A Syrup of the Bees

And then, at last, one day it happened, that the King and Queen were sitting together on the palace roof. And all at once, the Queen started to her feet with a cry. And as the King looked towards her, with wonder and curiosity, she said slowly: Aryaputra,11 know, that I have suddenly recollected my former birth. And now, I long to tell thee all about it; and yet I am afraid. For this is the law, that if anybody suddenly remembers his former birth, and tells it to another, that very moment he must die. And if I die, I must leave thee: for if not, what could death do to me, since that is the only thing in the three worlds of which I am afraid?

So as she looked at him, with regret and affection in her eyes – for she was as devoted to her husband as if he had been worthy, as indeed he was utterly unworthy, of her devotion – all at once the King's heart leaped in his breast. And he said to himself: Ha! Here, as it seems, is that very opportunity, for which I have been waiting all these years: till I thought that my soul would almost part from my body, for sheer impatience and disgust. And in an instant, he also sprang to his feet, exclaiming as he did so, with an ecstasy that was only half feigned: Strange! can it be? For I, too, have suddenly remembered my former birth: as if this recollection of thine had been the spark required, to set fire to the memory of my own. So now, then, let us very quickly tell each other all, and so take leave together of these miserable bodies, into which we must, beyond a doubt, have fallen, by reason of a curse.

So then, deceived by the display of his hypocritical affection, the Queen told him very quickly all that she recollected of her former birth. And when she had finished, the King looked at her steadily for a while, and his face fell. And he said, with difficulty: Alas! alas! I was utterly mistaken: and as I think, I took fire falsely, out of sympathy with thee. And now I have fallen unwittingly into an irreparable disaster. For as to my own former birth, I remember absolutely nothing about anything at all.

So as he spoke, he looked at the Queen, and their eyes met. And in that instant, she understood; and caught, like a flash of lightning, the falsehood in his soul. And she gazed at him, for a while, fixedly, with eyes that resembled an incarnation of scrutiny that was mingled with reproach, till all at once he turned away, unable to endure the detection of his own baseness, reflected as it were in the calm mirror of her own pure gaze. And after a while, she said slowly: Son, not of a noble, but an outcast, know, that thou hast doomed not me only, but thyself. And now, because thou hast betrayed me to my death, thy son also shall die as I do, and on the very same spot, by the agency of one who stands to him in the very same relation that I do to thee: and the husband shall pay for the wife. And the consequence of works shall dog thee, in the form of the total extinction of thy race. But as for me, now I see only too clearly that this birth has been a blunder, and a punishment, and a delusion, resembling a scene played upon a stage, whose king turns out, when the curtain falls, to be but a sorry rascal after all. And all the while, I have given my devotion to the wrong husband, and like a foolish benefactor, have wasted alms on a pitiful impostor. I feared, but one short moment since, to leave thee, and to part from thee; but now, thou hast suddenly changed regret into relief. See, whether separation will be thy blessing or thy curse.

So as she spoke, she tottered, and her soul suddenly left its body, which sank to the ground abandoned, like a creeper that collapses when the trunk it clung to falls, and saying as if to mock him: Seek now for the core that is gone, within the hollow husk.

II

So then, when her funeral obsequies were over, that widowed King, strange to say! fell into melancholy, deceiving all his subjects, as if by express design. For they pitied him exceedingly, each saying to the other: See, now, how this good Queen's death has robbed this poor deserted King as it were of his own soul: as well, indeed, it might. For she was a patidewatá,12 and a Sawitri, not only in her name, but in her nature, and rather than outlive him, preferred to go before. Whereas, on the contrary, that King's decline arose, not from regret, but from remorse, mixed with anxiety and the apprehension of his coming doom. For this is the way of the weak, that they yield to evil impulse, and yet repent of their own doings, taking fright at the sight of them, as soon as they are done, and discovering the terrible consequences of works, too late. For a deed that is done, is divided from what it was, before it was done, by all eternity, in the fraction of a second: as this King found to his cost. For even as he gazed at the body of his queen, lying dead on the floor beside him, remorse rose up as it were out of her body and took him by the throat. And at that moment, he would have thrown away his kingdom like a blade of grass, to bring her back to life. And his longing to get rid of her changed, like a flash of lightning, into a passionate yearning to repossess her, dead. And he said to himself, as he looked at her: Where in the world shall I find another resembling her in the least degree, and what shall I do, to save myself from the ripening of her curse? For destiny listens in silence to the prayers of a pure woman, and she, beyond all doubt, was one.

