188 Translations from the Tarilch i FiruzsKahi. [No. 8, 
no thought of sadness, or anxiety, or grief, or care, or fear, or 
dread, or restraint found place in a single breast. The clever, 
the genial, the wits, and the jesters, one and all, migrated to 
the town. The minstrels and courtezans invented new modes 
of pleasing. The purses of the vintners and distillers were gorged 
with gold and silver coins. Beauties and swash-bucklers and 
iterary panders were overwhelmed with gold and jewels. For the 
men of title and the men of letters there was nothing left to do 
but to drink wine, to make the assemblies sparkle with their wit, 
to vie with each other in repartee, to resign themselves to music 
and dice and largess, and the zest of the passing hour, anything 
to prop up life against the insidious sapping of time, and give 
night and day their till of pleasure and repose. In fine they fur¬ 
nished the emperor’s court so superbly with beauty and wit, that 
the enchantment he drank in by ear and eye, never lost its hold 
upon his breast till death. Zia i Jahjahi and Husam, the her¬ 
mit, the wittiest of their time, and the best talkers of the age, 
men with a marvellous knack at bon-mots and unrivalled in 
dialogue and conversation became associates in the private audience- 
chamber of the emperor; and for everything they said which 
was thought witty, and for every neat saying and joke they made 
before the king, they obtained presents of money and apparel 
and caparisoned steeds. Thus the Emperor lived day and night 
in a round of pleasure, absorbed in the pursuit and gratification of 
his desires. Meanwhile Malik Nizam-uddin son-in-law and cousin 
of Malik-ul-Umara, Kotwal of Dikii, fawned about the imperial 
throne, and in the guise of an attached servant of the Emperor 
aimed at the vice-royalty of the realm. The conduct of all matters 
of administration devolved upon him ; and Malik Qiyam-uddin of 
the secretary’s department, who, in learning and eloquence and 
style, and the subtle arts of secretaryship had no equal, became the 
main prop of the State, and Agent Plenipotentiary. Nizam-uddin 
was a man of great industry, with a talent for administration, dis¬ 
creet, penetrating, and artful; and when not only matters of 
administration but the whole policy of the empire passed into his 
hands, the rnaliks and slaves of Balban, a numerous and influential 
body, who had become without exception, chiefs and counsellors 
