[156] Núshírván, surnamed ’Adil, or the Just (the Chosroes of the Greeks), was of the Sassanian dynasty of ancient Persian kings, and died, after a very prosperous reign of 48 years, A.D. 579. Muhammed was wont to boast of his good fortune in having been born during the reign of so wise and just a prince. His dying injunctions to his son and successor, Hormuz, are thus recorded by Sa’dí (Bustán, B. i): “Be thou in heart the guardian of the poor. Be not in bondage to thine own ease. No one will live in comfort in thy kingdom if thou desirest only thine own comfort and sayest, ‘It is enough.’ He will receive no praise from the wise who passeth his nights in sleep whilst the wolf is amidst his flock. Keep watch over the necessitous poor; for the peasant it is from which the king deriveth his throne. The king is the tree, the peasant the root: the tree, O my son, deriveth its strength from the root.”
[157] Garcin de Tassy omits this curious story, and another which immediately follows in the original text, related by the vazír, of the Darvesh and the Nightingale, which I also omit here, as a much better version will be found among the Persian Stories which follow the present romance.
[158] “Beautiful kingdom.”
[159] In other words: “Succeed in this affair without compromising my dignity; according to the proverb, ‘Take care while shunning one evil of falling into another.’”—See Roebuck’s Persian and Hindústaní Proverbs, part ii, p. 118.
[160] The canopy of a howdah, or chair for riding on an elephant, called hauda-amári—canopied howdah.
[162] This recalls an incident in the Indian story of the virtuous Devasmitá, who entraps four suitors, during her husband’s absence on a trading journey, who visit her in succession, and, while they are insensible from the effects of a narcotic mixed with their wine, causes each to be branded on the forehead with a hot iron. The suitors return to their own country, where the lady’s husband is residing for a time, and Devasmitá soon after sets out thither, disguised as a man, where she claims all four as her slaves in presence of the king, causing them to remove their head-gear and expose the brands; and she “lets them off” on payment of a large sum of money.—(Tawney’s translation of the Kathá Sarit Ságara: Ocean of the Streams of Story, vol. i, pp. 85-92.)—Henceforward the four rascally brothers of Táj ul-Mulúk are, as the Icelandic story-tellers say, “out of this tale.”
[163] “Jasmine-face.”
[164] Shírín was the beautiful wife of Khusrau Parvíz, king of Persia, and Farhád, a famous sculptor, was madly enamoured of her. All the sculptures on the mountain of Bistán are ascribed to Farhád’s chisel. According to the popular tradition, King Parvíz promised that if he cut through the rock and brought a stream that flowed on the other side of the hill into the valley the lovely Shírín should be his reward. He was on the point of completing his Herculean labour when Khusrau Parvíz, fearing to lose Shírín, sent an old woman to inform him that she was dead. Farhád was then at the highest parts of the rocks, and on hearing this false report in despair threw himself down headlong, and was dashed to pieces.—The story of Farhád and Shírín is the subject of several beautiful (often, if not always, mystical) Persian and Turkish poems.
[165] G. de Tassy remarks that “a declaration of love on the part of a woman, and especially one so passionate, is not according to our manners, but it is so to those of the East; and the numerous Asiatic stories which have been translated into European languages have rendered it quite familiar to us.”—A very remarkable example is furnished in the immortal tale of Nala and Damayanti (Mahábhárata, section lvi of the “Vana Parva”), where the virtuous and beautiful daughter of Vidharba thus addresses Nala: “O King, love me with proper regard, and command me what I shall do for thee. Myself and what of wealth is mine are thine. Grant me, O exalted one, thy love in full trust. O giver of the proper honour, if thou forsake me who adore thee, for thy sake will I resort to poison, or fire, or water, or the rope!” Bakáwalí “spared her maiden blushes” (if she could blush) by expressing her love for our hero in writing; but Damayanti—all truth and innocence—made her avowal to the god-like king of the Nishadhas in words from her own sweet mouth: and who would not be enraptured to hear such a soft confession made to him by such a peerless Queen of Beauty?