The Book of Akbar 212.2

212.2

His Majesty Jahanbani first proceeded to view Tabriz, and when he came near it the governors and grandees came out to welcome him at a dam which Mirza Miran Shah had constructed on the stream which comes to Tabriz from the slope of the Sahand. In accordance with the Shah’s orders the governor put the city in fete, and decked her for his Majesty’s enlightened gaze, and himself performed the rites of hospitality. The games of hockey and wolf running for which Tabriz was famous, but which had been interdieted on account of riots, were revived by the Shah's orders for his Majesty's delectation. His Majesty visited the splendid buildings, the memorials of ancient kings—and the pleasure-parks of the city. Fresh illustrations were thereby brought to his mind of the bypast (guzashtagān) monuments of the earth, of the revolutions (sargashtagān), of the mansions of the skies, of the passing away (guzashtagī) of the inconstant universe, and of the breaches (gusistagīhā) of the unstable earth, and they brought to his lips truthful words about compassing the favour of the Creator. He became wrapt in some old verses, and in ecstacy he recited aloud this quatrain:— Quatrain. Alas that substance hath slipped from the palm. And that many hearts (lit. livers) have bled at death's hand; None cometh from that (other) world that I might inquire How it fared with the travellers thereto.