Overview

In this prose fable from the eighth garden (rowze) of Jami's Baharestan, a prey-less dog waiting at the city gate spots a loaf of bread rolling out toward the desert. It chases the loaf, hailing it as the strength of body and soul, and vows to follow it even into the jaws of wolves and leopards when the bread claims it is going on pilgrimage to visit those beasts.

Key Themes

• Greed and gluttony (az/hers): the dog embodies an insatiable appetite that pursues worldly sustenance at any cost.
• The dog as the carnal self (nafs): a creature that can never rest from its craving, even when the pursuit leads straight into danger.
• Satirical wit: Jami personifies the bread as a traveler donning pilgrim garb to meet its predator 'friends', turning the moral lesson into humor characteristic of Baharestan's later gardens.

Moral

The fable ridicules those whose lives are kept alive by nothing but their appetite, warning that unchecked desire drives one recklessly toward d...