Tōra, sakiya.
told the Prince to solve it. For fifteen pāēyas (six hours), without extinguishing the lamp, he tried and tried to explain it. He could not. So she was to kill the Prince next day.
A Dēvatāwā (godling) who drank the smoke of the lamp of that house, was there looking on [invisibly] until the lamp was extinguished. After the lamp was put out, having drunk a little smoke, he took a little that was only slightly burnt with him for his wife. The Dēvatāwā and Dēvatāwī lived in an Ironwood tree on the roadside.
This Prince’s elder sister, and the man to whom she was given in marriage, having set off to come to the Prince’s city, stayed that night at the resting-place under the Ironwood tree.
Then that Dēvatāwā having brought a little of the under-burnt smoke of the lamp, after he had given it to the Dēvatāwī she quarrelled with him until fifteen pāēyas (six hours) had gone, saying, “Where have you been?”
The Dēvatāwā said, “Do not quarrel. In such and such a city, such and such a Prince’s Princess having associated with a Nāgayā, the Prince’s people killed the Nāgayā. Having cut off the Nāgayā’s hood, and laid aside her golden waist-chain, putting it round her waist in order to kill the Prince, because of her anger at the killing of the Nāgayā, the Princess told a riddle to the Prince. Having sworn that should the Prince be unable to solve it she is to kill the Prince: should he solve it he is to kill the Princess, the Princess said,
The Nāga belt
Is the golden waist-chain.
Explain it, friend.
“From the evening, without extinguishing the lamp, he tried to solve it. The Prince could not explain it. After fifteen pāēyas had gone by, he put out the light. Up to the very time when he extinguished the lamp, so long I remained there. She said that she will kill the Prince to-morrow.”