My fortunes had not sunk as now;
But thou hadst gloried in my fame,
And built thyself a deathless name.
“Oh Mahmūd, though thou fear’st me not,
Heaven’s vengeance will not be forgot.
Shrink, tyrant, from my words of fire,
And tremble at a poet’s ire.”
The indignant and unfortunate bard escaped from Ghizni by night, on foot and alone, for his friends dared not incur the enmity of the king by rendering him any assistance. Ayaz alone had the generous courage to brave the Shāh’s displeasure by aiding the refugee. He sent a trusty slave after him, who soon overtook him, and giving him the horse and a sum of money and other little comforts for his journey, besought him in the name of Ayaz to hasten out of the territory of Shāh Mahmūd if he valued his life.
MŪHTESHIM.
In the meantime reports of the vizier’s animosity and of the sultan’s cowardice were spread all over the country, exciting universal detestation of the king and his minister. The accounts of the poet’s misfortunes and the king’s injustice reached Mūhteshim, the prince of Kohistan, about the time the fugitive approached his seat of government. This prince was the dear friend of Shāh Mahmūd, and bound to him by ties of gratitude for countless favors, but he hesitated not to show his respect for genius, and he sent a deputation of learned and distinguished men to meet Firdusī and invite him to the royal presence. In the midst of this flattering and honorable reception Mūhteshim learned that the offended poet intended to publish a satirical work, holding up to the detestation of the world the treachery of Mahmūd, and he endeavored to dissuade him from this act of revenge, which he considered unworthy of the greatest literary genius of the age. The poet afterward sent him an hundred indignant couplets, that the prince might destroy them himself. Firdusī stated in a letter sent with the lines that, although he dreaded not the anger of Mahmūd, still, out of grateful friendship for the generous Mūhteshim, he gave up the cutting rebuke. The closing paragraph states that—