There were a King and a Queen of a single city. The two one day
went for sport in the gardens. Then, sitting on a branch there was
a little bird.
At that time the Queen asked the King, "Is that little bird which is
there the male or the female?" The King said, "The male."
Then the Queen, having said, "It is not male; it is female," made a
wager. What was the wager, indeed? "Let us catch it and look. Should
it be the cock I will not stay with you; I will go away somewhere
or other. Should it be the hen you must give me the sovereignty,"
she said. Thereupon the King said, "It is good."
Having caught the bird they looked; when they looked the animal was
the male.
Then the Queen said, "I am going now," and she set off.
The King said, "We said it for fun, didn't we? Are you going in that
way for that little matter?"
The Queen would not [stay], "I must really go," she said.
Thereupon the King having said, "Are you going for that? We made
monkey fun. [245] Owing to it where are you to go?" said much in
the way of advice. Without hearkening to it the Queen went. What was
[the real reason of] it? [It was] because the royal talk was Large.
When the Queen was going, the [completion of the] ten months of
her pregnancy was near; as she was going in a forest she bore a
child. Carrying the infant, as she was going along a path there was
a river in which the water had dried up. While she was going along
the river the Prince began to cry. For the sake of stopping the
crying she picked up a stone which was on the ground in the river;
and having said, "Look here, son," she stopped the crying, and taking
that little stone [with her] came to another city.
Having come [there] and walked to all places, and looked about,
and come to a house in which was a widow woman, she asked, "Mother,
keeping this Prince for me, will you give me a little space to stay
in, until the time when the Prince becomes big?"
Thereupon the old woman said, "It is good, daughter. I also am alone;
because of it remain here."
The Queen, having said, "It is good," lived there, pounding paddy [at
houses] throughout the streets; and up to the time when the Prince
became big stayed there getting a living. By that time, seven years
of the Prince's age had passed.
While remaining [there] in this manner, one day the Prince said,
"Mother, I am hungry," and cried. When he was crying, the stone which
his mother had brought that day from the river in order to stop the
Prince's [crying], had been thrown away into the open ground in front
of the house (midula).
This woman, having shown him the stone, said falsely, "Look there. Take
that stone which is there, and having given it at the bazaar, and
eaten rice cakes, come back."
Then the Prince, having gone running, taking that stone, begged
throughout the whole of the bazaar, "Ane! Take this stone and give
me rice cakes."
The men said to that Prince, "Who gives rice cakes for quartz stones,
Bola?" and scolded him at each place to which he went.
After that, the Prince, having asked at every place without [obtaining
any cakes], went to the King's palace also, at the time when the King
was walking at the Audience Hall, and said, "Ane! Take this stone,
and give me rice cakes; I am hungry."
Thereupon the King, having heard the sweet speech of this young Prince,
becoming pleased, said, "Where, Bola, is the stone? Bring it here
for me to look at it."
The Prince took the stone, and gave it into the King's hand. The
King taking the stone in his hand, when he looked at it, it was
a gem-stone. Then the King asked, "Bola, whence [came] this stone
to thee?"
"This stone was in the open ground at the front of the house. Mother
said to me, 'Take it, and having eaten rice cakes, come back.'"
Then the King said, "I will give thee rice cakes. Go and tell thy
mother to come."
The Prince having gone running home, said, "Mother, a man said that
you are to come, [so that he may] give rice cakes to me. The man,
taking the stone, too, put it away."