Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, this day also is lost, and
now but eight days remain behind. And each day the moment of
separation becomes more terrible, and the period of absence more
insupportable: while the virtue of the portrait wanes, like the moon,
threatening to leave my soul in total darkness. And yet what is a
single night of separation to the whole of my life, if I lose her! So
the King passed the night in a state of anxiety, gazing at the
portrait. Then when the sun rose, he rose also, and managed to get
through the day with the help of Rasakósha and the garden. And when
the sun set, they went again to the hall of audience. And there they
saw the Princess, clad in a robe of cloth of silver, and a bodice
studded with beryls, and her crown and other ornaments, sitting on her
throne. And her bosom heaved when she saw the King, who 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 in former times a king, who collected rarities from all
quarters, purchasing them at no matter what price: and his palace was
the resort of merchants of every land, who flowed into it like the
rivers into the sea. And one day there came a merchant, who said to
him: O king, I bring you a thing which has not its peer for rarity or
beauty in the three worlds. And I procured it for you, knowing your
generosity, at the risk of my life. Then he took from a chest a cup,
made of the tusk of an elephant, white as snow, but round its rim ran a
blood-red ring. And he said: This is the cup out of which
Bimboshthá[1], the daughter of the King of Lanka[2], a Rákshasi famous
in the three worlds for her incomparable beauty, drank every day. So
exquisitely is she formed that it seems as if the separate perfections
of all other women have been collected together to make her members.
But the apex and crest-jewel of all her charms is her mouth. The very
soul of vermilion is pale compared with her lips; redder than blood
themselves, they banish all blood from the faces of all who behold
them, pallid with passion at the sight of them. And whatever she
touches with them bears ever afterwards the stain, like the stain of
fruit: and as you see, the edge of this cup has been turned by the
touch of her lips to a colour which nothing in creation can parallel.
And I bribed her doorkeeper to steal it, for an immense sum of money,
and came away fearing for my life; and now it is a present to your
Majesty. Then the king, overjoyed by the singularity and extraordinary
beauty of that cup, ordered his treasurer to pay to the merchant ten
times the amount he had given the doorkeeper, and dismissed him.
But it happened that the king's son was present at their conversation,
and heard what the merchant said. And an overpowering passion
instantly came upon him for that lady of the ruddy lips. And thinking
of nothing else, he went to bed at night, and fell asleep, and dreamed
a dream. He thought that he mounted a horse, and rode without ceasing
at full gallop, till he came to the shore of the sea. And there
dismounting in haste, he entered a ship, and set sail for Lanka. And
the ship carried him swiftly over the sea, and on arriving, he leaped
out, and ran quickly through the streets, till he came to the palace of
the daughter of the Rakshas. And as he reached it, that instant the
sun set on one side of the sky, and the moon rose, like another sun, in
the opposite quarter, and, lit up with his[3] radiance all the front of
the palace. And he looked, and lo! there on the terrace he saw before
him that daughter of the Rakshas, illuminated by the amorous moon, whom
she rivalled in beauty; and on the yellow disc of her face her two lips
shone like two leaves of fire. And the king's son, unable to bear the
lustre of their beauty, fell down in a swoon. But in his swoon he saw
before him those lips without intermission, and they swelled up till
they became like two huge mountains, and then, breaking into
innumerable pairs which filled the sky like the stars, they crowded in
upon him, and he felt them gently kissing him all over. And on a
sudden, he saw the palace again before him, and he entered it, and saw
the daughter of the Rakshas at the end of a long hall, and he ran up to
her and sank down at her feet. But she, bending over him, approached
her lips to his cheek. And as they came nearer and nearer, they
suddenly became a pair of hideous jaws, with lips thin and green as a
blade of grass, and a double row of teeth white as ivory and sharp as
saws, and a black pit between. And as they loomed larger and larger
upon him out of the darkness, he uttered a loud shriek--and awoke.
So now tell me, Princess, why did that King's son shriek? And
Rasakósha ceased. Then the Princess said with a smile: He was afraid
of being bitten.
And when she had spoken, she rose up and went out, looking with longing
eyes at the King, whose heart went with her. But the King and
Rasakósha returned to their own apartments.
[1] _i.e._ 'red lipped.'
[2] Ceylon: reputed to be the home of a certain kind of demons called
Rakshasa.
[3] The moon is not feminine in Sanskrit.