.i.tled _Akhlak-i-Jalaly_, who says: "The minds of children are like a clear tablet, equally open to all inscriptions."

First learn and then teach.

Teach thy tongue to say, "I do not know."

The birds of the air despise a miser.

If thy goods sell not in one city, take them to another.

Victuals prepared by many cooks will be neither cold nor hot.[100]

[100] Too many cooks spoil the broth.--_English Proverb_.

Two pieces of money in a large jar make more noise than a hundred.[101]

[101] Two farthings and a thimble In a tailor's pocket make a jingle.--_English Saying_.

Into the well which supplies thee with water cast no stones.[102]

[102] "Don't speak ill of the bridge that bore you safe over the stream" seems to be the European equivalent.

When love is intense, both find room enough upon one bench; afterwards, they may find themselves cramped in a s.p.a.ce of sixty cubits.[103]

[103] Python, of Byzantium, was a very corpulent man. He once said to the citizens, in addressing them to make friends after a political dispute: "Gentlemen, you see how stout I am. Well, I have a wife at home who is still stouter.

Now, when we are good friends, we can sit together on a very small couch; but when we quarrel, I do a.s.sure you, the whole house cannot contain us."--_Athenaeus_, xii.

The place honours not the man; it is the man who gives honour to the place.

Few are they who see their own faults.[104]

[104] Compare Burns:

O wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend: be discreet.[105]

[105] See the Persian aphorisms on revealing secrets, _ante_, p. 48.--Burns, in his "Epistle to a Young Friend," says:

Aye free aff hand your story tell When wi' a bosom crony, But still keep something to yoursel'

Ye scarcely tell to ony.

Poverty sits as gracefully upon some people as a red saddle upon a white horse.

Rather be thou the tail among lions than the head among foxes.[106]

[106] The very reverse of our English proverb, "Better to be the head of the commonalty than the tail of the gentry."