Whilst the Brahman was doubting which to prefer, and rather inclining to the latter sentiment, a serpent bit the beautiful girl, and in a few hours she died.
Stunned by this awful sudden death, the father and the three suitors sat for a time motionless. They then arose, used great exertions, and brought all kinds of sorcerers, wise men and women who charm away poisons by incantations. These having seen the girl said, ‘She cannot return to life.’ The first declared, ‘A person always dies who has been bitten by a snake on the fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and fourteenth days of the lunar month.’ The second asserted, ‘One who has been bitten on a Saturday or a Tuesday does not survive.’ The third opined, ‘Poison infused during certain six lunar mansions cannot be got under.’ Quoth the fourth, ‘One who has been bitten in any organ of sense, the lower lip, the cheek, the neck, or the stomach, cannot escape death.’ The fifth said, ‘In this case even Brahma, the Creator, could not restore life—of what account, then, are we? Do you perform the funeral rites; we will depart.’
Thus saying, the sorcerers went their way. The mourning father took up his daughter’s corpse and caused it to be burnt, in the place where dead bodies are usually burnt, and returned to his house.
After that the three young men said to one another, ‘We must now seek happiness elsewhere. And what better can we do than obey the words of Indra, the God of Air, who spake thus?—
‘“For a man who does not travel about there is no felicity, and a good man who stays at home is a bad man. Indra is the friend of him who travels. Travel!
‘“A traveller’s legs are like blossoming branches, and he himself grows and gathers the fruit. All his wrongs vanish, destroyed by his exertion on the roadside. Travel!
‘“The fortune of a man who sits, sits also; it rises when he rises; it sleeps when he sleeps; it moves well when he moves. Travel!
‘“A man who sleeps is like the Iron Age. A man who awakes is like the Bronze Age. A man who rises up is like the Silver Age. A man who travels is like the Golden Age. Travel!
‘“A traveller finds honey; a traveller finds sweet figs. Look at the happiness of the sun, who travelling never tires. Travel!”’
Before parting they divided the relics of the beloved one, and then they went their way.