What is new is not true,
What is true is not new,
and you rudely pull his hand from the subject. Yet have you your uses like other things of earth. In life you are good working camels for the mill-track, and when you die your ashes are not worse compost than those of the wise.
Your Rajaship will observe (continued the Vampire, as Vikram began to show symptoms of ungovernable anger) that I have been concise in treating this digression. Had I not been so, it would have led me far indeed from my tale. Now to return.
When the old king became air mixed with air, the young king, though he found hardly ten pieces of silver in the paternal treasury and legacies for thousands of golden ounces, yet mourned his loss with the deepest grief. He easily explained to himself the reckless emptiness of the royal coffers as a proof of his dear kind parent’s goodness, because he loved him.
But the old man had left behind him, as he could not carry it off with him, a treasure more valuable than gold and silver: one Churaman, a parrot, who knew the world, and who besides discoursed in the most correct Sanskrit. By sage counsel and wise guidance this admirable bird soon repaired his young master’s shattered fortunes.
One day the prince said, ‘Parrot, thou knowest everything: tell me where there is a mate fit for me. The shastras inform us, respecting the choice of a wife, “She who is not descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors within the sixth degree is eligible by a high caste man for nuptials. In taking a wife let him studiously avoid the following families, be they ever so great, or ever so rich in kine, goats, sheep, gold, or grain: the family which has omitted prescribed acts of devotion; that which has produced no male children; that in which the Veda (scripture) has not been read; that which has thick hair on the body; and that in which members have been subject to hereditary disease. Let a person choose for his wife a girl whose person has no defect; who has an agreeable name; who walks gracefully, like a young elephant; whose hair and teeth are moderate in quantity and in size; and whose body is of exquisite softness.”’
‘Great king,’ responded the parrot Churaman, ‘there is in the country of Magadh a Raja, Magadheshwar by name, and he has a daughter called Chandravati. You will marry her; she is very learned, and, what is better far, very fair. She is of yellow colour, with a nose like the flower of the sesamum; her legs are taper, like the plantain-tree; her eyes are large, like the principal leaf of the lotus; her eyebrows stretch towards her ears; her lips are red, like the young leaves of the mango-tree; her face is like the full moon; her voice is like the sound of the cuckoo; her arms reach to her knees; her throat is like the pigeon’s; her flanks are thin, like those of the lion; her hair hangs in curls only down to her waist; her teeth are like the seeds of the pomegranate; and her gait is that of the drunken elephant or the goose.’
On hearing the parrot’s speech, the king sent for an astrologer, and asked him, ‘Whom shall I marry?’ The wise man, having consulted his art, replied, ‘Chandravati is the name of the maiden, and your marriage with her will certainly take place.’ Thereupon the young Raja, though he had never seen his future queen, became incontinently enamoured of her. He summoned a Brahman, and sent him to King Magadheshwar, saying, ‘If you arrange satisfactorily this affair of our marriage we will reward you amply’—a promise which lent wings to the priest.
Now it so happened that this talented and beautiful princess had a jay,[74] whose name was Madan-manjari or Love-garland. She also possessed encyclopædic knowledge after her degree, and, like the parrot, she spoke excellent Sanskrit.