Eating and Drinking chapter VI
1923

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, “Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.”

And he said:

Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.

But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship,

And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.

When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,

“By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.

Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”

And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,

“Your seeds shall live in my body,

And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,

And your fragrance shall be my breath,

And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”

And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart,

“I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,

And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.”

And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;

And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress

Khalil Gibran
Born: 6 January 1883, Bsharri, Lebanon
Nationality: Lebanese-American
Died: 10 April 1931, New York, USA

Gibran was a writer, poet, and visual artist. He was also considered to be a philosopher although he rejected the title. Best known as the author of ‘The Prophet,’ first published in 1923 and went on to become one of the all-time best-selling books. ‘The Prophet’ has been translated into over 100 languages, Gibran was born in a village of the Ottoman-ruled Mount Lebanon Mutsarrifate and emigrated to the United States with his mother and siblings in 1895. At fifteen he was sent back to the Lebanon to enrol at the Collège de la Sagesse in Beirut. He returned to Bost when his youngest sister died in 1902. His mother and older half-brother died the following year