spell this harm hath fall’n
    On Nishadha’s Lord, I pray that evil one
    May bear a bitterer plague than Nala doth! 
    To him, whoever set my guileless Prince
    On these ill deeds, I pray some direr might
    May bring far darker days, and life to live
    More miserable still!”
                          Thus, woe-begone,
    Mourned that great-hearted wife her vanished lord,
    Seeking him ever in the gloomy shades,
    By wild beasts haunted.  Roaming everywhere,
    Like one possessed, frantic, disconsolate,
    Went Bhima’s daughter.  “Ha, ha!  Maharaja!”
    So crying runs she, so in every place
    Is heard her ceaseless wail, as when is heard
    The fish-hawk’s cry, which screams, and circling screams,
    And will not stint complaining. 
                                    Suddenly,
    Straying too near his den, a serpent’s coils
    Seized Bhima’s daughter.  A prodigious snake,
    Glittering and strong, and furious for food,
    Knitted about the Princess.  She, o’erwhelmed
    With horror, and the cold enfolding death,
    Spends her last breaths in pitiful laments
    For Nala, not herself.  “Ah, Prince!” she cried,
    “That would have saved me, who must perish now,
    Seized in the lone wood by this hideous snake,
    Why art thou not beside me?  What will be
    Thy thought, Nishadha! me remembering
    In days to come, when, from the curse set free,
    Thou hast thy noble mind again, thyself,
    Thy wealth—­all save thy wife?  Then thou’lt be sad,
    Be weary, wilt need food and drink; but I
    Shall minister no longer.  Who will tend
    My Love, my Lord, my Lion among kings,
    My blameless Nala—­Damayanti dead?”
      That hour a hunter, roving through the brake,
    Heard her bewailing, and with quickened steps
    Made nigh, and, spying a woman, almond-eyed,
    Lovely, forlorn, by that fell monster knit,
    He ran, and, as he came, with keen shaft clove,
    Through gaping mouth and crown, th’unwitting worm,
    Slaying it.  Then the woodman from its folds
    Freed her, and laved the snake’s slime from her limbs
    With water of the pool, comforting her
    And giving food; and afterwards (my King!)
    Inquiry made:  “What doest, in this wood,
    Thou with the fawn’s eyes?  And how earnest thou,
    My mistress, to such pit of misery?”
      And Damayanti, spoken fair by him,
    Recounted all which had befallen her. 
      But, gazing on her graces, scantly clad
    With half a cloth, those smooth, full sides, those breasts
    Beauteously swelling, form of faultless mould,
    Sweet youthful face, fair as the moon at full,
    And dark orbs, by long curving lashes swept;
    Hearing her tender sighs and honeyed speech,
    The hunter fell to hot desire; he dared
    Essay to woo, with whispered