Untitled

AZRAQI'S HAPPY IMPROVISATION ,
'49
Ahmad Badi'hi two pieces in the first house 1 and it tvas the
;
Amir's throw. He threw with the most deliberate care, in order
to"cast two sixes, instead of which he threw two ones, whereat
he was mightily vexed and lost his temper (for which, indeed, h?
had good cause), while his anger rose sp high and reached such
a pitch that each moment he was putting his hand to his sword,
while his courtiers tremDled like the leaves of a tree, seeing that
he was a King, and withal a boy angered at such spite of Fortune.
Then Abu Bakr Azraqi arose, and, approaching the minstrels,
recited this :
quatrain ,
JU. ti O
" Reproach not Fortune with discourteous tricks,
If by the King, desiring double six,
Two ones were thrownj for whomsoever he calls
Face to the earth before him prostrate falls"
When I was at Herat in the year A.H. 509 (A.D. 1115-1116),
Abu Mansur the son of Abu Yusuf related to me that the Amir
Tughanshah was so charmed and delighted with these two verses
that he kissed Azraqi on the eyes, called for gold, and successively
placed five hundred dinars in his mouth, continuing thus
to reward him so long as one gold piece was left. Thus did he
recover his good humour and such largesse did he bestow, and
the cause of all this was one quatrain. May God Almighty have
rriercy on both of *
them, by His Favour and Grace !
ANECDOTE XVIII.
'In the year A.H. 472 (A.D. lO/g-ioSo) 2 a certain spiteful person
laid a statement before Sultan Ibrahim to the effect that his son,
Amir Mahmud Sayfu'd-Dawla, intended to go to 'Iraq to wait on
Malikshah. The King's jealousy was aroused, and it so worked
on him tha't suddenly he had his son seized, bound, and interned
1 For the explanation of thfs passage I am indebted to my friend Mirza 'Abdu'l-
Ghaffar of the Persian Legation. The six " houses" on each side of the backgammon
board are named (proceeding from left to right) as follows : (i) khdl-khdn or yak-gdh,
(2) du-khan, (3) si-khdn, (4) chahdr-khdn, (5) haf-dar^ (6) shish-khdn or shish-dargdh.
Trfe numbers contained in these names allude to the numbers which must be
thrown with the.dice to get the pieces which occupy them off the board.
2
'Phe MSS. and L. all have "572," an evident error, for (i) Sultan Ibrahim the
Ghaznawj weigned A.H. 451-492 (A.D. 1059-1099); (2) Malikshah reigned A.H. 4^5-
1121 or
485 (A.D. 1072-4052) ; (3) the poet in question died in A.H. 515 or 525 (A.D.
'i 130) f (4) the Chahdr Maqdla, as we have already seen, was written during the lifetime
of Sultdn 'Ala'u'd-Din Husaynya^z-.r^z, i.e. before A.H. 556 (A.D. 1161).
B. 4
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