Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers

In the following charming little tale Saádí recounts an interesting incident in his own life: I remember that in my youth, as I was passing through a street, I cast my eyes on a...

One day (the text proceeds) the king had gone to the chase, and the palace remained void of rivals; so the mother called in her son, kissed his fair face, and told him the tale...

The laziness of domestics is a common complaint in this country at the present day, but surely never was there a more lazy servant than the fellow whose exploits are thus record...

Adam continued to deplore his guilt on the mountain for a period of one hundred years, and it is said that from his tears, with which he moistened the earth during this interval...

"The servant left and returned to the palace. He repeated to the prince what the young girl had said to him, except the last clause, which he forgot. Then the prince understood...

The Arabian sage Lokinan is represented by tradition to have been a black slave, and of hideous appearance, from which, and from the identity of the apologues in the Arabian col...

To begin, then--_place aux dames_! In most Asiatic countries the ladies are at a sad discount in the estimation of their lords and masters, however much the latter may expatiate...

In the tranquil hour of midnight an apparition stood before him, in the habit of a fakír. The merchant cried: "What art thou?" It answered: "I am the apparition of thy good fort...

[155] See Méon's edition of Barbazan's _Fabliaux et Contes_, ed. 1808, tome ii, p. 442, and a prose _extrait_ in Le Grand d'Aussy's collection, ed. 1781, tome iv, p. 101, "Du Pr...

The khalífs were frequently lavish of their gifts to poets, but they were fond of having their little jokes with them when in merry mood. One day the Arabian poet Thálebí read b...

A Fox said to a Bear: "Come, let us go into this kitchen; they are making preparations for the Sabbath, and we shall be able to find food." The Bear followed the Fox, but, being...

His marriage with the kází's deformed daughter had already become known to his neighbours, who presently came to rally him upon his choice of such a bride, and scarcely had they...

"In the morning, when the desire to return home overcame our inclination to remain, I saw in my friend's lap a collection of roses, odoriferous herbs, and hyacinths, which he in...

[81] In a manuscript preserved in the Lambeth Palace Library, of the time of Edward IV, the height of Moses is said to have been "xiij. fote and viij. ynches and half"; and the...

King David once had a narrow escape from death at the hands of Goliath's brother Ishbi. The king was hunting one morning when Satan appeared before him in the form of a deer.[72...

A curious story is related by Dawlat Sháh regarding this poem, which bears a close resemblance to the story of the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, by order of the fanati...

As a faggot-maker was one day at work in a wood, he saw four perís [or fairies] sitting near him, with a magnificent bowl before them, which supplied them with all they wanted....

Following the course of the river, he at length arrived at the gates of Paradise. The gates were shut. He knocked, and, with his usual impetuosity, demanded admittance. "Thou ca...

Oriental romances are usually constructed on the plan of a number of tales connected by a general or leading story running throughout, like the slender thread that holds a neckl...

"The smiling Garden of Persian Literature": a Garden which I would describe, in the Eastern style, as a happy spot, where lavish Nature with profusion strews the most fragrant a...

It may be naturally supposed that travellers who were acquainted with the peculiar ways of the citizens of Sodom would either pass by that city without entering its inhospitable...

In the Talmud are embodied those rules and institutions--interpretations of the civil and canonical laws contained in the Old Testament--which were transmitted orally to succeed...

A beard is but the vizard of the face, That nature orders for no other place; The fringe and tassel of a countenance That hides his person from another man's, And, like the Roma...

"Thou wast day and night occupied in idle talk, and I in attending to the needful: one moment thou wast taken up with the fresh blandishment of the Rose, and the next busy in ad...

Babrius, 300. Babylonian tale, 210. Bacon on aphorisms, 259. Baghdádí, witty, 83. Baháristán, 40, 48, 63, 109. Bakhtyár Náma, 124, 172. Barbary Tales, 218. Barbazan's Fabliaux,...