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and this agreement you must make in express terms with my future father-in-law." When his daughter had said this to him. Dharmagupta agreed to give her in marriage, after stipulating that she should not be treated as a wife; and Guhasena with inward laughter agreed to the condition, thinking to himself, " Only let my son be once married." Then Guhachandra, the son of Guhasena, went to his own house, taking with him his bride Somaprabhá. And in the evening his father said to him, " My son, treat her as a wife, for who abstains from the society of his own wife ?" When she heard that, the bride Somaprabhá looked angrily at her father-in-law, and whirled round her threatening fore-finger, as it were the decree of death. When he saw that finger of his daughter-in-law, the breath of that merchant immediately left him, and fear came upon all besides. But Guhachandra, when his father was dead, thought to himself, " The goddess of death has entered into my house as a wife." And thenceforth he avoided the society of that wife, though she remained in his house, and so observed a vow difficult as that of standing on the edge of a sword. And being only consumed by that grief, losing his taste for all enjoyment, he made a vow and feasted Bráhmans every day. And that wife of his, of heavenly beauty, observing strict silence, used always to give a fee to those Bráhmans after they had eaten. One day an aged Bráhman, who had come to be fed, beheld her exciting the wonder of the world by her dower of beauty; then the Bráhman full of curiosity secretly asked Guhachandra; " Tell me who this young wife of yours is." Then Guhachandra, being importuned by that Bráhman, told him with afflicted mind her whole story. When he heard it, the excellent Bráhman, full of compassion, gave him a charm for appeasing the fire, in order that he might obtain his desire. Accordingly, while Guhachandra was in secret muttering that charm, there appeared to him a Bráhman from the midst of the fire. And that god of fire in the shape of a Bráhman, said to him, as he lay prostrate at his feet, " To-day I will eat in thy house, and I will remain there during the night. And after I have shewn thee the truth with respect to thy wife, I will accomplish thy desire." When he had said this to Guhachandra, the Bráhman entered his house. There he ate like the other Bráhmans, and lay down at night near Guhachandra for one watch of the night only, such was his unwearying zeal. And at this period of the night, Somaprabhá, the wife of Guhachandra, went out from the house of her husband, all the inmates of which were asleep. At that moment that Bráhman woke up Guhachandra, and said to him, " Come, see what thy wife is doing."
And by magic power he gave Guhachandra and himself the shape of bees,*[1] and going out he shewed him that wife of his, who had issued from
- ↑ * So in the XXIst of Miss Stokes's Indian Fairy Tales the fakir changes the king's son into a fly. Cp. also Veekenstedt's Wendische Sagen, p.127.
