Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, though I hear but little of
your stories, for the beauty of my beloved holds me spellbound and
stops my ears, yet methinks her intelligence must be more than human,
for as yet even you have not succeeded in posing it. And now eleven of
my days are gone, and only ten remain. Never will I forgive you if I
lose her. For day by day her looks grow kinder, and the moment of
separation more appalling, and the efficacy of the portrait less potent
to soothe me in her absence, so that it is doubtful whether I can live
till to-morrow. And the King passed the night in a state of sickness
gazing at the portrait. And when the sun rose, he rose also, and
passed the day with difficulty, aided by Rasakósha and the garden.
Then when the sun set, they went again to the hall of audience. And
there they saw the Princess, clad in a robe of rose colour, and a
bodice studded with ox-eyes[1], and her crown and other ornaments,
sitting on her throne. And she leaned eagerly forward to see the King
come in, and he sank upon a couch, speechless and fascinated, under the
spell of her beauty. Then Rasakósha came forward and stood before her,
and began again:
Lady, there was once a lordly elephant, the leader of a forest herd.
And he rushed through the forest, like a thunderbolt of Indra, and the
rain of ichor poured down from his mighty temples in streams, as he
broke down the bushes and young trees in his charge. And then, having
sported to his heart's content, he marched slowly through the glades
like a mountain, with his herd behind him. And coming to an ant-hill,
he drove his tusks into it, and cast up the earth. And then going
onward, he stood at rest in a little pool, and drenched his sides with
clear water collected in his trunk: and running his tusks into a bank,
he stood leaning against a lord of the forest[2], swaying gently to and
fro, with his eyes shut, and his basket-ears cocked, and his trunk
hanging down. And the ivory of his tusks showed against his great
dark-blue body like a double row of white swans against a thunder-cloud.
But meanwhile, the ants were thrown into confusion by his destruction
of their hill, which killed many thousands of them. And they said:
What! are we to die for the wanton sport of this rogue of an elephant?
So they determined to send a deputation to the elephant, to demand
reparation. And they chose seven of the wisest among them, So the
ambassadors went and crawled in a row up the bole of the great tree
against which the king of the elephants was leaning, till they reached
the level of his ear. Then they delivered their message, saying: O
king of the elephants, the ants have sent us to demand reparation from
you for causing the death of great numbers of their caste. If not,
there is no resource but war. But when the elephant heard this, he
looked sideways out of the corner of his eye, and saw the row of ants
upon the trunk of the tree. And he said to himself: This is a pleasant
thing. What can these contemptible little ants do to us elephants?
And taking water in his trunk, he discharged it with a blast against
them, and destroyed them.
But when the ants saw the destruction of their ambassadors, they were
enraged. And waiting till night, they crept out of the ground in
innumerable myriads while the elephants were asleep, and gnawed the
skin of their toes and the soles of their feet, old and young[3]. Then
when in the morning the elephants began to move, they found their feet
so sore as to be almost useless. So trumpeting with rage and pain they
rushed about the forest destroying the ant-hills. But they could not
reach the ants, who crept into the earth, while the more they ran about
the worse grew their feet. So finding all their efforts useless, they
desisted: and fearing for the future, they resolved to conclude peace
with the ants. But not being able to find any, they sent a mouse, who
went underground, and carried their message to the ants. But the ants
replied: We will make no peace with the elephants, unless they deliver
up their king to be punished for slaying our ambassadors. So the mouse
went back to the elephants, and told them. And seeing that there was
no help for it, they submitted.
Then the king of the elephants came alone into the forest, with
drooping ears, to deliver himself up to the ants. And the ants said to
the Shami[4] creeper: Bind this evil-doer, or we will gnaw your roots
and destroy you. So the creeper threw its arms round the elephant, and
bound him so tightly that he could not stir. And then the ants crawled
out in myriads and buried him in earth, till he resembled a mountain.
And the worms devoured his flesh, and nothing but his bones and his
tusks remained. So the ants remained unmolested in the forest, and the
elephants chose another king.
So now tell me, Princess, what is the moral[5] of this story? And
Rasakósha ceased. Then the Princess pondered awhile and said: Even
united, the weak are not always stronger than the strong. For an
elephant is still an elephant, and an ant but an ant. But the strength
of the strong is to be estimated by their weakness[6]. For if the
elephants had known this, and protected their feet, they might have
laughed at all that the ants could do to them, and even a single
elephant would have been more than a match for all the ants in the
world.
And when the Princess had said this, she rose up and went out slowly,
looking sorrowfully at the King, whose heart went with her. But the
King and Rasakósha returned to their own apartments.
[1] It is not clear what _goméda_ means.
[2] _i.e._ a tall tree. Our idiom is the same.
[3] The author probably knew that the elephant's feet are very apt to
go wrong and cause trouble: but whether 'white ants' or any other ants
could produce the disease is a point for the natural historian to
determine.
[4] Famous in poetry for its extraordinary toughness.
[5] Literally, what is the error of policy (_nítídósha_) in the story.
[6] _i.e._ 'a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.' The
Princess's answer is exceedingly clever: and there are few who would
not have given the obvious answer which she rejects.