Note 5 — Chapter LXXV

Once on a time that prince was amusing himself with that friend, and his excessive devotion to the chase made him travel a long distance. As he was cutting off the long-maned5 heads of lions with his arrows, as it were the chowries that represented the glory of their valour, he entered a great forest. It seemed like the chosen home of love, with singing cuckoos for bards, fanned by trees with their clusters of blossoms, waving like chowries. In it he and the minister’s son saw a great lake, looking like a second sea, the birthplace of lotuses6 of various colours; and in that pool of gods there was seen by him a maiden of heavenly appearance, who had come there with her attendants to bathe. She seemed to fill the splendid tank with the flood of her beauty, and with her glances to create in it a new forest of blue lotuses. With her face, that surpassed the moon in beauty, she seemed to put to shame the white lotuses, and she at once captivated with it the heart of that prince. The youth too, in the same way, took with a glance such complete possession of her eyes, that she did not regard her own modesty or even her ornaments. And as he was looking at her with his attendants, and wondering who she was, she made, under pretence of pastime, a sign to tell him her country and other particulars about her. She took a lotus from her garland of flowers, and put it in her ear, and she remained for a long time twisting it into the form of an ornament called dantapatra or tooth-leaf, and then she took another lotus and placed it on her head, and she laid her hand significantly upon her heart. The prince did not at that time understand those signs, but his sagacious friend the minister’s son did understand them. The maiden soon departed, being led away from that place by her attendants, and when she had reached her own house, she flung herself down on a sofa, but her heart remained with that prince, to justify the sign she had made.