Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.35.3

78.35.3

Things came to such a pass that the living were unable to bury the dead, and threw them head-foremost into the river. Every hour, and every minute, news came to the ear of the Khan Khanan of the death of Amirs, and yet, for all that, he did not himself become infected. And, on account of the arrogance of his disposition, no one had the power to remove the cotton-wool of ignorance from his ears, and make him leave the place: — “If I give advice to my heart in love, it is taken ill. I will leave it in her street to hit its head against the wall.” After a time the constitution of the Khan Khanan, Mun‘im Khan, began to deviate from its usual course of equilibrium, and, at over eighty years of age, after completing the first ten days of the month Rajab of the year nine hundred and eighty-three (983) he rendered his account to the Guardian of Paradise, or to the Guardian of Hell (God knows!); and all that rank and glory, and that grandeur and perfection became a mere dream and fantasy: — “Since thou canst not place any confidence in thy life, What matters it whether it be one, or one hundred years? Since there is no perpetuity in life, What matters power, or servitude?” Since he had no heirs, the officials seized all that wealth and gains (which had taken so many years to accumulate) for the imperial treasury, ‘Announce to the wealth of a miser reverse of fortune, or an heir’: — “How well has a clever speaker said, Gold attracts gold, and treasure treasure!”