At eventide the watchmen on the walls of Vidarbha proclaimed the coming of Rituparna, and King Bhima gave permission that he should enter by the city gate.
All that region echoed the thunder of the rumbling chariot. Nala's horses, which Várshneya had driven from Nishadha, and were within the city, careered and neighed aloud as if Nala were beside them once again.
Damayantí also heard the approaching chariot, and her beating heart was like a cloud which thunders as the rain cometh on. Her soul was thrilled by the familiar sound, and it seemed to her that Nala was drawing nigh....[319] On the palace roofs peacocks craned their necks and danced,[320] and elephants in their stalls, with uplifted trunks, trumpeted aloud as if rain were about to fall.
Damayantí said: “The sound of the chariot fills my soul with ecstasy. Surely my lord cometh. Oh, if I see not soon the moon-fair face of Nala I will surely die, for, thinking of his virtues, my heart is rent with sorrow. Unless he cometh now I will no longer live, but will perish by fire.”
FOOTNOTES:
[312] This serpent was a demi-god with human face and hands. It ruled its kind in the underworld, and recalls the Egyptian king serpent in the story of the shipwrecked sailor.—See Egyptian Myth and Legend. It is also called Vasuka and Shesha.
[313] Oudh.
[314] The moon is masculine, and the marriage occurs at a certain phase. In Egypt the moon is male, but was identified with imported female deities. In Norse mythology Mani is moon god; there was, however, an earlier moon goddess, Nana. In Ireland and Scotland the moon was not individualized—that is, not in the Gaelic language. The words for moon in A. Saxon and German are masculine; in Gaelic they are feminine.
[315] The Gaelic Diarmid had similarly a beauty spot on his forehead. Women who saw it immediately fell in love with him.
[316] Dasarna, “Ten Forts”, in the south-eastern part of Central Hindustan.