ABSTRACT
It is related, O auspicious King, that Sultān Mahmūd, who was one of the wisest and most glorious of the Egyptian rulers, used often to sit alone in his palace, weighed down by a causeless sadness and beholding the world black before his eyes. At these times life was tasteless to him and without significance; yes, even though Allāh had given him, without stint, health and youth, power and glory, and, for his capital, the most delicious city of the earth, where his eyes might ever be rejoiced by flowers, serene skies, and women gilded like the waters of the Nile. These gifts were forgotten during the hours of royal sadness, and Mahmūd envied the lot of drudges bent over the furrow, and travellers lost in the waterless desert.
