Travel, and new friends will succeed the friends you lost.
And toil, for life's sweets do through toil come.
To stay wins you no honor nor from exile saves.
Set out to roam the world and leave your home.
When water stands, it stagnant turns and stinks
But tastes so sweet when it does flow and run.
And if the sun stood in its orbit still,
Both Arabs and barbarians would tire of the sun,
And if the full moon did not wane and set,
No watchful eyes would the moon's rising mark.
If in the lair the lion stayed, in the bow the dart,
Neither would catch the prey or hit the mark.
Deep in the mine, gold dust is merely dust,
And in its native ground, fuel aloewood.
Gold, when extracted, grows much in demand.
And when exported, aloe fetches gold.
Reference
Translated by Husain Haddawy ; Based on the text of the fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript edited by Muhsin Mahdi. The Arabian Nights = Alf Laylah Wa-Laylah. New York :W W Norton & Co Inc, 2008.