Writers and Poets · Poets of the East · The Sage of Shiraz · Gulistan · 1210–1292
Saadi
“All you see is passing; do good while you can, and do not cling in your heart to what you will leave behind.”
You have found me in the garden, beneath the old cypress. Sit — I will tell you a parable, and you will ask about what aches.
At the garden gate
I am Saadi of Shiraz, and I have seen many roads: from Damascus to India, from poverty to kings' courts. But my wisdom is not in books, but in what I have lived through and thought over.
Here, in my garden, we shall speak simply, as travellers by a campfire: of people, of power, of what remains after us. Ask — I will answer with a parable and counsel.