A History of Agriculture in India v2.c55.s2.8

v2.c55.s2.8

'One day, some little time after this circumstance, Ahmad bin Hasan Maimandi was out hunting with the Sultan, and having come close to him, he repeated several verses out of the *Shah-nama*, which were exceedingly applauded by the Sultan, who asked whose poetry it was. He answered that the verses were the produce of the genius of Firdausi. The Sultan repented of his neglect of that incomparable poet, and ordered them to take 60,000 dinars with rich robes of honour to Tus, and to ask Firdausi's pardon. In the *Baharistan* it is written that when those presents came in at one gate of Tus, the coffin of Firdausi was carried out at the other. An only daughter was his heiress, to whom the emissaries of the Sultan offered those honourable presents; but she, from the pride inherent in her disposition, refused them and said, 'I have enough wealth to last me to the end of my days; I have no need of this money.'²