186 Translations from the Tdrilch i FiruzsMM. [No. 8, 
on a throne, the magnificence of which had been greatly amplified, 
and in an empire reaching to the shores of the ocean, and became 
possessed of a power, which others had for years been exhausting 
themselves and putting their lives in jeopardy to obtain, without 
accomplishing their desire,—when thus all at once he became 
absolutely his own master in pursuing his wishes and working 
them out,—he put out of remembrance all he had read and heard 
and learnt and acquired, and laid on the shelf his lessons of science 
and manners, and plunged headlong into pleasure and dissipation, 
indulging in the wildest excesses and holding the gratification of 
his youthful caprices above royal cares and the momentous affairs 
of empire. Thus when the harsh violence and tyranny of Balban, 
with the constraint of fear and the oppressive awe inspired by his 
sixty years’ rule, was wholly and summarily removed, and in place 
of an old king of ripe experience and mature years, wayward, 
arbitrary, penetrating, artful, an old wolf girdled with such a ter¬ 
rorism of reproof and chastisement and bonds and imprisonment, 
that under the coercion of his rule not a desire of sport and levity, 
not a sigh for wine and love found utterance in the hearts of his 
lords and vassals, and the very names of sensuality, and self-indul¬ 
gence and jest and laughter, of masquerades and minstrels were 
never breathed on the lips of the chiefs and nobles of the empire, 
nay, had been forgotten by the people at large, in his stead, I 
say, there sat on the throne a king, youthful and comely, kindly, 
easy-tempered, luxurious, a votary of pleasure and gaiety, ardently 
enamoured of enjoyment, as careless of the right conduct of the affairs 
of government, as ignorant of the way to keep them straight, 
without experience of the vicissitudes of the stars, or skill to prove 
their treachery,-—the kingdom was given over to triflers. Volup¬ 
tuaries and convivialists, seekers of pleasure, purveyors of wit, and 
inventors of buffooneries, who had kept in the back-ground, lurk¬ 
ing, unemployed, without a customer for their wares, came into 
request. Courtezans appeared in the shadow of every wall, and 
elegant forms sunned themselves on every balcony. Not a street 
but sent forth a master of melody, or a chanter of odes. In every 
quarter a singer or a song-writer lifted up his head. The times 
were in harmony with jovial tempers and easy circumstances ; for- 
