Note 162 — Chapter IV

This recalls an incident in the Indian story of the virtuous Devasmitá, who entraps four suitors, during her husband’s absence on a trading journey, who visit her in succession, and, while they are insensible from the effects of a narcotic mixed with their wine, causes each to be branded on the forehead with a hot iron. The suitors return to their own country, where the lady’s husband is residing for a time, and Devasmitá soon after sets out thither, disguised as a man, where she claims all four as her slaves in presence of the king, causing them to remove their head-gear and expose the brands; and she “lets them off” on payment of a large sum of money.—(Tawney’s translation of the Kathá Sarit Ságara: Ocean of the Streams of Story, vol. i, pp. 85-92.)—Henceforward the four rascally brothers of Táj ul-Mulúk are, as the Icelandic story-tellers say, “out of this tale.”