Hyacinths -- Muslih-uh-Din Sa'di

Guest poem submitted by Mac Robb:

(Poem #1882) Hyacinths If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft, And from thy slender store Two loaves alone to thee are left, Sell one, and with the dole Buy hyacinths to feed thy Soul. -- Muslih-uh-Din Sa'di

        (alt. Moslih Eddin Saadi)
        from "Gulistan" (The Garden of Roses), 13th century Persian.

Wandering through the Saturday produce and plant market yesterday (one
of the many delights of living in Australia) and wondering yet again how
these people make a living at this - clearly they're in it for the
entertainment and the social contact, judging from the number of times
it's "Oh, take another on the house" - I got into a conversation with
one of the stallholders who was flogging both pentas (a useful thing to
plant in these days of drought) and hyacinths.

So I of course wondered if he knew this primary school verse, which I
proceeded to recite. (Always a somewhat iffy sort of overture with
Australians: they react either with delight or alarm - some sort of
lunatic on our hands?) He didn't; neither did my companion. Can it be
that I never trotted it out for our children when they were young enough
to be receptive to instead of embarrassed by this sort of thing? But it
scored me a couple of free plants. (And reciting Constantine Kavafy's
"Ithaka" had previously got me rather a lot of olives from Greek guy who
hails from Ithaca. Perhaps I should take down my shingle and make a
living as a minstrel.)

Tracking down the provenance of this well-known verse isn't easy. Google
brings up innumerable plant nursery websites but very little in the way
of literary exegesis. It develops that it's from "The Garden of Roses,"
by the 13th century Persian Sufi poet Sa'di. But where does the
translation come from? Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Mac Robb.
Brisbane, Australia.

Moslih Eddin (Muslih-un-Din) Saadi (Sa'di), Gulistan (Garden of Roses)
 http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/Sadi/index.htm
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi