So those two lovers stood together in that arbour on the edge of the
hill, not knowing where they were, and all ignorant of time. And the
King's daughter sobbed, until she laughed, and laughed until she
sobbed, till at length the King took her in his arms, and seating
himself in his old seat, set her on his lap, and held her like a child,
rocking her to and fro, and wishing that her agitation might never have
an end, so only that he might continue rocking her for ever on his knee.
And at last, becoming once more mistress of herself, she said to him in
a whisper: Thou didst well to return, without losing any time. For
hadst thou remained absent but a very little longer, I would have
thrown myself to the bottom of the cliff, and then they would have
found there not, as thou saidst, thy bones, but mine. But as it is, I
am alive, to be already a burden to thee, and as yet, the _yuga_ has
only just begun. And he said: O burden, I am not in any hurry to set
thee down. And I will carry my flower, thou shalt find, to the
_yuga's_ very furthest end.
And as he spoke, she turned in his arms, and looked towards the flower,
and she said, very low: When, after thy departure, suddenly I saw the
flower that I gave thee lying, left by thee, despised, alone, there
came into my heart such an agony, that death itself would have been
relief. And the King said, with emotion: I will build for it a shrine
of gold: but as for thee, thy shrine is in my heart. But now, O Guru
of my heart, there is still something to be done: for thou hast not yet
placed thy garland on my neck.
And instantly she jumped up and brought it. And she said: With my own
hands, I wove it for thee, and the charm that I sang to it, unknown to
thee, for thee, has produced its result. And as the King stood before
her, she reached up, with a smile, on tiptoe, and put the garland round
his neck, together with the other garland of the creeper of her arms.
And the King drew her, with his own arms, towards him, and their souls
met upon their lips, and lost in each other, became inextricably
united, in the paradise-oblivion of a kiss without an end.
* * * * *
And old Yogeshwara, in his ambush, said softly to himself, with tears
in his eyes: Now it is time for me to go, for now I am superfluous; and
this is the end, and the battle is won. And she was right, and I was
wrong; and she alone knew her way to the only true and perfect end,
without which all was incomplete; and I am nothing but an old fool.
And in my folly I actually ventured to chide her, and reprove her, not
perceiving that it was not she, but I, who was to blame, coming within
a very little of utterly destroying all, by my presumptuous and
impertinent interference, unable to appreciate her incomparable skill,
and conceitedly deeming myself a better judge as to how this matter
ought to be conducted to a successful termination, than herself: as if
a woman and the Deity of Love did not know how to manage their own
business better than all the grey-haired dotards in the three great
worlds!
[1] A spring month, our April, devoted especially to marriages.
[2] There is no English equivalent for this term. A guru is the
spiritual guide of the Hindoo family: a kind of father confessor.
[3] A woman who goes to meet her lover of her own accord.
[4] The deception of Yogeshwara was all the more likely to deceive the
King, in that it was based on Hindoo traditional maxims. Manu says:
[vii. 147] "_Let the King, for secret council, ascend to a
mountain-top, or a lofty terrace, or repair to some lone wood, where
there are not even any talking birds._"
[5] _Manmatha_: the God of Love, the _Churner_ of the Soul.
[6] The God of the Wind.
[7] _i.e._, Love.
[8] _i.e._, Love.
[9] _i.e._, they all lack Maheshwara's third eye, which consumed Love's
body with a fiery glance, when the audacious little deity dared to
inspire the Great God himself with passion for Párwatí as she stood
before him.
[10] The English reader should bear in mind, that, in Sanskrit,
recollection and love are often, as here, denoted by the same word.
[11] Nothing in India is so delightful as the grace with which the
women, even the oldest and the ugliest, handle that part of their
garment that serves them for a veil. It is an everlasting beauty to
see them, as they walk along the street, quietly drawing it around
them: a thing lost among us altogether, like its motive.
[12] There is a play on the word, which means also a woman.
[13] This is the swayamwara, or self-choice of a bridegroom, everywhere
exemplified in old Hindoo tales.
[14] This is substantially a quotation from Manu: only it is not the
Guru, but the Guru's wife, whom the pupil is there forbidden to
approach. The princess plays upon the sex.
[15] In the swayamwara ceremony, the mark of selection was the placing
of a garland around the successful wooer's neck, by the hands of the
bride herself.
[16] A species of Arisæma, which we call "cobra-lily," and the natives,
_snake-root_. Though there are many flowers intrinsically more
beautiful, I do not know one more quaintly original, than this:
shooting up, in dark wet woods, by roots of trees, old walls, or among
dead leaves, pure and white and lonely and strangely suggestive of some
wild individuality, silently symbolical of old sweet stories of Naiads
and Dryads and Russian Rusalkas and Heine Loreleis.
[17] (Pronounce _yuga_ and _kalpa_ as monosyllables, to rhyme with
fugue and pulp.) A _yuga_ is, as we should say, a geological Age: a
_kalpa_, a whole series of such ages.