when thou hadst six parts, Kamran had five ; this having been constant, make no change."
" Again : Live well with thy younger brother. Elders must bear the burden !' I have the hope that thou, for thy part, wilt keep on good terms with him ; he, who has grown up an active and excellent youth, should not fail, for his part, in loyal duty to thee." 2
" Again : Words from thee are somewhat few ; no person has come from thee for two or three years past; the man I sent to thee (Beg Muhammad tdalluqchi) came back in something over a year ; is this not so ? "
"Again : As for the "retirement", "retirement", spoken of in thy letters, retirement is a fault for sovereignty; as the honoured (Sa'di) says : 3
(Persian) If thy foot be fettered, choose to be resigned ; If thou ride alone, take thou thine own head.
No bondage equals that of sovereignty ; retirement matches not with rule."
" Again : Thou hast written-me a letter, as I ordered thee to do ; but why not have read it over ? If thou hadst thought of reading it, thou couldst not have done it, and, unable thyself to read it, wouldst certainly have made alteration in it. Though by taking trouble it can be read, it is very puzzling, and who ever saw an enigma in prose ? 4 Thy spelling, though not bad, is not quite correct ; thou writest iltafat with ta {iltafdt) and qulinj with yd (qi/inj?).s Although thy letter can be read if every sort
1 Auliighlar kutarimlik kirak ; 2nd Pers. trs. buzurgan bardasht mi baid kardand. This dictum may be a~quotation. I have translated it to agree with Babur's reference to the ages of the brothers, but auliighlar expresses greatness of position as well as seniority in age, and the dictum may be taken as a Turk! version of "Noblesse oblige ", and may also mean " The great must be magnanimous". (Cf. de C.'s Diet. s.n. kutarimlik.) [It may be said of the verb barddshlan used in the Pers. trs., that Abu'1-fazl, perhaps translating kutarimlik reported to him, puts it into Babur's mouth when, after praying to take Humayun's illness upon himself, he cried with conviction, "I have borne it away" (A.N. trs. H.B. i, 276).]
3 If Babur had foreseen that his hard-won rule in Hindustan was to be given to the winds of one son's frivolities and the other's disloyalty, his words of scant content with what the Hindustan of his desires had brought him, would have expressed a yet keener pain (Rampur Diivan E. D. R. 's ed. p. 15 1.5 fr. ft.). <
3 Bostan, cap. Advice of Noshirwan to Hurmuz (H.B.)
4 A little joke at the expense of the mystifying letter.
s For ya, Mr. Erskine writes be. What the mistake was is an open question; I have guessed an exchange of i for it, because such an exchange is not infrequent amongst Turk! long vowels.
