I
As the black cobra sits up, and puffs his hood, and hisses, giving
warning to his prey, ere he strikes: so I, Shatrunjaya[6] the
lute-player, son of a king, do send this my menace to thee, Narasinha,
the lover of a queen too good for so vile a thing as thou art: that
none hereafter may be able to say, I struck thee unwarned, or took
thee unawares. Know, that night doth not more surely or more swiftly
follow day, than I and my vengeance will follow on the messenger who
carries this threat: whom I have bidden to reach thee with his utmost
speed, so as to allay my thirst for thy life; since every day that I
wait seems to me longer than a _yuga_. And I will slay thee with no
other weapon than my two bare hands--
And suddenly, the great god stopped, and he laughed aloud. And he
exclaimed: See now, how this poor lute-player deceived himself! For
his message not only never reached his enemy at all, but almost as
soon as it had left him, he was himself slain by the emissaries of the
very man he meant to kill, who never sent him any warning at all, but
took him unawares, and slew him, escaping by anticipation the fate
that was in store for himself, without even knowing anything of all
that this letter would have taught him, and so far from dying, living
to a very great age. And this instance shows, that the most dangerous
of enemies is the one that never threatens till he actually strikes,
resembling not the cobra, but the adder, as Shatrunjaya discovered to
his cost, too late.[7]
And the Daughter of the Snow exclaimed, in wrath: Why hast thou
stopped, to tell me the end of the story, before even reaching the
beginning?
And Maheshwara said: Aha! Snowy One, thou art not yet, as it seems,
asleep. Many are the beginnings that never reach an end: but it will
do this story no harm at all, to begin with the end, since all the
essence of it lies in the middle, and as thou wilt find, it ends in
the middle, and yet never ends, even when it is done.
What I have told thee does not matter in the least; what matters is
the Queen, for she was the most extraordinary of all women, past,
present, or to come.
And Párwatí said: Let the letter speak for itself: and if thou hast
anything to say, keep it for the end. For nothing is more unendurable
than a commentary upon a text which is unknown.