Then answered the elder, "Thou hast put a good steed to the pace; thou hast sought water at a full stream; thou hast given the bow to him who fashioned it; thou hast lodged in the house him who built it." And he thought a while till he had let his flow of wit collect, his milch-camel fill her udder: and then he said: Wool thy ink-flask, and take thy implements and write:
"Generosity (may God establish the host of thy successes) adorns; but meanness (may fortune cast down the eyelid of thy enviers) dishonors; the noble rewards, but the base disappoints; the princely entertains, but the niggard frights away; the liberal nourishes, but the churl pains; giving relieves, but deferring torments; blessing protects, and praise purifies; the honorable repays, for repudiation abases; the rejection of him who should be respected is error; a denial to the sons of hope is outrage; and none is miserly but the fool, and none is foolish but the miser; and none hoards but the wretched; for the pious clenches not his palms.
"But thy promise ceases not to fulfil; thy sentiments cease not to relieve; nor thy clemency to indulge; nor thy new moon to illumine; nor thy bounty to enrich; nor thy enemies to praise thee; nor thy blade to destroy; nor thy princeship to build up; nor thy suitor to gain; nor thy praiser to win; nor thy kindness to succor; nor thy heaven to rain; nor thy milk-flow to abound; nor thy refusal to be rare. Now he who hopes in thee is an old man like a shadow, one to whom nothing remains. He seeks thee with a persuasion whose eagerness leaps onward; he praises thee in choice phrases, which merit their dowries. His demand is a light one, his claims are clear; his praise is striven for, his blame is shunned. And behind him is a household whom misery has touched, whom wrong has stripped, whom squalor involves. And he is ever in tears that come at call, and trouble that melts him, and care that is as a guest, and growing sadness: on account of hope that has disappointed him, and loss that has made him hoary, and the enemy that has fixed tooth in him, and the quiet that is gone. And yet his love has not swerved, that there should be anger at him; nor is his wood rotten, that he should be lopped away; nor has his breast spit foulness that he should be shaken off; nor has his intercourse been froward that he should be hated. Now thy honor admits not the rejection of his claim, so whiten his hope by the lightening of his distress: then will he publish thy praise throughout the world. So mayest thou live to avert misfortune, and to bestow wealth; to heal grief and to care for the aged: attended by affluence and fresh joyousness; as long as the hall of the rich is visited, or the delusion of the selfish is feared. And so Peace."