[2] The peafowl are delighted at the approach of the rainy season, when “their sorrow” comes to an end.
[3] It is often the duty of these minstrels to wake the king with their songs.
[4] Weapons well known in Hindu mythology. See the 6th act of the Uttara Ráma Charita.
[5] Sútrapátam akarot she tested, so to speak. Cp. Taranga 21, śl. 93. The fact is, the smoke made her eyes as red as if she had been drinking.
[6] Or “like Kuvera.” There is a pun here.
[7] Young Deformed.
[8] Cp. the distribution of presents on the occasion of King Etzel’s marriage in the Nibelungen Lied.
[9] It must be remembered that a king among the Hindus was inaugurated with water, not oil.
[10] The word “adders” must here do duty for all venomous kinds of serpents.
[11] A similar story is found in the IVth book of the Panchatantra, Fable 5, where Benfey compares the story of Yayáti and his son Puru. Benfey Panchatantra I. 436. Bernhard Schmidt in his Griechische Märchen, page 37, mentions a very similar story, which he connects with that of Admetos and Alkestis. In a popular ballad of Trebisond, a young man named Jannis, the only son of his parents, is about to be married, when Charon comes to fetch him. He supplicates St. George, who obtains for him the concession, that his life may be spared, in case his father will give him half the period of life still remaining to him. His father refuses, and in the same way his mother. At last his betrothed gives him half her allotted period of life, and the marriage takes place. The story of Ruru is found in the Ádiparva of the Mahábhárata, see Lévêque, Mythes et Légendes de l’Inde, pp. 278, and 374.