So then, from that very moment, every thought of replacing her by another queen abandoned him, as if her life, in leaving her, had drawn with it his own. And all his taste for life at all, and all desires whatever, suddenly left him in a body, as if out of disgust at his behaviour. And he sank into despair, and pined and waned like an old moon, and grew gradually dimmer, and thinner, and more gloomy, till there was hardly anything left of him at all, but skin and bone. And finally, seeing its opportunity, a burning fever arising from a chill entered in and took possession of all his limbs, as if to give him a foretaste of the flames of his own pyre.

And then at last, perceiving that Yama had caught him in his noose, and finding himself in the mouth of death, he summoned his prime minister, together with his son. And when they came, he said to them: Since I am on the very point of following my wife, as, had I gone before her, she would have followed me, sati13 that she was, there is no time to lose. Do thou, my son, get married, as quickly as thou canst, for the god of death has clutched us both, as if he was in a hurry, just at the very moment when we were thinking of procuring thee a wife. And as it is, I am sore afraid of going to meet my ancestors, who will angrily reproach me for placing them in jeopardy, by neglecting to provide for them in time. And when they ask me, saying: Where is thy son's son? what answer shall I make? And therefore, O my minister, I leave this son of mine and his marriage as a deposit in thy hands, which I shall require of thee in the other world. Postpone all other policy to the duty of finding him a wife: and if thou canst, let her resemble his mother, that was mine.

So having spoken, in a little while he died, leaving everybody in his kingdom wondering at his affection for his wife. For nobody knew the truth, which was as it were burned up and utterly annihilated by the fires that consumed the body of his wife and his own. And he left behind him a reputation for fidelity that was absolutely false. For none but the Deity can penetrate the disguise of hypocrisy. And yet, though he deceived all the subjects in his kingdom, he did not succeed in blinding the eyes of Dharma,14 who caught his soul in his noose, and doomed it, for his treachery, to be born again in the body of a worm.

III

So, then, when his funeral obsequies were over, and the due time prescribed by the shastras had elapsed, his son Arunodaya mounted the throne, and became king in his room.

And no sooner was the crown placed upon his head, and the water sprinkled over him, than the prime minister, who was named Gangádhara, came to him privately, and said: Maháráj, now there is yet another ceremony which remains as it were crying to be performed, with the least possible delay; and that is thy own marriage. And now it is for thee and me to seek out some maiden that will make a royal match for thee, and lead her round the fire, and so let thy father's spirit rest. And there cannot be any difficulty at all. For all the neighbouring kings, who possess daughters, are watching thee like clouds around a mountain top, ready to rain daughters as it were upon thy head; since thou art superior in power to them all. And as for the daughters, the painters, and the rumours of thy beauty, have turned them all into so many abhisárikas, dying to run into thy arms without waiting to be asked; and the only danger is, that all but the one on whom thy choice shall fall will immediately abandon the body, out of jealousy and despair, as soon as it is made. For everybody knows that even Ananga and Rati15 were envious of thy father and thy mother; of whom thou art compounded into an essence twice as powerful as either was alone, so that not a day passes but my spies bring me news of miserable women who have deserted the body of their own accord, finding themselves, by reason of their caste or condition, cut off from all hope of ever becoming thy wife.

Then said Arunodaya: O Gangádhara, I am ready to marry in a moment any one of them: and yet, as I think, I shall never marry anyone at all. And Gangádhara said: Maháráj, thou speakest riddles, and I am slow to understand. And Arunodaya looked at him with a smile. And he said: Gangádhara, it is proper that a minister should know all his master's secrets, and now that thou art my minister, I will tell thee mine, and make thee my confidant in everything, as expediency demands. For then only will the business of our policy run on smoothly, when we pull exactly together, like a pair of bullocks in a cart. And whether it be with the women as thou sayest, or not, there is a difficulty, unknown to thee, on my part. Then said the minister: What is that? And Arunodaya said: I am already more than half married, and, as it were, bound, by an indissoluble pledge, to an undiscoverable beauty; and unless she can be found, I am, as I told thee, likely to remain unmarried for the remainder of my life.

