generally towards the end; and as his proper name would
seldom or never accommodate itself to purposes of verse
he selects a more suitable one.

At one period of his life Saádí took part in the wars of the Saracens
against the Crusaders in Palestine, and also in the wars for the faith
in India. In the course of his wanderings he had the misfortune to be
taken prisoner by the Franks, in Syria, and was ransomed by a friend,
but only to fall into worse thraldom by marrying a shrewish wife. He has
thus related the circumstances:

"Weary of the society of my friends at Damascus, I fled to the barren
wastes of Jerusalem, and associated with brutes, until I was made
captive by the Franks, and forced to dig clay along with Jews in the
fortress of Tripoli. One of the nobles of Aleppo, mine ancient friend,
happened to pass that way and recollected me. He said: 'What a state is
this to be in! How farest thou?' I answered: 'Seeing that I could place
confidence in God alone, I retired to the mountains and wilds, to avoid
the society of man; but judge what must be my situation, to be confined
in a stall, in company with wretches who deserve not the name of men.
"To be confined by the feet with friends is better than to walk in a
garden with strangers."' He took compassion on my forlorn condition,
ransomed me from the Franks for ten dínars,[2] and took me with him to
Aleppo.

[2] A dínar is a gold coin, worth about ten shillings of our
money.

"My friend had a daughter, to whom he married me, and he presented me
with a hundred dínars as her dower. After some time my wife unveiled her