SO 



A brief notice of the 



[July 



LJ*\)f>- ouT ^< 



If an answer contrary to my wish 

 Be received ; then Afrasiab, myself 

 And my battle-axe, must decide 

 The matter in the field of combat. 



This well timed sors, so applicable to his position, induced Mahmud 

 to think on the unhappy poet's condition with compassion: and, in order 

 to make uorae atonement for his former injustice, and to alleviate the dif- 

 ficulties attendant on his declining age, at last ordered the long expected 

 60,000 dinars of gold to be sent him ; or, according to some, twelve ca- 

 mels laden with indigo, together with the royal permission to reside 

 wherever he pleased. But alas! too late — the camels, laden with the 

 gold, met the corpse of Firdousi at the city gate, as it was borne out by a' 

 train of weeping friends to its final resting place. Bowed down with 

 sorrow, the aged poet fell dead from his seat in the market-place of the 

 city, while hearing a youth recite to him some passages of his own 

 great epic the Shah-nameh. The gold was taken back to Mahmud, who 

 ordered it to be given to Firdousi' s only child, a daughter. The spi- 

 rited maiden refused the glittering treasure with scorn, saying, that as 

 the uultan had not thought fit to send it before, and as it could now be of 

 no use to her deceased parent, she had returned it untouched. Mahmud, 

 it is said, expressed unbounded admiration at her conduct, and repenting 

 having lent so ready an ear to the envious insinuations of his courtierSj 

 deeply mourned the poet's unhappy fate. The priest of the mosque 

 refused to inter the corpse with the usual ceremonies, under the pretext 

 that poets, in their compositions, perpetuate, and give too much credit to, 

 the idle fables of infidels. The night after this refusal had been made-, he 

 dreamt he saw Firdousi seated in the seventh heaven : on enquiring how 

 he had contrived to attain this exalted felicity, Firdousi answered, " one 

 couplet on the power and eternity of the Deity has secured it for me." 

 It is almost needless to add, that the priest's religious scruples were en- 

 tirely dissipated by this most special vision, and that the corpse of the 

 poor poet met with due mussulman interment. The following is the 

 distich alluded to : 



