Then the King said to Rasakósha: My friend, I have been bitten by the
beauty of this incomparable woman as by a black cobra, and now the
poison works. I have but two more days to live. For certain it is
that her answer to your last question will be my sentence of death, and
equally certain it is, that she will give that answer; for her
intellect is like the edge of a sharp sword, which while it cuts the
knot of the problem will at the same moment pierce me to the heart.
And the King passed the night in a state of despair, leaving his bed
untouched. And when the sun rose, he rose also, and went out alone
into the garden and wandered about, dreading the setting of the sun yet
longing for reunion with his beloved, till his soul was almost riven in
twain with opposite emotions. And he reproached Wináyaka, saying: O
thou of the Ruddy Trunk, I have been deceived by thee: and instead of
clearing my road to success, thou hast blocked it by an insurmountable
obstacle in the form of this lady's piercing acuteness of
understanding. And then he said: This is no time for despair. Let me
not, like Kritákrita, leave my work half finished, but rather endeavour
myself to discover some riddle that she cannot answer. And yet what
hope is there that where Rasakósha has failed, I should succeed? For
the Princess is not more skilful in answering his questions, than he in
composing them, being as it were a very ocean of stories in human form.
Or rather, no mortal, but only a god, could pose the ingenuity of this
lovely lady. Then he prayed to Saraswatí, saying: O goddess of speech,
my only refuge is in thy favour. O befriend me, and either cloud the
mind of my beloved with temporary bewilderment, or else reveal to me
some puzzle which she will be unable to answer. Truly, my puzzle is
worse than hers.
And on the instant, Saraswatí put a thought into his heart. And he
sprang up with a shout of joy, exclaiming: Ha! I am favoured. Victory
to Saraswatí. The Princess is mine. And he ran quickly to find
Rasakósha, whom he discovered buried in profound meditation on a story
for the coming evening, and said: My friend, away with meditation.
[Greek: Eureka][1]! I will myself propose a riddle to the Princess
this evening. Then Rasakósha said: O King, I congratulate you. But
still, in a matter of such importance, let us risk nothing by
presumptuous confidence. So propound your riddle to me first that we
may make trial of its difficulty. Then King Súryakánta laughed in
delight, and said: Your very doubt shows that it is unanswerable. My
own case is the very problem. I will go to the Princess, and ask her
what I ought to do. And if she tells me, then I will ask her to-morrow
what she tells me to-day: and if she does not tell me, then she is mine
according to the terms of the agreement, to-day: and so in either
alternative, the bird[2] is caged.
Then Rasakósha said with a smile: Victory to your Majesty. Truly
wonderful is the power of love: like a stone it at once blunts and
sharpens the edge of intellect. For it formerly blinded you to
everything in the world, and now it has sharpened your sight so as to
discover what has escaped us all this time, though lying as it were on
the road before us. But unless I am deceived by the external signs, I
predict that the god of love will also blind the Princess; or rather,
that she will throw herself gladly into the cage. For none are so
easily caught as those who wish to be; and though the Princess has been
adamant to my questions, she will be soft as a flower to yours.
Then in his impatience the King could hardly endure the remainder of
the day, burning with desire to put his question to the Princess. But
at last the sun set. Then Rasakósha said: O King, go you alone to the
hall of audience. For my absence will do you more service to-day than
my presence did before. There are cases, when a friend shows his
friendship rather by his absence than his presence. _Apropos_, I will
tell you a story: Listen. But the King said: My friend, this is no
time for stories, even though told by you. And though I will go alone
to-night, without you, yet know, that should I achieve success by the
favour of Saraswatí and the Lord of obstacles, I shall nevertheless owe
it to you rather than myself. For not only have you sustained my life
daily, during the hours of separation, but your stories have been as it
were a ladder, by which I have ascended step by step to the window of
my beloved's chamber. And does not the lowest rung of the ladder
contribute equally with the highest to the attainment of the summit of
hope? Then Rasakósha laughed, and said: O King, it is well. Now go,
and though you have not heard my story, yet I have attained in some
measure the end I had in view in proposing it. For you have kept the
Princess waiting, and expectation increases desire. Good luck be with
you!
Then the King left him and went very quickly by himself to the hall of
audience. And his right arm throbbed as he drew near the door, and
rejoicing at the omen, he went in. And there he saw Anangarágá, clad
in a robe of the hue of indigo[3], and a bodice rainbow-hued like the
neck of a pigeon, and studded with yellow sunstones, and her crown and
other ornaments: but she had left her throne, and come towards the
door, and was looking with anxiety for the King. But when she saw him
she blushed[4], and returned in confusion to her throne. And King
Súryakánta went up to her, and fell down before her and took her by the
hand, and said: Lady, there was once a King, who became suitor to a
Princess, lovely like thyself, on this condition, that if he could ask
her a question that she could not answer, she should be his. Now tell
me, O thou lovely incarnation of wisdom, what should he ask her?
