Well then, while the Princess and the Carpenter's son, and the two
Princes of these two, were going [through the air] on the back of
that wooden Peacock, that younger Prince said, "I am thirsty." [83]
The Carpenter's son having split his [own] palm gave him blood. The
Prince said, "I cannot drink blood; I must drink water."
Afterwards, having lowered the wooden Peacock to the ground,
[the Carpenter's son] went to seek water. [While he was absent]
the younger Prince cut the cord of the wooden Peacock.
The Carpenter's son having gone thus, [after] finding water came back
and gave it to the Prince. Afterwards, after the Prince drank the
water he tried to make the wooden Peacock row aloft; he could not,
because [the young Prince] cut the wooden Peacock's cord.
Afterwards, having left (damala) the wooden Peacock there, [the
Carpenter's son] came to the river with the Princess and the two
Princes; having come [there] they told the boatman to put them across
(ekan-karawanda).
Afterwards, the boatman firstly having placed the Carpenter's son on
the high ground on the other bank (egoda gode), and having come back
to this bank, placing the Princess in the boat took her below along the
river, and handed over the Princess to the King of the boatman's city.
The Carpenter's son having stayed on the high ground on the other
bank, became a beggar, and went away. [84] Those two Princes having
been weeping and weeping on this bank, jumped into the river. The
two Princes went upwards and upwards in the river--there is a
crocodile-house (burrow)--along the crocodile-house they went upward
[and came to the surface of the ground].
Having gone there, while they were there weeping and weeping a widow
woman having come for water (watura pare) asked, "What are you weeping
and weeping there for?" at the hand of the two Princes.
Then the two Princes say, "Ane! Being without our mother and father
we are weeping and weeping."
Then the widow woman said, "Come, if so, and go with me." Afterwards,
having said "Ha," the two Princes went with the widow woman. Having
thus gone, the widow woman gave food to the two Princes.
While they were growing big and large the King said at the hand of
that Princess, "Now then, let us marry."
Then the Princess said, "In our country, when a Princess has either
been sent away (divorced, aericcahamawat) or has made mistakes
(padawari weccahamawat), she does not marry until the time when three
years [85] go by. When the three years have gone (gihama) let us
marry." Afterwards the King, having placed a guard for the Princess,
waited until the time when the three years go by.
These two Princes who jumped into the river one day went to be on
guard. The Princess asked at the hand of the Princes, "Whence are you?"
Then the Princes said, "While we were young at a very distant city
our mother and father were lost near the river. A widow woman having
brought us away is now rearing us."
Then the Princess said, "It is your (umbale) mother indeed who is I;
your father is now walking about, continuing to beg and eat. I will
perform a meritorious deed (pinkomak) and bring him; you, also, join
yourselves to the beggars' party." Having said this, and given the
two Princes silver and gold things, she sent them away.
That Princess at the hand of the King said, "I must perform a
meritorious deed, to give money to those with crippled arms, lame
persons, and beggars."
Afterwards the King by the notification tom-toms gave public notice
to those with crippled arms, and lame persons, and beggars, to come
[for the alms-giving]. Afterwards they came; that Carpenter's son,
the beggar, also came.
To the whole of them [86] she gave money; to that Carpenter's son
she gave much,--silver and gold. Having given it, the Princess said,
"Having taken these and gone, not losing them, construct a city for
us to stay in when we have come together again," she said. "Our two
Princes also are near such and such a widow woman; [after] joining
them, go."
Afterwards that Carpenter's son, joining the two Princes also, went
and built a city. Afterwards this Princess--having placed a guard
over whom, the King had stopped--having bounded off, unknown to the
King [87] went to the city which the Carpenter's son and the two
Princes built.
Well then, the Princess, and the Carpenter's son, and the two Princes
stayed at the city.
Finished.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
In the Jataka story No. 193 (vol. ii, p. 82), a Prince who was
travelling alone with his wife is described as cutting his right knee
with his sword when she was overcome with thirst, in order to give
her blood to drink.
In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 142, a Prince married a carpenter's
daughter, and afterwards became poor, and a drum-beater for conjurers
and dancers, a fate from which his second wife and her son rescued him.
In a story of the Western Province numbered 240 in this volume, a
Princess recovered her husband by giving a dana, or feast for poor
people, and observing those who came to eat it. See also No. 247.
In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed., vol. iii, p. 84), in the
story of "Ali Shar and Zumurrud," the lady, who while disguised as
a man had been chosen as King, recovered her husband by giving a
free feast to all comers at the new moon of each month, and watching
the persons who came, her husband Ali Shar, then a poor man, being
present at the fifth full moon. At each of the earlier feasts she
found and punished men who had been responsible for her own and her
husband's misfortunes.
In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 101, a merchant's
son who was travelling through a waterless desert for seven days,
kept his wife alive by giving her his own flesh and blood.
See vol. ii, Nos. 80 and 81, and the appended notes.