No comprehensive translation of this important classical work has hitherto been placed before the reading public, but it cannot be doubted that the character of its contents is such as to fully¹ justify² the attempt now made to familiarize English readers with the entertaining anecdotes³ and devotional wisdom which the Sage⁴ of Shiraz embodied⁵ in his Palace of Wealth. This is the name which he applies to the Bustān in an introductory chapter, and it is one which springs from something more than a poet’s fancy, for the ten doors, or chapters, with which the edifice⁶ is furnished lead into a garden that is indeed rich in the fruits of knowledge gained by a wide experience of life in many lands, and earnest thought.

 

The Bustān is written in verse—a fact which adds considerably⁷ to the difficulties of translation, since the invariable rule of Sadi, like that of every other Persian poet we have read, is to sacrifice sense to the exigencies⁸ of rhyme and[10] metre. In not a few cases the meaning is so confused on this account that even the native commentators⁹, who possess a fund of ingenuity¹⁰ in explaining what they do not properly understand, have been compelled to pass over numerous couplets through sheer inability to

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