Then said the prime minister: Maháráj, everything can be found by one who looks for it in the proper place. And if thy beauty be discoverable, I will undertake to find her, at the forfeit of my head. And who, then, is she? Give me at least a clue; and thou shalt see, that maybe she is not hidden so very far away, after all.

And Arunodaya said: I will marry no other woman but the wife of my former birth. For I dream of her, and as it seems to me, have dreamed of her, and nothing else, ever since I was born. And so, now, I have revealed to thee a secret, which I never told to anyone but thee: and I leave thee to judge, whether she is able to be found, or not. And if thou canst show me that any one of these kings' daughters was my wife before, I will marry her again: but this is the indispensable condition; and no matter who she may be, the woman who does not fulfil it must marry some one other than myself. And now, go: and when thou hast meditated sufficiently on the matter, return to me at dawn, and take counsel with me, as to what is to be done. For, as thou seest, this marriage of mine is not likely to be easily achieved. And I resemble one searching on the seashore for a grain of sand, dropped there in the dead of night, a hundred years ago.

IV

So then, that astounded prime minister gazed at Arunodaya for a while in silence, and took his dismissal, and went away like a man in a dream. And when he reached his home, he sat for a long time musing, like a picture painted on a wall. And then, all at once, he began to laugh. And he exclaimed: Ha! this, then, was the secret, and now at length I begin to understand, and all is explained. For this young king brahmachári,16 little as he suspects it, has been under my eye ever since he was born. And this, then, was the reason why he was perpetually wandering about alone, and lying for hours gazing at the lotuses in the forest pools, or looking at the sea-waves, like a rock on the shore, differing totally from all others of his kind, who as a rule resemble must elephants, in utterly refusing to have anything to do with dancing girls or women of any kind, as it were wilfully contradicting the design of the Creator, who beyond a doubt formed him on purpose to prevent Rati and Priti17 from quarrelling, by providing a second body for their common lord. And all the while I took him for a very yogi, he was, as it turns out, dreaming, not of emancipation, but this wife of his former birth: and hard as it is, I think that even emancipation would, of the two, be easier to attain. Well might he say, that she was difficult to find. For who ever got at the wife of his former birth, except in a dream. Aye! this is an obstacle to his marriage indeed, that even the Lord of the Elephant-Face would be puzzled to surmount or remove.

And after a while, he said again: Is it a mere fancy? Or can it be, that he really is haunted by some dim recollection of his former wife, since beyond a doubt the influences of pre-existence do sometimes persist, and like ships, sail without sinking over the dark ocean of oblivion, from one birth-island to another? And what, then, is she like? For could I only discover what she looks like in his dreams, it might be that by policy or stratagem I could make shift to find her, or somebody so like her that he would never know the difference. I will go to him to-morrow and ask him to describe her, and he cannot well refuse. For how can he expect me to discover her, unless I know what she is like? Or can it be, that he does not even know himself? That would be better still. For then, if, with the assistance of the astrologers, I can manage to devise a scheme, so as to persuade him that I have lit upon that which he is looking for, how could he detect the imposition? There are only too many kings' daughters who would think that the very fruit of their birth was gained, by practising so innocent a deception as to pass for the wife of his former birth in order to become in very truth his wife in this. And if I cannot succeed in some dexterous trick of substitution, I shall be almost ready to abandon the body myself, for sheer exasperation. For even apart from the necessity of getting him married, there is not one of the surrounding kings who is not ready to throw a crore of gold pieces at my head, if only I will even promise to become his partisan against all the rest, and marry Arunodaya to some daughter of his own. Out upon it, that with kings' daughters lying thick as lotuses all round him, and ready and even eager to be plucked, this unhappy longing of the king for an unattainable párijáta flower should make them all of no more value than withered leaves! O Rider on the Mouse,18 come to my assistance, for without thy help we shall all be swallowed by calamity, in the form of the utter extinction of this perverse king's kingdom and his race.

