This Good Works Translation is made from the 1888 Arabic printed text of Kitab Bilawhar wa-Budhasaf fi al-mawa'iz wa-al-amthal al-hikmiyah. This passage gives Bilawhar's parable of the king driven by hunger and the eating of necessity, explaining his own food and drink in the world.
Translation
Budasaf said, "O Bilawhar, tell me what you take of food and drink."
Bilawhar said, "The nourishment by which I sustain myself: I have accustomed the soul to the little provision that suffices it. It is content with it and satisfied, so it does not seek anything else or contend with me over what is beyond it.
"They claim that a certain king had a great kingdom, many soldiers, and much wealth. Then it occurred to him to invade another king, so that he might add a kingdom to his kingdom and wealth to his wealth. He marched against him with treasuries, baggage, women, children, horses, elephants, and equipment. His enemy marched toward him, and they met.
"They overran his army and overcame him. He fled among those who fled, driving his children, his women, and young children of his until, when night had closed upon them, he came to the bank of a river. He entered a thicket, with his women and children, and let his beasts loose out of fear that they would betray him. They spent the night in the thicket, hearing the fall of horses' hooves on every side.
"In the morning he was a man unable to move away. As for the river, he could not cross it; as for the open country, he could not go out into it because of the enemy; and as for himself, he was in a narrow place, afflicted by water, cold, hunger, and fear. He had no food with him, and his children were young, hungry, and weeping.
"He remained that way for two days. Then one of his children died of hunger, so he cast him into the river. They remained that way another day. Then the man said to his wife, 'We are all on the brink of destruction. For some of us to survive through the destruction of some of us is better than for all of us to perish. My counsel is that we hasten to slaughter some of our children, so that they may be food for us and for the rest of our children until God brings us relief. If we delay that, the children will grow weak, until we will not be able to benefit from their flesh, and we ourselves will grow weak until we will not be able to move away, even if we find a way out.'
"His wife obeyed him. They slaughtered one of their children and set him among them, tearing at him.
"What do you think, son of the king, about that king? What kind of eating did he eat: the eating of one enjoying luxury, or the eating of one driven by necessity and preoccupied?"
Budasaf said, "Rather, the eating of one driven by necessity and preoccupied."
Bilawhar said, "So too are my eating and drinking in this world, in that same station."
Colophon
This Good Works Translation was made from the Arabic text of Kitab Bilawhar wa-Budhasaf fi al-mawa'iz wa-al-amthal al-hikmiyah, al-Matba' al-Safdari, 1888. The English body is newly written from the Arabic source.
Source Colophon
Primary source witness: Google Books volume vYacAQAACAAJ, Kitab Bilawhar wa-Budhasaf fi al-mawa'iz wa-al-amthal al-hikmiyah, al-Matba' al-Safdari, 1888, original from Harvard.
Translated passage: Bilawhar's answer about food and drink, with the parable of the king driven by hunger, printed Arabic pages 56-58. The translated passage begins inside page 56, after the dogs-over-carrion parable, and ends inside page 58, before Budasaf asks whether Bilawhar's teaching is human reasoning or has another root.
Public source: https://books.google.com/books?id=vYacAQAACAAJ
Source Text
Arabic Text
قال بوداسف يا بلوهر اخبرني ماذا تصيب من الطعام
والشراب قال بلوهر القوت الذي اتقوت به النفس قد عودتها
ما يكفيها اليسير من المؤنة وقد قنعت به ورضيت فلا
تطلب غيره ولا تنازعني فيما سواه وقد زعموا ان رجلا من
الملوك كان عظيم الملكة كثير الجنود والاموال ثم انه
بدا له ان يغزو ملكا اخر ليزداد الى ملكه ملكا والى
ماله مالا فسار اليه بالخزائن والاثقال والنساء والولدان
والخيول والفيلة والعدد وسار اليه عدوه فالتقوا
فاستباحوا عسكره فظفروا عليه فهرب في جملة من هرب و
ساق اولاده ونساءه واولادا له صغارا حتى انتهى عند
اشتباك الليل بهم على شاطئ نهر فدخل اجمة ومعه نساءه و
اولاده وسيب دوابه مخافة ان تدل عليه فباتوا في الاجمة
يسمعون وقع الخيل من كل جانب فاصبح رجلا لا يطيق براحا
اما النهر فلا يطيق عبوره واما الفضاء فلا يستطيع
الخروج اليه لمكان العدو واما هو ففي مكان ضيق
عليه موذ من الماء والبرد والجوع والخوف وليس معه
طعام واولاده صغار جياع يبكون فمكث بذلك يومين
ثم ان احد ولده مات من الجوع فقذف به في النهر و
مكثوا بذلك يوما اخر فقال الرجل لامرأته انا مشرفون
جميعا على الهلاك ولان يبقى بعضنا بهلاك بعضنا خير
من ان نهلك جميعا وان من الراي ان نعالج بذبح بعض
اولادنا فيكون قوتا لنا ولبقية اولادنا الى ان ياتينا الله
بالفرج فانا ان اخرنا ذلك ضعف الصبيان حتى لا ننتفع
بلحومهم وضعفنا حتى لا نستطيع براحا ان وجدنا الى الخروج
سبيلا فطاوعته امرأته فذبحوا احد اولادهم فوضعوه
بينهم ينتهشون منه فما ظنك يا بن الملك بذلك الملك
اي اكل كان يأكل اكل المستكبر ام اكل المضطر المشتغل
قال بوداسف بل اكل المضطر المشتغل قال بلوهر
وكذلك اكلي وشربي في هذه الدنيا بتلك المنزلة