, Dublin; workshops of
Baysunghur.After the introduction, the
Gulistan is divided into eight chapters, each consisting of a number of stories, decorated with short poems: :1. The Manners of Kings :2. On the Morals of Dervishes :3. On the Excellence of Contentment :4. On the Advantages of Silence :5. On Love and Youth :6. On Weakness and Old Age :7. On the Effects of Education :8. On Rules for Conduct in Life Altogether the work contains some 595 short poems in Persian, consisting on average of just under two couplets each, in a variety of metres; there are also occasional verses in
Arabic. Some stories are very brief. The short poems which decorate the stories sometimes represent the words of the protagonists, sometimes the author's perspective and sometimes, as in the following case, are not clearly attributed:
Chapter 1, story 34 One of the sons of
Harun al-Rashid came to his father in a passion, saying: "Such an officer's son has insulted me, by speaking abusively of my mother". Harun said to his nobles: "What should be the punishment of such a person?" One gave his voice for death, and another for the excision of his tongue, and another for the confiscation of his goods and banishment. Harun said: "O my son! the generous part would be to pardon him, and if thou canst not, then do thou abuse his mother, but not so as to exceed the just limits of retaliation, for in that case we should become the aggressors." Since there is little biographical information about Saadi outside of his writings, his short, apparently autobiographical tales, such as the following have been used by commentators to build up an account of his life.
Chapter 2, story 7 I remember that, in the time of my childhood, I was devout, and in the habit of keeping vigils, and eager to practice mortification and austerities. One night I sat up in attendance on my father, and did not close my eyes the whole night, and held the precious
Quran in my lap while the people around me slept. I said to my father: "Not one of these lifts up his head to perform a prayer. They are so profoundly asleep that you would say they were dead". He replied: "Life of thy father! it were better if thou, too, wert asleep; rather than thou shouldst be backbiting people". Most of the tales within the
Gulistan are longer, some running on for a number of pages. In one of the longest, in Chapter 3, Saadi explores aspects of undertaking a journey for which one is ill-equipped:
Chapter 3, story 28 An athlete, down on his luck at home, tells his father how he believes he should set off on his travels, quoting the words: His father warns him that his physical strength alone will not be sufficient to ensure the success of his travels, describing five kinds of men who can profit from travel: the rich merchant, the eloquent scholar, the beautiful person, the sweet singer and the artisan. The son nevertheless sets off and, arriving penniless at a broad river, tries to get a crossing on a ferry by using physical force. He gets aboard, but is left stranded on a pillar in the middle of the river. This is the first of a series of misfortunes that he is subjected to, and it is only the charity of a wealthy man that finally delivers him, allowing him to return home safe, though not much humbled by his tribulations. The story ends with the father warning him that if he tries it again he may not escape so luckily:
Chapter 5, story 5 , Dublin. In the fifth chapter of the
Gulistan of Saadi, on Love and Youth, Saadi includes explicit moral and sociological points about the real life of people from his time period (1203–1291). The story below by Saadi, like so much of his work, conveys meaning on many levels and broadly on many topics. In this story, Saadi communicates the importance of teachers educating the "whole child"—cognitively, morally, emotionally, socially, and ethically–using, as often in the book, homoerotic attraction as a motif. Even though adults and teachers have been accorded great status and respect in
Iranian culture and
history, in Saadi's story, he shows that a young boy has great wisdom in understanding his educational needs. A schoolboy was so perfectly beautiful and sweet-voiced that the teacher, in accordance with human nature, conceived such an affection towards him that he often recited the following verses: Once the boy said to him: "As you strive to direct my studies, direct also my behavior. If you perceive anything reprovable in my conduct, although it may seem approvable to me, inform me thereof that I may endeavor to change it." He replied: "O boy, make that request to someone else because the eyes with which I look upon you behold nothing but virtues". ==Influence==