The novel “Navoiy”: second passage and the work as a whole

Husayn Boyqaro retreats and lives gloomily in Maymana. Navoiy advises him on a plan to retake Herat by surprise and stresses keeping it secret. On the way the sultan visits the dervish Bobo Xokiy in his cave; the dervish hands him a spear and thrusts it toward Herat. At night the army enters the city and catches Mirzo Yodgor asleep: the enemy puts up no resistance. When the soldiers hesitate to climb the hill to the pavilion where Yodgor sleeps, Navoiy asks leave and goes up by another path, holding his sword like a walking stick; with his servant Boboali he enters the pavilion and seizes Yodgor. The sultan then appoints Navoiy keeper of the seal and then amir; at the first sealing the poet places his seal so that no amir can place his lower. At Navoiy’s gathering the Persian-favouring Mavlono Shahobiddin and Binoiy belittle Turkic poetry; Navoiy, without denying the worth of Persian, warmly defends writing in his people’s own language. At the end he offers the young scholar Sultonmurod a teaching post in a madrasa and says knowledge must not be sold, then receives petitioners and helps a peasant who lost his horse.