The Nāṣirī Generations 152.3.8

152.3.8

Trustworthy persons have related that, when Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din forswore wine, and devoted himself to rectitude and goodness, at the period that Sultan Shah, Khwarazm Shah brought the forces of Khita against Khurasan, and made Marw his capital, the latter began to harry the border-tracts of the territory of Ghur, and brought his troops to the Dahanah-i-Sher—the Lion's Jaws—[Pass] of Sarakhs, and despatched an emissary to the presence of the Sultan, Ghiyas-ud-Din, and preferred certain requests of his own to him. The Sultan commanded that an entertainment should be prepared to do honour to the envoy, and a gay party was brought together. Wine was circulated among the Maliks and Amirs of Ghur, and the envoy was treated with great honour; and he was plied with wine, in order that, when in a state of inebriety, the disposition of Sultan Shah might be discovered from his emissary. For the Sultan’s own drinking, sweet pomegranate juice was poured into a flask, and, when it came to the Sultan’s turn to pledge, they would fill his goblet with that pomegranate juice, and would present it to him. When the envoy of Sultan Shah became excited from the effects of the wine, he rose to his knees, and requested a minstrel to sing the following quatrain, which he accordingly did:—