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beheld an enormous and terrible wild bear; like the darkness of the night suddenly condensed into a solid mass in the day time. That boar was not wounded by the king's arrows, in spite of their sharpness, but after breaking the king's chariot*[1] fled and entered a cavern. The king, leaving that car of his, in revengeful pursuit of the boar, entered into that cavern with only his bow to aid him. And after he had gone a long distance, he beheld a great and splendid capital, and astonished he sat down inside the city on the bank of a lake. While there, he beheld a maiden moving along,surrounded by hundreds of women, like the arrow of love that cleaves the armour of self-restraint. She slowly approached the king, bathing him, so to speak, again and again in a look, that rained in showers the nectar of love. †[2] She said, "who art thou, illustrious sir, and for what reason hast thou entered our home on this occasion?" The king, being thus questioned by her, told her the whole truth; hearing which, she let fall from her eyes a passionate flood of tears, and from her heart all self-control. The king said, "Who art thou, and why dost thou weep?" When he asked her this question, she, being a prisoner to love at his will, answered him, "The boar that entered here is the Daitya Angáraka by name. And I am his daughter, O king, and my name is Angáravatí. And he is of adamantine frame, and has carried off these hundred princesses from the palaces of kings and appointed them to attend on me. Moreover this great Asura has become a Rákshasa owing to a curse, but to-day as he was exhausted with thirst and fatigue, even when he found you, he spared you. At present he has put off the form of a boar and is resting in his own proper shape, but when he wakes up from his sleep, he will without fail do you an injury. It is for this reason that I see no hope of a happy issue for you, and so these tear-drops fall from my eyes like my vital spirits boiled with the fire of grief." When he heard this speech of Angáravatí's the king said to her, "If you love me, do this which I ask you. When your father awakes, go and weep in front of him, and then he will certainly ask you the cause of your agitation; then you must say If some one were to slay thee, what would become of me? ‡[3] This is the cause of
- ↑ * Dr. Brockhaus translates it— Stürate den Wagen des Koniga um. Can Syandanamean horses, like magni currus Achilli? If so, áhatya would mean, having killed.
- ↑ † Rasa means nectar, and indeed any liquid, and also emotion, passion. The pun is of course most intentional in the original.
- ↑ ‡ Cp. the story of Ohimé in the " Sicilianische Marchen" collected by Laura von Gonzenbach where Maruzza asks Ohimé how it would he possible to kill him. So in Indian Fairy Tales, collected by Miss Stokes, Hiralál Bása persuades Sonahrí Ráni to ask his father where he kept his soul. Some interesting remarks on this subject will be found in the notes to this tale (Indian Fairy Tales, p. 260.) See also No. I, in Campbell's Tales of the Western Highlands, and Dr. Reinhold Kohler's remarks in Orient and Occident, Vol. II, p. 100. Cp. also Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, pp. 80, 81 and 136.
