Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s4.80

v1.c20.s4.80

The Last Days of Rāna Partāp.—A premature decay assailed the pride of Rajasthan ; a mind diseased preyed on an exhausted frame, and prostrated him in the very summer of his days. The last moments of Partap were an appropriate commentary on his life, which he terminated, like the Carthaginian, swearing his successor to eternal conflict against the foes of his country’s independence. But the Rajput prince had not the same joyful assurance that inspired the Numidian Hamilcar ; for his end was clouded with the presentiment that his son Amra would abandon his fame for inglorious repose. A powerful sympathy is excited by the picture which is drawn of this final scene. The dying hero is represented in a lowly dwelling ; his chiefs, the faithful companions of many a glorious day, awaiting round his pallet the dissolution of their prince, when a groan of mental anguish made Salumbar inquire [349], “ What afflicted his soul that it would not depart in peace ?” He rallied : “ It lingered,” he said, “ for some consolatory pledge that his country should not be abandoned to the Turk ”; and with the death-pang upon him, he related an incident which had guided his estimate of his son’s disposition, and now tortured him with the reflection that for personal ease he would forgo the remembrance of his own and his country’s wrongs.