Bildad the Shuhite

“ Quoth Bihzad, "I did this for fear of shame;" and the king said, "An thou fear shame, thou shouldst not practise haste in thy doings; knowest thou not that the fruit of impatience is repentance? Had we hasted, we also, like thee, had repented." Then he conferred on him a robe of honour and engaged to him for the completion of the dowry and sent to his father, giving him the glad tidings and comforting his heart with news of his son's safety; after which he said to Bihzad, "Arise, O my son, and go to thy sire." ”

“ Is it possible that thou, the son of Zal, hast contrived and wrought this evil deed against thy brother? Verily thy heart is as black as thy shadow, which shall not long darken the earth.”
Then the treacherous Shughad, trying to justify his cruel deed, said sternly unto the dying Hero:
“Verily, God hath decreed this awful vengeance to recompense thee for all the blood that thou hast shed in thy long life as a warrior. Not I, but He, hath determined thy fate.”
Now at this moment the King of Kabul drew near, feigning great anger and sorrow when he beheld the dying one. ”

“ I walked into their midst before they seized their spears and came for me. Then I said, ‘Who are ye?’ And they told me—I standing there and uttering the name of our King. They had heard it, far, far as they dwelt from the land of Zulu; but, where has not the name of Zulu sounded?
“Then I said ‘Ye seek Mushâd? Good. I can deliver him into your hands—lead me to the impi.’ Then one man said—not speaking very well in the tongue of the Zulu, ‘How knowest thou whom we seek, O stranger; and how knowest thou that there be an impi with us?’ And I said, ‘Look at me. I am not a boy. ”

“ Tell me truly, O youth, who thou art.’ Bihzad thought shame to acquaint him with his condition and chose rather death for himself; so he answered, ‘I am nought but a thief and a bandit.’ Quoth the king, ‘It behoveth us not to act hastily in the matter of this youth, but that we look into his affair, for that haste still engendereth repentance.’ So he imprisoned him in his palace and assigned him one who should serve him. ”

“ When Bihzad heard this saying, his reason fled and his heart fluttered and he called the last speaker and said to him, “Repeat to me that which thou saidst and tell me the truth concerning her whom thou avouchest to be goodlier than I and whose daughter she is.” Quoth the man, “She is the daughter of King Such-an-one;” whereupon Bihzad’s heart clave to her and his colour changed. Presently the news reached his sire, who said to him, “O my son, this maiden to whom thy heart cleaveth is at thy command and we have power over her; so wait till I demand her in wedlock for thee.” ”

“ But the eyes of Ida often wandered towards Zuleime, as she heard that hacking, racking cough, and she noticed with pain the waning face. Yes! within a few days even, the thin face had become perceptibly thinner, and the flushed cheek burned with a darker crimson. “And she will make a sorry looking peasant,” thought Ida; “a very sorry peasant, with that delicate, spiritual, almost ærial face and form of hers. How absurdly inappropriate are most of the affairs we get up! Truly, our art is in the rear of all others. ”

“ With Shah Shudja, I would accuse him of mixing up inextricably wine and love and Sufi teaching, and perhaps more besides. To some at least of the innumerable difficulties which assail every man who turns a thoughtful eye upon life and its conditions, Hafiz seems to have accepted the solution presented to him by Sufiism. He understood and sympathised with the bold heresy of Hallaj, “though fools whom God hath not uplifted know not the meaning of him who said, I am God.” ”

“ And now, according to your and your daughter’s pledge, I claim her as my own—my bride—my wife!”
“Fair and just!” admitted the Caliph of Bagdad; but his words as well as Zobeid’s exclamation of horror and consternation were swallowed in the Indian’s angry:
“Why—the pretensions of this Mongol are absolutely preposterous! Saved Zobeid’s life, did he? By Shiva! There is hardly a Brahmin or holy fakir in Hindustan who is not familiar with Sanjivnividya—the science of restoring the dead to life!” ”

“ He gave no explanation of his failure to see the celebration at Bala Bala and the ruins of Susa, which Ganz supposed to be the chief objects of his excursion. Yet he found himself looking with a new eye at the anomalous exile whom the Father of Swords called the prince among the merchants of Shustar, noting the faded untidy air as he had never noted it before, wondering why a man should bury himself in such a hole as this. ”

