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river, near his house, singing with joy, like one beside himself. So he said to him in joke, " Cowherd, is any young woman in love with you, that you sing thus in your rapture, counting the world as stubble?" When the cowherd heard that, he laughed and said, ' I have a great secret.*[1] The head of this village, a Bráhman, named Rudrasoma, has been long away, and I visit his wife every night; her maid introduces me into the house dressed as a woman." When Rudrasoma heard this, he restrained his anger, and wishing to find out the truth, he said to the cowherd; " If such kindness is shewn to guests here, give me this dress of yours, and let me go there to-night: I feel great curiosity about it." The cowherd said, " Do so, take this black rug of mine, and this stick, and remain here until her maid comes. And she will take you for me, and will give you a female dress, and invite you to come, so go there boldly at night, and I will take repose this night." When the cowherd said this, the Bráhman Rudrasoma took from him the stick and the rug, and stood there, personating him. And the cowherd stood at a little distance, with that merchant Devadatta, and then the maid came. She walked silently up to him in the darkness, and wrapped him up in a woman's dress, and said to him, " Come along," and so took him off to his wife, thinking that he was the cowherd. When his wife saw Rudrasoma, she sprang up and embraced him, supposing that he was the cowherd, and then Rudrasoma thought to himself; " Alas ! wicked women Ml in love with a base man, if only he is near them, for this vicious wife of mine has fallen in love with a cowherd, merely because he is near at hand." Then he made some excuse with faltering voice, and went, disgusted in mind, to Dhanadeva. And after he had told his adventure in his own house, he said to that merchant; " I too will go with you to the forest; perish my family !" So Rudrasoma and the merchant Dhanadeva set out together for the forest.
Story of the wife of Śaśin.:— And on the way a friend of Dhanadeva's, named Śaśin, joined them. And in the course of conversation they told him their circumstances. And when Śaśin heard that, being a jealous man, and having just returned from a long absence in a foreign land, he became anxious about his wife, though he had locked her up in a cellar. And Śaśin, travelling along with them, came near his own house in the evening, and was desirous of entertaining them. But he saw there a man singing in an amorous mood, who had an evil smell, and whose hands and feet were eaten away with leprosy. And in his astonishment, he asked him ; " Who are you, sir, that you are so cheerful?" And the leper said to him, " I am the god of love." Śaśin answered, " There can be no mistake about that. The splendour of your beauty is sufficient evidence for your being the god of love." There-
- ↑ * The Sanskrit College MS. has mama for the mayá of Dr. Brockhaus.
