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to spend the night there. And in the beginning of the night, many men rose out of the water of that tank below them, before their eyes. And one of them swept the ground, another painted it, and another strewed on it flowers of five colours. And another brought a golden couch and placed it there, and another spread on it a mattress with a coverlet. Another brought, and placed in a certain spot, under the tree, delicious food and drink, flowers and unguents. Then there arose from the surface of that lake a man wearing a sword, and adorned with heavenly ornaments, surpassing in beauty the god of Love.*[1] When he had sat down on the couch, his attendants threw garlands round his neck, and anointed him with unguents, and then they all plunged again into the lake. Then he brought out of his mouth a lady of noble form and modest appearance, wearing auspicious garlands and ornaments, and a second, rich in celestial beauty, resplendent with magnificent robes and ornaments †[2] These were both his wives, but the second was the favourite. Then the first and good wife placed jewelled plates on the table, and handed food in two plates to her husband and her rival. When they had eaten, she also ate; and then her husband reclined on the couch with the rival wife, and went to sleep. And the first wife shampooed his feet, and the second remained awake on the couch.
When the Bráhman's sons who were in the tree, saw this, they said to one another, " Who can this be? Let us go down and ask the lady who is shampooing his feet, for all these are immortal beings." Then they got down and approached the first wife, and then the second saw Yaśodhara: then she rose up from the couch in her inordinate passion, while her husband was asleep, and approaching that handsome youth, said, " Be my lover." He answered, " Wicked woman, you are to me the wife of another, and I am to you a strange man. Then why do you speak thus?" She answered, " I have had a hundred lovers. Why are you afraid? If you do not believe it, look at these hundred rings,‡[3] for I have taken one ring from each of them." With these words she took the rings out of the corner of her garment, and shewed them to him. Then Yaśodhara said, " I do not care whether you have a hundred or a hundred thousand lovers, to me you are as a mother; I am not a person of that sort." When the wicked woman was
- ↑ * For the superstition of water-spirits see Tyler's Primitive Culture, p. 191, and ff.
- ↑ † Does this throw any light upon the expression in Swift's Polite Conversation, "She is as like her husband as if she were spit out of his mouth." (Liebrecht, Volkskunde, p. 495.)
- ↑ ‡ The fact of this incident being found in the Arabian Nights is mentioned by Wilson (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p 146.) See Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. I, p. 9. Lévêque (Les Mythes et les Légendes do I' Inde et de la Perse, p. 643) shews that Ariosto borrowed from the Arabian Nights.
