Sadi

, or Sadee, a celebrated Persian poet and moralist, was born in 1175, at Sheeraz, or Schiraz, the capiai of Persia, and was educated at Damascus, but quitted his country when it was desolated by the Turks, and commenced his travels. He was afterwards taken prisoner, and condemned to work at the fortifications of Tripoli. While in this deplorable state, he was redeemed by a merchant of Aleppo, who had so much regard for him as to give him his daughter in marriage, with a dowry of one hundred sequins. This lady, however, being an intolerable scold, proved the plague of his life, and gave him that unfavourable opinion of the sex which appears occasionally in his works. During one of their altercations she reproached him with the favours her family had conferred: “Are not you the man my father bought for \en pieces of gold?” “Yes,” answered Sadi, “and he sold me again for an hundred sequins?”

We find few other particulars of his life, during which he appears to have been admired for his wise sayings and his wit. He is said to have lived an hundred and twenty years, that is, to the year 1295, but different dates are assigned, some making him born in 1193, and die in 1312. He composed such a variety of works in prose and verse, Arabic and Persian, as to fill two large folio volumes, which were printed at Calcutta, in 1795. It was not, however, merely as a poet, that he acquired fame, but as a philosopher and a moralist. His works are quoted by the Persians on the daily and hourly occurrences of life; and his tomb, adjoining the city where he was born, is still visited with veneration. “Yet,” says sir William Ouseley, speaking of this author’s works, “I shall not here suppress that there is attributed to Sadi a short collection of poetical compositions, inculcating lessons of the grossest sensuality;” and even his most moral work, called “Gulistan,” or “Garden of Flowers,” is by no means immaculate. Mr. Gladwin also, to whom we owe an excellent translation of it, published at Calcutta, 1806, in 4to, with the original Persian, has been obliged to omit or disguise a few passages, which, he says, “although not offensive to the coarse ideas of | native readers, could not possibly be translated without transgressing the bounds of decency.”

This work has been long known in Europe by the edition and translation published by the learned Gentius, under the title of “Rosarium politicum, sive amoenum sortis humanae Theatrum, Per4ce et Lat.” Amst. 1651, fol. There was also a French traii&Jation by P. du Ryer, 1634, 8vo, and another by d’Alegre, in 1704, 12mo, since which the abbe Gaudin gave a preferable translation, first in 1789, under the title of “Essai historique sur la legislation de la Perse,” and afterwards by the more appropriate title of “Gulistan, ou l’empire des roses,” 1791, 8vo. The English public was in some degree made acquainted with this work by a publication by Stephen Sullivan, esq. entitled “Select Fables from Gulistan, or the Bed of Roses, translated from the original Persian of Sadi,” 1774, 12 mo. These are chiefly of a political tendency, recommending justice and humanity to princes. Mr. Qiadwjn’s includes the whole, and is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Persian manners and morals. Sadi’s other works are entitled “Bostan, or the Garden of Flowers,” which is in verse, and “Molamaat;” in Arabic, sparks, rays, or specimens. We may add, that Olearius published the “GuJistan,” in German, with plates, in 1634, fol. under the title of “Persianischer Rosenthal.” ¹