“ I have seen in Bimala's nature the cruelty which is the inherent force of existence,—the cruelty which with its unrelenting might keeps the world beautiful.
If only women could be set free from the artificial fetters put round them by men, we could see on earth the living image of Kali, the shameless, pitiless goddess. I am a worshipper of Kali, and one day I shall truly worship her, setting Bimala on her altar of Destruction. For this let me get ready.
The way of retreat is absolutely closed for both of us. We shall despoil each other: get to hate each other: but never more be free. ”

“ With a rapid glance at my weapons I advanced carefully, followed by Sumichrast. Lucien, l'Encuerado, and Gringalet brought up the rear.
We really felt some degree of emotion; the idea of seeing any human beings but ourselves quite made our hearts beat; for were we going to meet enemies or friends? This was the important question to be decided.
The path soon became wider; we were now scarcely two hundred paces from the hut, and we were astonished not to hear the barking of dogs, which generally prowl round an Indian's dwelling. Sumichrast, who was now in front, came back. ”

“ Shumir lifts its gaze upward, and as it takes in more the beauty and the goodness of the world—in Sun and Moon and Stars, in the wholesome Waters and the purifying serviceable Fire, the good and divine Powers—the Gods multiply and the host of elementary spirits, mostly evil, becomes secondary. ”

“ Possibly in early days the two settlements formed one, the single [Greek] of Ptolemy; and the south end would have been the headquarters of the wealthy. Hence the Bedawin always give it precedence—Shaghab wa Shuwák; moreover, we remarked a better style of building in the former; and we picked up glass as well as pottery.
As a turkey buzzard (vulture) is the fittest emblem for murderous Dahome, so I should propose for Midian, now spoiled and wasted by the Wild Man, a broken handmill of basalt upon a pile of spalled Negro quartz. ”

“ As for the man who shall transgress his judgment or shall remove his gift, may the gods Shushinak and Shamash, Bel and Ea, Ninni and Sin, Mnkharsag and Nati—may all the gods uproot his foundation, and his seed may they destroy!”
It will be seen that Karibu-sha-Shushinak takes a delight in enumerating the details of the offerings he has ordained in honour of his city-god Shushinak, and this religious temper is peculiarly characteristic of the princes of Elam throughout the whole course of their history. ”

“ So many characters are unfortunately wanting in this epigraph, that the inscription cannot be satisfactorily translated. It commences, it would appear, with the name of the Susianian king, although written without the first character found on the other slabs. The captive, however, was not the monarch himself, who was slain, as it has been seen, in the battle. The name of Shushan, written, as in the book of Daniel, for Susa, is highly interesting. It places beyond a doubt the identification of the site of the campaign. ”

“ Suddenly a gasp of wonderment went like a wave through the ranks. All came to a standstill, and every eye was turned upon the same point. There, bounding down the hillside, making straight for the impi, came two men, Zulus. Who were they? Runaways? Refugees? Some of the trader’s people who had escaped? Such were among the conjectures that rose to the minds of the astonished spectators. But, as they drew nearer another and deeper gasp of wonder heaved through the impi, for on forehead and chest of the approaching warriors was now discernible the red mark of the Igazipuza. ”

“ The utterances of Job are, in fact, so wild, inconsiderate, and unworthy of God, and the first speeches of Eliphaz and Bildad on the contrary so winning and appropriate, that if Job's affliction ought really to be regarded from the standpoint of chastisement, their tone could not be more to the purpose, nor exhortation and comfort more beautifully blended. Even when one knows the point of the book, one will still be constantly liable to be misled by the speeches of the friends ”

“ Bimala. "Why? I have a suit to bring forward to him. The General he has appointed is unable to remove the fears of our way; he is incapable of destroying his enemies."
"The General will reply," said the Prince laughing, "that the destruction of foes even the gods are not equal to;—what is man? Witness, that enemy whom Mahadeva had reduced to ashes in the Grove of austerities,—'tis only a fortnight since the same Manmatha [1] has created strange disturbance in this his very temple. ”

