Storia do Mogor 63.3.2

63.3.2

What I have mentioned about animals may equally be said about men. For to have the repute of valour, it suffices that a noble praise a man ; and to be scouted, even if a valiant soldier, it is enough for a great man to say a little word in dispraise. It is the same thing also about women. A woman may be really foul and fetid, but a great man need only say a word in her favour, and she becomes a Venus descended upon earth ; while a woman may be really lovely, and if a noble for his own ends runs her down, all who are there make her out to be so repulsive that never in the world was seen such a coarse creature. This will be enough to put the reader in possession of the extent to which the Moguls are flatterers, each one working for his own ends in every matter. Although this king was of a kind disposition, seeking methods, as I will tell hereafter, of doing good to all except the Mahomedans, there was, in spite of this, a Rajput prince, master of twenty-five thousand horse, who considered himself aggrieved because the king would not give him what he asked. One day he had the temerity to come with his cavalry to the city of Lahor, beating his drums, a thing that no one may do except the king, and posted his army on the bank of the river at a little distance from the royal palace.