A khoja wandered without a home or family; he was unhappy because of the love he felt for a young beer-seller. The excess of his love had turned to madness, to such a degree that the infamy he had incurred was widely talked of. All the household goods and slaves he possessed, he sold and bought beer with the proceeds. When nothing remained to this man who had lost his heart, and he was destitute, his love increased a hundredfold. Although he was given as much bread as he wanted, he was always hungry, yet sated with life, because all the bread he received he carried away and bought beer with. He remained hungry always, so that he might drink a hundred draughts of beer in a single moment.
Someone said to him one day: “You whose condition is wretched, what is love? Reveal this secret to me.” — “Love is such,” he replied, “that you must sell the merchandise of a hundred worlds to buy the beer that represents it. So long as a man does not act thus, can he know the true feeling of love?”
Someone said to him one day: “You whose condition is wretched, what is love? Reveal this secret to me.” — “Love is such,” he replied, “that you must sell the merchandise of a hundred worlds to buy the beer that represents it. So long as a man does not act thus, can he know the true feeling of love?”