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A tale is told of a cruel man

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This poem, adapted from a story by the Persian poet Saadi, explores the themes of justice, patience, and the quiet endurance of the powerless. In translating it, I sought to preserve the simplicity and weight of the original—where a dervish, wronged but silent, waits not out of cowardice but wisdom. His eventual act is not just revenge, but a statement: that power does not always protect cruelty forever, and time can sometimes be the greatest avenger. This piece is a reflection on how justice may be delayed, but not always denied.

A tale is told of a cruel man who once cast a stone at a righteous dervish’s head. The poor man, too meek to strike back, picked up the stone and kept it close?—? waiting. Time passed. The king, angered by that cruel man’s misdeeds, cast him into a bottomless, dark pit. The dervish came to the edge, aimed?—? and hurled the same stone down upon him. The man cried out, “Who are you, and why strike me now?” The dervish replied, “I am the one you struck that day?—? And this is the very stone you threw.” “But where were you all this time?” asked the man. The dervish smiled: “I feared your power. But now, seeing you in a pit instead of a palace?—? I saw my moment and seized it.”

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