alternately fainting and raving, calling upon peacock and cuckoo, bee, swan, and elephant, antelope, mountain, and river to give him tidings of his beloved, her with the antelope eyes and the big breasts, and the hips so broad that she can only walk slowly.  At last he sees in a cleft a large red jewel and picks it up.  It is the stone of union which enables lovers to find one another.  An impulse leads him to embrace the vine before him and it changes to Urvasi.  A son is afterward born to her, but she sends him away before the king knows about it, and has him brought up secretly lest she be compelled to return at once to heaven.  But Indra sends a messenger to bring her permission to remain with the king as long as he lives.

III.  MALAVIKA AND AGNIMITRA

Queen Dharini, the head wife of King Agnimitra, has received from her brother a young girl named Malavika, whom he has rescued from robbers.  The queen is just having a large painting made of herself and her retinue, and Malavika finds a place on it at her side.  The king sees the picture and eagerly inquires:  “Who is that beautiful maiden?” The suspicious queen does not answer his question, but takes measures to have the girl carefully concealed from him and kept busy with dancing lessons.  But the king accidentally hears Malavika’s name and makes up his mind that he must have her.  “Arrange some stratagem,” he says to his viduschaka, “so I may see her bodily whose picture I beheld accidentally.”  The viduschaka promptly stirs up a dispute between the two dancing-masters, which is to be settled by an exhibition of their pupils before the king.  The queen sees through the trick too late to prevent its execution and the king’s desire is gratified.  He sees Malavika, and finds her more beautiful even than her picture—­her face like the harvest moon, her bosom firm and swelling, her waist small enough to span with the hand, her hips big, her toes beautifully curved.  She has never seen the king, yet loves him passionately.  Her left eye twitches—­a favorable sign—­and she sings:  “I must obey the will of others, but my heart desires you; I cannot conceal it.”  “She uses her song as a means of offering herself to you,” says the viduschaka to the king, who replies:  “In the presence of the queen her love saw no other way.”  “The Creator made her the poisoned arrow of the god of love,” he continues to his friend after the performance is over and they are alone.  “Apply your mind and think out other plans for meeting her.”  “You remind me,” says the viduschaka, “of a vulture that hovers over a butcher’s shop, filled with greed for meat but also with fear.  I believe the eagerness to have your will has made you ill.”  “How were it possible to remain well?” the king retorts.  “My heart no longer desires intimacies with any woman in all my harem.  To her with the beautiful eyes, alone shall my love be devoted henceforth.”