of witchcraft, and thence to a murder by a husband for disobedience express or implied. At this point the fatal curiosity comes upon the scene as one mode of accounting for the disobedience; and when once this element is introduced it proves a most potent influence, and the story branches off and blossoms in all directions.
ONCE upon a time, when Brahmadatta reigned at Benares, the Bodhisat was reborn as a trader's son. It happened on one occasion that a hunter, having taken much venison, filled a cart with it and returned to the nearest town for the purpose of selling it. At that time four youths of the mercantile class, residents of Benares, went out of the town, and, in a place of common resort, they sat talking of what they had seen and heard. One of these young men, on seeing the meat-cart, inquired of the others, "Shall I make that hunter give me a piece of venison?" They made answer, "Go and bring back a piece of flesh." Drawing near he shouted, "Hi! you hunter, let's have a piece of that meat of yours." The hunter replied, "He who asks politely will receive something indeed worth having, so you shall take a piece of venison suitable to the words you have just spoken." Then he uttered the following gâtha:—
"For a beggar indeed uncouth is thy speech, sir;
Rough and rude, like the skins of the beasts I've got here;
He who begs cannot choose, but takes what he can:
Accept, sir, I pray, this tasteless tough skin."
- ↑ Jâtaka Book, vol. iii. No. 315, p. 48.
