And yet, strange indeed was the way that I met her. I cannot tell,
whether it was a reward or a punishment for the deeds of a previous
birth. For the joy of it would have been cheap, bought at the price of
a hundred lives: and yet the sorrow is greater than the joy. And it
happened thus. I was roaming through the world, with my lute for my
only companion. For all men know, as thou must also, that I turned my
back upon my hereditary kingdom, and quarrelled with all my relations,
and left them, all for the sake of my lute. For ever since I was a
child, I have cared for absolutely nothing but my lute, and as I
think, I must have been a Gandharwa[8] in the birth before, since the
sound of the tones of its strings, touched by the hand of a master
musician, leads me like an ox that is pulled by a cord, the very
moment I hear it, and I stand still, like one that listens with tears
in his eyes to the memory of the voice of a friend that is dead. Ha!
very wonderful are the influences of a forgotten birth! For I was an
anomaly, behaving not according to my caste, which was that of a
Rajpoot; and not music, but fighting, was my proper work, and my
religion.[9] And it was as if my mother had been caught sleeping in
the moonlight on the terrace of the palace in the hot season by some
king of the Widyádharas passing by, and looking down from the air. For
heavenly beings often fall into such temptations, and even an ascetic
would have found it hard to laugh at the arrows of Manobhawa, coming
in the form of such a feminine fascination as hers, lying still in the
lunar ooze at midnight, with her head pillowed on her arm. And yet,
for all my music, I was the tallest and strongest of all my clan, and
a hunter, when I chose, that could bear fatigue even better than a
Bhíl.
And then at last there came a day when the King my father sent for me.
And when I came, he looked at me with approval, and he said: Thou art
a man at last. And yet they tell me, thou dost nothing all day long
but sit playing thy lute. Canst thou really be my son, or art thou
some musician's brat, foisted into my son's place by some dark
underhand intrigue, when I was looking the other way? For who ever
heard of a Yuwarájá,[10] destined to sit upon the throne when I have
entered the fire, neglecting all his duties for the sake of a lute's
strings? Come now, throw thy lute away, and leave music to the
professionals who have nothing else to do, and apply thyself to
policy, and the things of a king's trade. And I said: What do I care
for a kingdom in comparison with my lute? I will not throw it away,
no, not for a hundred kingdoms. I am a devotee of Rádhá's lover,[11]
and I care nothing for any ráj. Then my father flew into a rage. And
he said: Thou shalt do, not as thou wilt, but as I will. Choose,
between thy wretched lute, and the ráj: and if thou dost not obey, I
will turn thee off, and put thy younger brother in thy place. And I
said: There are kings in abundance everywhere, but those who can
really play on a lute are very few indeed. And I am one. Let who will
be a Yuwarájá: I will choose the lute. And he said, in wrath: Be off!
and play dirges to the memory of thy dead succession, for thou art no
longer heir. And I laughed in his face, and went away, and got on my
horse, and turned my back upon it all, and rode off laughing with my
lute hanging round my neck, counting the kingdom as a straw. And
thereafter, I wandered up and down, from place to place, living as I
pleased, and utterly disregarding the messages that reached me nearly
every day from my mother, who sent me bags of money and entreaties to
return, all in vain. And my story, like my playing, went from mouth
to mouth, and everywhere I went, the people said: Ha! there goes
Shatrunjaya, the mad musician, who cares more for a discord than the
loss of his hereditary ráj! Ha! and if his policy were only equal to
his playing, what a king he would have made! And what a fool he must
be, to care for nothing in the three worlds but a lute's strings!