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SAD DAR.
CHAPTER XVII. 1. The seventeenth subject is this, that when they cut a toothpick (hilâl), or a splinter which they wish to apply to the root of the teeth, it is necessary that they retain no bark. 2. For if a small quantity of bark be on it when they apply it to the teeth, and they cast it away, if a pregnant woman puts her foot upon it, the danger of that may be that the child comes to harm?
CHAPTER XVIII. 1. The eighteenth subject is this, that it is necessary for mankind to make an endeavour, so that they may espouse a wife in their youth and beget a child. 2. And for women, in like manner, it is necessary that there should be a longing (raghbat) for espousing a husband.
3. Because it is declared in revelation”, that every duty and good work a child performs becomes the father's and mother's, just like those which they have performed with their own hands. 4. The meaning (ma’hni) of pur ('a son') is that which signifies pal ('a bridge') s, for by this bridge they arrive at that other world. 5. If there be no child for any one they call him one with a severed bridge, that is, the
* Owing to her fear of having stepped on dead matter (see Sls. X, 20, XII, 13).
? In the Spend, Nihâdûm, and Dâmdâd Nasks (see Sls. X, 22, XII, 15).
* This fanciful explanation must be derived from a Pahlavi source, as it is only in that language that the two words are written precisely alike.
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