The Bustan of Saadi – The Orchard, Persian–English Bilingual Edition

The Bustan — the Orchard — is Saadi’s poem of the good life. Completed in 1257, a year before the Gulistan, it is written entirely in verse and gathers some 180 stories into ten chapters, each on a virtue: justice, generosity, love, humility, acceptance, contentment, education, gratitude, repentance and prayer. Where the Gulistan is witty and worldly, the Bustan is Saadi’s picture of how people ought to behave — his utopia, told in stories.

This edition gives the complete Persian text with the English translation of G. S. Davie (1882) beside it on every page.

Why readers choose this edition

What is inside

• The complete Bustan — ten chapters, about 180 stories in verse
• Chapters on justice, generosity, love, humility, acceptance, contentment, education, gratitude, repentance and prayer
• Persian text with G. S. Davie's English translation on the same page
• Saadi's tales from his thirty years of travel across the Islamic world
• The passages Persian speakers quote most, in their full context
• 524 pages in a printable PDF, delivered as soon as the order completes

About the Bustan

Saadi composed the Bustan after decades on the road, and its stories carry that experience: kings and beggars, scholars and thieves, lovers wise and foolish. Translating it is hard — Persian metre, rhyme and wordplay rarely survive — which is why a bilingual edition matters: the English tells you what Saadi said, the Persian lets you hear how he said it. The Library of Congress holds a 1535 Iranian manuscript of the Bustan, one of ten Saadi volumes in its Persian collection.

Who it is for

Readers of Persian literature and Sufi ethics; Persian learners at upper-intermediate level and above who are ready for classical verse; teachers of Persian or comparative literature; and anyone who has read the Gulistan and wants its companion.

How to read it

Take one chapter — one virtue — at a time, and read its stories in the English before trying the Persian. The humour is easy to miss in translation; our article on Saadi's humor in Bustan points out where to look. The Gulistan, Saadi’s other masterpiece, is in the same format: The Rose Garden (Gulistan).

Helpful links

• Bustan of Sa'di manuscript (1535) – Library of Congress
• Sa'di and his mystical humanist literature – Library of Congress
• All Saadi books
• The Sufi wisdom of Saadi's Bustan
• Saadi Shirazi

Frequently asked questions