And instantly the Princess rose up quickly, and exclaimed in delight: O
clever one, thou hast guessed. And she threw round his neck the
necklace of her arms, and so chose him as her husband[5]. And she
said: See, thy image is reflected a thousand times in these gems that
resemble thee; yet look in my eyes, and thou shalt see thyself through
them reflected in my heart. Then the King looked into her eyes, and
saw himself reflected in them like the sun in a deep lake. And he
whispered in the shell of her ear: Thou hast robbed me of myself: give
me back myself in thy form. Then the Princess said, in a low voice,
looking down: Would'st thou take my sweetness for nothing? What did
the bee give the lotus? And the King trembled with passion, and
putting his hand beneath her chin, he raised her face and kissed her on
her ruby mouth. And in that moment he forgot everything, and he felt
his life surging through him like a wave of the sea, and he became
blind and deaf, and tottered on his feet. Then Anangarágá roused him
from his stupor by saying: Wert thou afraid of losing me? And he said:
O my beloved, I am saved from the mouth of death. Then she laughed
low, and said: There was no cause for fear. For had I again answered a
question to-day, I would have refused to answer to-morrow, even though
thou hadst asked me nothing but my own name. But I could scarcely
endure to wait till to-morrow, and it is better as it is. Then the
King said: And why, O thou rogue, didst thou not refuse to answer
before, and save me from torture? And Anangarágá said: It was torture
also to me. And yet I know not why, but there was nectar in the
poison, and know, O my lord, that this is the nature of women, that
they love to torment their lover, and refuse him what they themselves
most of all desire.
Then King Súryakánta almost swooned away from excess of joy. And he
said: Come, let us leave this place, which is hateful to me as the
scene of my sufferings, and let us return without delay to my capital.
And the Princess said: As my lord pleases.
Then the King sent Rasakósha, with all the retinue of the Princess, on
before. But he himself set out at night alone with his bride. And
they rode on slowly, side by side, through the forest in the moonlight,
he on a white horse, and she on a black, looking like the beauty of day
and night incarnate in mortal form. And at midnight they stopped to
rest in the forest. And the King lifted Anangarágá from her horse, and
placed her in a bower of creepers under a great tree. And the moon
shone with warm rays through the interstices of the leaves as through
the marble trellis of a palace terrace. And there on a bed of leaves
and flowers, he made her his wife by the Gándharwa[6] marriage rite.
And he played with the nooses of her blue-black hair, through which her
eyes shone like moonstones in the moonlight; and he wove red _ashóka_
flowers in her hair, and hung blue lotuses on her bosom, and put a
girdle of white lotuses round her waist, and tied anklets of jasmine
blossoms on her feet. And in the ecstasy of his passion, bewildered by
her beauty, he exclaimed: Well are thou called Anangarágá, O my
beloved; and yet a single name is insufficient to describe the infinite
variety of thy thousand-rayed loveliness. Thou art Mrigalóchaná, for
thine eyes are lustrous and frightened like the antelope's; and
Nílanaliní, for thy dark hair is like a pool for the lotuses of thine
eyes; and Madanalílálólatá, for those eyes dance with the tremulous
light of love; and Shashilékhá, for thou art fair and fragile as a
digit of the moon; and Bujalatá, for thy arms are curved and cling like
creepers; and Kusumayashtí, for thy body is straight and slender like
the stalk of a flower; and Kambukanthí, for thy neck is like a shell;
and Rajanícháyá, for the sheen of thy beauty is like that of the night;
and Láwanyamúrtí, for thou art the very incarnation of the perfection
of loveliness: and Manóháriní, for thou ravishest my soul; and
Madalaharí, for thou art a wave of the sea of intoxication; and
Alipriyá, for the bees resort to the honey of thy lips, mistaking them
for a flower; and Wajrasúchí, for thy intellect is like a diamond
needle: and Hémakumbhiní, for thy bosom resembles a pair of golden
gourds; and Pulinákrití, for the curves of thy hips are like the swell
of a river bank; and Nánárúpiní, for thy beauty is infinite; and
Bhrúkutíchalá, for the play of thy brows is like the lightning in the
clouds; and yet all these names are powerless to paint thy celestial
and overpowering fascination, which maddens me as I gaze at it. Then
Anangarágá said, with a smile: O my lord, thou hast omitted, among all
these names, the only one that really belongs to me. And the King
said: What is that? Then she said: Thou art my deity, and I am
possessed by thee in every particle of my being; and therefore call me
Nílírágá, for my devotion[7] to thee shall be constant and indelible as
the dye of indigo. And know, O sun of my soul, that without this all
the beauty of women is but nectar-poison.
Then the King's heart almost broke in his joy, and he exclaimed: Ha! I
have obtained the fruit of my birth. All else is nothingness and
futility. What can the future hold for me but this, or its absence,
which would be worse than a thousand deaths? And he prayed to the all
powerful and self-existent One[8], saying: O Mahéshwara, let this
heaven continue for ever, and let the chain of my existence be broken
at this point! Or rather, let Time be destroyed for me, and let me
remain, beyond its influence, for evermore in this present, this moment
of union with my beloved!
And that moon-crested god heard him, and granted his wish. And he shot
at that pair of lovers, as they slept in one another's arms in the
moonlit creeper bower, a glance of his third eye, and reduced them to
ashes. But he said: The chain of their existence cannot yet be broken,
for they have not yet earned emancipation by penance and austerities.
But they shall meet again, and be husband and wife, in another birth.
[1] Literally, 'the object is attained.'
[2] Here there is a pun.
[3] This has a meaning: see below. The sunstone is probably a topaz.
[4] See note, p. 88.
[5] This is an allusion to the _swayamwara_, an old ceremony by which a
maiden chose her own husband by throwing a garland round his neck.
[6] See _Manu_, III. 26. Though recognised as a legitimate marriage,
especially for Kshatriyas, it was simply the union of two lovers
without any rites at all. This suits it admirably for fairy tale and
romance, and makes it a great favourite with the poets.
[7] _Bhakti_ is almost untranslateable. It means the absorbed and
total love, faith, devotion of a worshipper for his god.
[8] Shiwa.
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