Muntakhab al-tawarikh 292: LXXX. TALIB OF ISPAHAN.

292

He has now dwelt in Kashmir for nearly eight years. At first he was a religious mendicant and then he elected to become an official, and entered the emperor’s service. From Kashmir he was sent as envoy to the ruler of Little Tibat, ‘Ali Rai, and on his return presented to Shaikh Abu-’l-Fazl a treatise which he had written on the wonders of that land, which Abu-’l-Fazl embodied in the Akbarnama. He is a very sympathetic man, and his taste, both in poetry and in prose, is correct. He wrote the following quatrain:—
“Thou givest me to drink of the poison of thy absence, asking me what has happened, Thou sheddest my blood and shakest me from thee, asking me what has happened, O thou who art ignorant of what the sword of thy absence inflicts on me, Wring my dust, that thou mayst know what has happened to me.”