On the Conduct of Kings

5 ideas

1. The Merciful Lie Before the King

   A condemned prisoner curses the king in a language the king does not understand, and a kind vizier translates it as a Qur'anic verse praising those who restrain anger and forgive, so the king spares him. A rival vizier exposes the real meaning, but the king rules that the first vizier's lie, told to prevent harm, pleased him more than the second's truth, told out of malice. This is the source of Saadi's maxim that a well-meaning lie is better than a truth that stirs up trouble.

2. Anushirvan Pays for the Salt

   On a hunt, King Anushirvan orders his servant to pay for a pinch of salt taken from a village, saying that if he takes it for free, it will become a custom that ruins the village. Saadi's gloss: if the king eats one apple from a peasant's garden, his servants will pull up the tree by the roots, and for five eggs the sultan permits taking, his soldiers will skewer a thousand chickens. A ruler's small exaction becomes a license that subordinates multiply.

3. Safety Is Valued Only After Danger

   A slave on the king's boat panics and wails at sea, and nothing calms him until a sage has him thrown overboard and then hauled back by his hair. Afterward he sits quietly in a corner, because until he had tasted drowning he could not appreciate the safety of the boat. Contentment with present conditions often comes only from direct contact with what those conditions protect against, not from reassurance.

4. Innate Nature Defeats Education of the Unworthy

   A vizier persuades a king to spare and educate a boy captured from a band of robbers, arguing that good company will reform him. The boy later rejoins the thieves and kills the vizier and his sons.

5. Royal Service as a Sea Voyage

   Serving a ruler has two faces: hope of bread and fear for one's life. Like a sea voyage, it offers great profit and great risk, so you either win treasure or drown in the waves. Wise courtiers therefore weigh proximity to power as a wager rather than a reward, and act with discretion, since the king's favor can turn on a single word.

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