Page:Aurangzíb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire.djvu/23

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'Oh! had he still that Character maintain'd Of Valour, which in blooming Youth he gain'd, He promised in his East a glorious Race; Now, sunk from his Meridian, sets apace. But as the Sun, when he from Noon declines, And with abated heat less fiercely shines, Seems to grow milder as he goes away, Pleasing himself with the remains of Day: So he who, in his Youth, for Glory strove, Would recompense his age with Ease and Love .'

The burden of state interfered with his enjoyment, and he sought to devolve his power upon his four sons, to each of whom he gave the viceroyalty of one of his distant provinces, in the hope of stilling their never-ending jealousies, and removing them from opportunities for unfilial ambition. The sceptre was falling from his hand, and he sought to secure peace for his old age by breaking it into pieces. The mistake soon became apparent. The fragments of the sceptre, like the rods of the Egyptian sorcerers, turned into so many serpents, which hissed about his throne, and strangled the remnant of his power, till the rod of Aurangzíb swallowed up the rest, and with them the Peacock Throne.

It was the tradition of Mughal monarchy that the dying eyes of the father should witness the rebellion of the son. Akbar had forgiven his undutiful heir Jahángír on his death-bed. Sháh-Jahán was himself in revolt when his parent died. It was now his turn to suffer the like fate. In 1657 he was afflicted with a malady which, in the words of Bernier, the ever