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will drive him away and kill him; but if he write well, I will adopt him as my son, for I never saw so intelligent and well-mannered an ape; and would God my son had his sense and good breeding!” So I took the pen and dipping it in the inkhorn, wrote in an epistolary hand the following verses:
Time hath recorded the virtues of the great: But thine have remained unchronicled till now.
May God not orphan the human race of thee, For sire and mother of all good deeds art thou.
Then I wrote the following in a running hand:
Thou hast a pen whose use confers good gifts on every clime; Upon all creatures of the world its happy favours fall.
What are the bounties of the Nile to thy munificence, Whose fingers five extend to shower thy benefits on all?
And in an engrossing hand the following:
There is no writer but he shall pass away: Yet what he writes shall last for ever and aye.
Write, therefore, nought but that which shall gladden thee, When as it meets thine eye on the Judgment Day.
And in a transcribing hand the following:
When separation is to us by destiny decreed And ’gainst the cruel chance of Fate our efforts are in vain,
Unto the inkhorn’s mouth we fly that, by the tongues of pens, Of parting and its bitterness it may for us complain.
And in a large formal hand the following:
The regal state endureth not to any mortal man. If thou deny this, where is he who first on earth held sway?
Plant therefore saplings of good deeds, whilst that thou yet art great Though thou be ousted from thy stead, they shall not pass away.
And in a court hand the following:
When thou the inkhorn op’st of power and lordship over men, Make thou thine ink of noble thoughts and generous purpose; then
Write gracious deeds and good therewith, whilst that thy power endures. So shall thy virtues blazoned be at point of sword and pen.
