The superlative, so distasteful in the temper ate region, has vivacity in the Eastern speech. A tax-gatherer, says Saadi, fell into a place so dangerous, that from fear, a male lion would become a female. In his compliments to the Shah, he says: The incurvated back of the sky became straight with joy at thy birth. Of dunces he says, with a double\ superlative' If the ass of Christ should go to Mecca, it would come back an ass still. It is a saying from I know not what poet: If the elegant verses of Dhoair Fariabi fall into thy hands, fail not to steal them, though it were in the sacred temple of Mecca itself. But the wild ness of license appears in poetical praises of the Sultan: When his bow moves, it is already the last day (for his enemies): whom his onset singles out, to him is life not appointed; and the ghost of the Holy Ghost were not sure of its time.