“ From this side and that side the sound is echoed, the flash is reflected, while loud bursts the shout that strikes terror into the Midianites’ souls,—“The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” Smitten with panic, confused by the noise, dazzled by the glare, the multitudes of Midian are but embarrassed by their own numbers, they cannot distinguish friend from foe,—they snatch up their weapons, indeed, and use them with frantic vigour, but every man’s hand is turned against [237] his own fellow—warriors strike right and left, but their fierce blows fall on their own companions in arms! ”

“ When night came on, Shuker, believing that the King slept, went out by stealth. The King too followed her steps. When Shuker arrived at the house of Shedósh, many words occurred between them. Then the poet said to her: “A woman fears nobody; on that account she ought to be feared. Thou hast left Ferhosh, the King, and wilt devote thy affections to one like me!” Upon these words, the woman returned home without hope, and Shedosh turned his face to the image of the sun. But his looks fell upon one of the maids who were adorers of the sun, and desired her to converse with him ”

“ He is very human; but his humanity is deeply ethical in character.
Much more than Omar and Sa'di, Háfiz was a thorough Sufi. "In one and the same song you write of wine, of Sufism, and of the object of your affection," is what Sháh Shuja said to him once. In fact, we are often at an entire loss to tell where reality ends and Sufic vacuity commences. For this Mystic philosophy that we call Sufism patched up a sort of peace between the old Persian and the conquering Mohammedan. ”

“ A momentary eclipse of the newly risen Sun of Truth, the world’s greatest Luminary, had ensued, as a result of Bahá’u’lláh’s precipitate banishment to ‘Iráq by order of Náṣiri’d-Dín Sháh, of His sudden withdrawal to the mountains of Kurdistán, and of the degradation and confusion that afflicted the remnant of the persecuted community of His fellow-disciples in Baghdád. ”

“ Now if, as the parson said, all these enemies are most like to come, like the Midianites, to a soul where there’s been an idol set up, where was the idol in mine? You see, wife, pain and loneliness set an old man thinking.”
“You never had an idol,” said the wife; “in the midst of such a drunken, disorderly, quarrelsome set as we have here in Wildwaste, you took the pledge, and kept it too—never a drop of the poison wetted your lips; there’s not many a man would have kept steady, standing all alone as you did. ”

“ When Bimala saw that the clever Osman was away, she revived courage, for now she could hope to regain her freedom by dint of her cleverness. She anon fell to thinking how to effect it.
After the sentinel had remained standing for sometime, Bimala began to converse with him. Sentinel or Pluto's messenger,—who can ever willingly abstain from conversing with a fair woman? At first Bimala talked on various indifferent matters; gradually she introduced a variety of questions regarding the guard's name, country, home, employment, happiness and misery. ”

“ The qabḍ of gnostics is like the fear of novices, and the basṭ of gnostics is like the hope of novices. This is the sense in 375which the Ṣúfís use the terms qabḍ and basṭ. Some Shaykhs hold that qabḍ is superior in degree to basṭ, for two reasons: (1) it is mentioned before basṭ in the Koran, (2) qabḍ involves dissolution and oppression, whereas basṭ involves nutrition and favour: it is undoubtedly better to dissolve one’s humanity and oppress one’s lower soul than to foster and favour them, since they are the greatest veil (between Man and God) . ”

“ Little wonder that on His return to Baghdád Bahá’u’lláh should have described the situation then existing in these words: “We found no more than a handful of souls, faint and dispirited, nay utterly lost and dead. The Cause of God had ceased to be on any one’s lips, nor was any heart receptive to its message.” Such was the sadness that overwhelmed Him on His arrival that He refused for some time to leave His house, except for His visits to Kazímayn and for His occasional meeting with a few of His friends who resided in that town and in Baghdád. ”

“ Buffalos and bears were feeding—boars, and serpents of the wood.
Safe in virtue, bright in beauty—glorious and of high resolve,
Now alone, Vidarbha's daughter—wandering, her lost Nala sought.
Yet no fear king Bhima's daughter—for herself might deign to feel,
Travelling the dreary forest—only for her lord distressed;
Him she mourned, that noble princess—him in bitterest anguish wailed,
Every limb with sorrow trembling—stood she on a beetling rock;
"Monarch, with broad chest capacious—monarch with the sinewy arm,
Me in this dread forest leaving—whither hast thou fled away? ”