Muntakhab al-tawarikh 22.4.1

22.4.1

The ant of thy generous table O Salih showed him (Shihab) that path of rectitude.
O Lord! grant him protection in crossing that hair-like bridge over the fire.
On the point of each hair of his you have a hundred favours, for this reason that the heart of an ant is not vexed by him so much as a hair's breadth in this world.
Oh Lord! keep a watch upon the enemy of the king's dominions, for this is best, that he should be as a hair in the fire and as an ant in the running water.
And he also wrote in praise of Sultan Ruknu-d-Din Firoz, imposing upon himself the necessity of introducing four things, as follows:—
Every moment this old wolf lion-hearted infant-eating
Does with me that which the elephant and rhinoceros do at the time of contest.
The elephant-like sky wears away my body as does the rhinoceros.
The time like a lion takes away my patience like a wolf.
I have not the strength of the rhinoceros, and the sky is like a fierce elephant towards me.
It displays the boldness of a lion like the old wolf of the time.
The elephant did not so treat the rhinoceros, nor did the wolf so treat the sheep
As the lion-like heaven treated this being who is thin as hair from oppression.
The Lion of the sky has the craft of the wolf and the strength of the rhinoceros.
For this cause he heaps pain continually on my heart like the load of an elephant.
A maddened elephant in this wolf-haired rhinoceros. Even if mankind are like male lions still sooner or later he effects their ruin.