Upon which Mirza Ahmak made a low prostration, and said, 'Whatever the monarch permits his slave to possess is the monarch's. The hour will be fortunate, and Mirza Ahmak's head will reach the skies, when the propitious step of the King of Kings shall pass the threshold of his unworthy anderûn.'
'We shall see with our own eyes,' rejoined the king; 'a look from the king brings good luck. Go, give notice to your harem that the Shah will visit it; and if there be any one sick, any one whose desires are unaccomplished, any maiden who sighs for her lover, or any wife who wishes to get rid of her husband, let them come forward, let them look at the king, and good fortune will attend them.'
Upon this the poet, who had hitherto remained silent, his mind apparently absorbed in thought, exclaimed, 'Whatever the king hath ordained is only an additional proof of his beneficence and condescension'; and then in very good verse he sung—
The firmament possesses but one sun, and the land of Irâk but one king.
Life, light, joy, and prosperity attend them both wherever they appear.
The doctor may boast of his medicine; but what medicine is equal to a glance from the king's eye?
What is spikenard? what mumiai? what pahzer?[57] compared even to the twinkle of a royal eyelash!
Oh! Mirza Ahmak, happiest of men, and most blessed of doctors!
Now, indeed, you possess within your walls an antidote to every disorder, a specific against every evil.
Shut up your Galen, burn your Hippocrates, and put Avicenna in a corner: the father of them all is here in person.