lion-provider, "Why do you choose the service of the lion?" He answered:
"Because I subsist on the leavings of his prey, and am secure from the
ill-will of my enemies under the asylum of his valor." They said: "Now
you have got within the shadow of his protection and admit a grateful
sense of his bounty, why do you not approach more closely, that he may
include you within the circle of select courtiers and number you among
his chosen servants?" He replied, "I should not thus be safe from his
violence."--Though a Guebre may keep his fire alight for a hundred
years, if he fall once within its flame it will burn him.--_Procul à
Jove, procul à fulmine_. It on one occasion may chance that the courtier
of the king's presence shall pick up a purse of gold, and the next that
he shall lie shorter by the head. And philosophers have remarked,
saying, "It is incumbent on us to be constantly aware of the fickle
dispositions of kings, who will one moment take offence at a salutation,
and at another make an honorary dress the return for an act of rudeness;
and they have said, That to be over much facetious is the accomplishment
of courtiers and blemish of the wise.--Be wary, and preserve the state
of thine own character, and leave sport and buffoonery to jesters and
courtiers."


XVI

One of my associates brought me a complaint of his perverse fortune,
saying, "I have small means and a large family, and cannot bear up with
my load of poverty. Often has a thought crossed my mind, suggesting, Let
me remove into another country, that in whatever way I can manage a
livelihood none may be informed of my good or bad luck."--(Often he
went asleep hungry, and nobody was aware, saying, "Who is he?" Often did
his life hang upon his lip, and none lamented over him.)--"On the other