The imperial Mogul women were indeed the jewels of the world, because the beauties of Asia were chosen to be their mothers. The net of the Emperors swept wide, and I, who in virtue of my age and faithful service have seen, testify that there was none like them, and the loveliest of all was fit but to serve my Princess kneeling. Shall not the truth be told? Of the soul within that delicious shrine her deeds must tell.
Now as I have written she sat with Imami by the little lake, and I in a marble recess by one of the great latticed windows that looks down on Jumna river and on the other side over the city of Shahjahanabad, new and luminous in magnificence. In all the world else are no such palace and city. At this moment she read aloud a letter from her father Aurungzib concerning the memoirs of her ancestor the Emperor Babar who founded their dynasty in India, a book written by his own hand and religiously preserved in the Mogul archives, and she read it with anger because when she demanded this book from the librarian, the Padshah hearing wrote thus:
“Happy Daughter of Sovereignty. There is one manner of life for men, who are the rulers, and for women, who are the slaves. It seems you go too far. What has a daughter of our House to do with our ancestor Zah-r-ud-din Muhammed Babar, the resident in Paradise? I have granted much already. Plant not the herb of regret in the garden of affection. He writes as a man for men. The request is refused. Recall the verse of the poet:
“ ‘Ride slowly and humbly, and not in hurrying pride
For o’er the dusty bones of men, the creature of dust must ride.’
“What an Emperor writes is not suitable for the Princesses of his House. His duty is rule; theirs, obedience.”
It was a discouragement but a command, and another had laid the finger of obedience on the lips of silence, but, taking counsel with her heart, this Princess did not so.
She called to me for her pen and wrote in answer:
“Exalted Emperor, Shahinshah, Shadow of God, King of the world, Refuge of the needy, father of the body of this creature of mortality, be pleased to hear this ignorant one’s supplication. Surely you have fed my mind on the bee’s-bread of wisdom, and from your own royal lips have I learnt that the words of our ancestor (upon whom be the Peace!) are full of flavour and laughter, generous and kind, shining with honour and the valour of our family. Now, since this is the root whence sprang your auspicious Majesty’s rule, should not a humble daughter triumph in it? True is it that I am your female slave, yet may this worthless body bear one day a son to transmit your likeness to the prostrate ages, and since we do not breed lions from lambs, his mother should carry the laughter and fire of her race like a jewel in the mine of her soul. I make my petition to the Padshah, the holiest of Emperors.”
“It will be granted me,” said the Princess reading these letters aloud to Imami and to me, “because of that last word—the holiest. He values that title more than to be called the Shahinshah. And with all my heart I would it were otherwise.”