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And if you know and do not tell, your head shall split into a hundred
pieces."
When the Vetála said this, the king broke silence, and said to him, " Of those three the thief was the only really generous man, and not either of the two merchants. For of course her husband let her go, though she was so lovely and he had married her; how could a gentleman desire to keep a wife that was attached to another? And the other resigned her because his passion was dulled by time, and he was afraid that her husband, knowing the facts, would tell the king the next day. But the thief, a reckless evildoer, working in the dark, was really generous, to let go a lovely woman, ornaments and all."
When the Vetála heard that, he left the shoulder of the king, and returned to his own place, as before, and the king, with his great perseverance no whit dashed, again set out, as before, to bring him.
Note.
This story is the same as the 19th of Campbell's "West Highland Tales, The Inheritance, Vol. II, pp. 16-18. Dr. Köhlor, (Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 317), compares the Story in the 1,001 Nights of Sultan Akschid and his three sons. He tells us that it is also found in the Turkish Tales, called The Forty Vazírs, in the Turkish Tútináma, and in Johann Andreæ's Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz. The form of it best known to the general reader is probably the 5th story in the Xth day of Boccacio's Decameron. The tale is no doubt originally Buddhistic, and the king's cynical remarks a later addition. Dunlop considers that Boccacio's story gave rise to Chaucer's Frankeleyne's Tale, the 12th Canto of the Orlando Inamorato, and Beaumont and Fletcher's Triumph of Honour.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
(Vetála 11.)
Then king Trivikramasena again went and took that Vetála from the aśhoka-tree and put him on his shoulder, and set out with him; and as he was going along, the Vetála on his shoulder said to him; " Listen, king; I will tell you an interesting story."
Story of king Dharmadhvaja and his three very sensitive wives.:— There lived of old in Ujjayiní a king of the name of Dharmadhvaja, he had three wives, who were all daughters of kings, and whom he held very dear. The first of them was called Indulekhá, the second Tárávalí, and the third Mrigánkavati; and they were all possessed of extraordinary
