The Book of Akbar 306.6

306.6

The fumes of the banquet’s far-reaching scents Mado heaven like a ball of musk. The palace-grandees rose up. They dressed a throne in bridal fashion For now would the virgin of empire Be wed to the Shah, the Prince Fortunatus; Two worlds were conjoined; And made fast by an eternal bond, Time thus sang strain upon strain, “O Fortune! dally with dominion’s throne. A king seats himself thereon From whom the throne shall gain fixity He sitteth in the royal seat With whom Fortune will take shelter. At that place, in a felicitous hour (darsā‘at faiz ashā‘at), to wit, near noon of Friday, which was according to visibility the second of Rabī’-aṣ-ṣānī 963 of the lunar year (14th February, 1556), but by calculation, the middle of the third (15th February), 10 Isfandarmaz of the Jalālī year 477, 15 Tīr of the Yazdajirdī year 925, 14 Shabāt of the Rūmī (Syro-Macedonian), year 1867, that glory of his lofty lineage put on his person a golden robe, and on his head a dark (mushkīn) tiara, and sate with good auspices and prestige on the dais of sovereignty and the throne of the Caliphate. Congratulatory shouts arose from the six sides of the world, and the heaven-resembling pulpit was exalted by the proclamation (khuṭba) of fortune, and the stairs of exaltation were made venerable by praises and sublimities.