The Book of Akbar 316.2

316.2

Now that the ruler of the age (Humāyūn) had hastened along the highway to the world of permanence, and the Cycle-lord of the Earth (Akbar) had by means of sundry veils of seclusion rescued himself from the contentions and the disturbed hearts both of ascetics and of worldlings, the blood of this crapulous debauchee and conner of obsolete almanacs was made worse than ever by evil thoughts. Black bile and melancholia augmented the brain-trouble and swelled the materials of phrensy. He was drunk, and a mad dog bit him; mad, and a scorpion stung him! Moreover, some old servants of the world, who from an evil nature looked to nothing but their own interest, nay, rather who thought of nothing but their own spite, and did not in their folly and blindness distinguish right from wrong, were the means of adding to his delusions, and were ever pouring the drug of inconsideration into the wine of his arrogance. At this juncture, Bairam Khan Khan-khanan, who had taken into his skilful hands the bridle of the administration of the empire, and was putting order into distracted affairs, performed, as his first service after H.M. the Shahinshah’s accession, the work of chaining up this drunken madman.