10
not give her anything, though coaxed to do it, then Sundarí struck the ape with her fist. And the monkey, being beaten, sprang up in a rage, and bit and scratched the faces of Sundarí and her mother, who were thrashing him. Then the mother, whose face was streaming with blood, flew in a passion and boat the ape with sticks, till he died on the spot. When Sundarí saw that he was dead, and reflected that all her wealth was gone, she was ready to commit suicide for grief, and so was her mother. And when the people of the town heard the story, they laughed and said, " Because Makarakatí took away this man's wealth by means of a net, he in his turn has stripped her of all her property, like a clover fellow that he is, by means of a pet; she was sharp enough to net him, but did not detect the net laid for herself. Then Sundarí, with her scratched face and vanished wealth, was with difficulty restrained by her relations from destroying herself, and so was her mother. And Íśvaravarman soon returned from Svarnadvípa to the house of his father in Chitrakúta. And when his father saw him returned, having acquired enormous wealth, he rewarded the kuțținí Yamajihvá with treasure, and made a great feast. And Íśvaravarman, seeing the matchless deceitfulness of hetœrœ, became disgusted with their society, and taking a wife remained in his own house.*[1]
"So you see, king, that there never dwells in the minds of hetœrœ even an atom of truth, unalloyed with treachery, so a man who desires prosperity should not take pleasure in them, as their society is only to be gained by the wealthy, any more than in uninhabited woods to be crossed only with a caravan. †[2]"
"When Naraváhanadatta heard, from the mouth of Marubhúti, the above story, word for word, of Ála and the net, he and Gomukha approved it, and laughed heartily.
CHAPTER LVIII.
When Marubhúti had thus illustrated the untrustworthy character of hetœrœ, the wise Gomukha told this tale of Kumudiká, the lesson of which was the same.
- ↑ * There is a certain resemblance between this story and the Xth Novel of the VIIIth day in Boccacio's Decameron. Dunlop traces Boccacio's story to the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsus (c. 16). It is also found in the Arabian Nights (story of Ali Khoja, the merchant of Baghdad,) in the Gesta Romanorum (c. 118), and in the Cento Novelle Antiche (No. 74), see also Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife. (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 56, Liebrecht's German translation, p. 247).
- ↑ † An elaborate pun.