V

Now, just at this very moment, it happened, by the decree of destiny, that one of the kings of the Widyádharas,19 who was rightly named Mahídhara, for his home was on a mountain top that stood in a far-off island beyond the rising sun, was holding a swayamwara for all his hundred daughters. And for ninety-nine days each daughter chose her husband, one a day, from out of the suitors who flocked to the marriage in such numbers that the sky looked like a cart-wheel, with lines of Widyádharas assembling from all directions, like vultures, for its spokes. And finally the hundredth day, and with it, the turn of the youngest daughter came, to choose.

Now this daughter resembled a thorn, fixed by the Creator in the hearts of all her sisters, causing perpetual irritation, like a rebel chief in a united kingdom. For she stood aloof from them all, like a little finger that somehow or other refuses to bend into the closed hand, being not only the youngest, but the smallest, and the most perverse, and the loveliest of all, putting not only all her sisters but every other Widyádhari to the necessity of acknowledging, sore against their will, that the presence of her beauty robbed them of their own, reducing them to confusion, like so many impostors confronted by the true heir. And her nature was so totally dissimilar to that of everybody else, that she resembled a thing made by the Creator standing as it were upon his head, out of the essence of contradiction: since none of her own family could ever tell what she would or would not say, or do, or even where she was. And even her beauty was as wayward as she was herself. For one of her eyebrows was always as it were on the tiptoe of surprise, arrogantly arching a little higher than the other; and her eyes were very long, with corners that looked as if they were on the very point of turning upwards, which none the less they never did, as if expressly to disappoint and deride the expectation they aroused, and keep it hovering for ever in an agony of suspense. And her lips always seemed to smile even when they were not smiling, and her head was almost, always poised a very little on one side, looking as if it were listening for the far-off mutter of the mischief that lay as it were slumbering in the thunder-cloud hanging low in the heaven of her huge dark eyes, whose lashes resembled the long grass that fringes the edge of a forest pool. And her limbs were so slender, and her colour was so pale, in the shadow of the masses of her sable hair, that had it not been for the indigo of her lotus eyes and the vermilion of her lips, she would have resembled a marble incarnation of the beauty of death, or a wraith of mist touched as it hovers in a dark valley by the ashy beam of a waning moon. And, strange! her spell seemed made of moods that always changed, yet never varied, compounded half of shy timidity, and half of proud disdain, like an atmosphere of paradoxical fascination, formed of the rival fragrances of sandalwood and camphor, translated into the language of the soul.

So then, as those Widyádhara suitors waited in the hall, standing round in a ring, she came in slowly, with the garland of choosing in her hand. And beginning with the first she came to, she walked very deliberately all round that circle of excited wooers, going from one to the next in order, and examining each in turn. And in the dead silence, there was absolutely nothing heard but the faint clash of her golden anklets, as she moved round slowly on little hesitating feet, that trod as it were on everybody's heart. And as she went, those suitors, as she came to them and passed them, turned gradually from dark to pale, and then again to black, like the buttresses on the king's high road, when torches pass along.20 And every Widyádhara's soul abandoned, so to say, his body, on finding that she left him to go on to the next, dooming him as it were to death by carrying further the fatal wreath.

So, then, having given to all, as if by way of boon, a bitter glimpse of beauty mixed with a momentary ray of hope, dashing the cup from each one's lip just as it thought it was going to taste, she came to the very end. And then, she stopped dead. And she looked at them all, for a single moment, over the wreath they all desired, and she raised it to her lips, as if to scent its fragrance, saying as it were to all: Very sweet indeed is the thing beyond your reach. And then, with a little pout, she put it round her own neck. And she said, in the Arya metre:

Tell me, O breeze, is there syrup for the bees?Only, alas! when kind flowers please.

And then, she went away, leaving all her lovers as it were in the lurch, like a flock of Chakrawákas when the sun has disappeared.

VI

And they all stood, when she had gone, gazing at one another in silence, as motionless as though they had been painted on the walls that stood behind them. And then they all exclaimed, as if with a single voice: What! is not one of us all fit for this fastidious beauty's taste? And instantly that ring of disappointed suitors broke up as they flew away, and vanished like a mist, for in their fury they would not even so much as wait to take leave of her father, counting it as it were a crime in him to be father of such a daughter, and to have lured them into shame.

And seeing them go, Mahídhara went himself to the apartments of his daughter. And he said to her in dudgeon: Out on thee! Makarandiká;21 for here have all the Widyádharas become my bitter enemies by reason of this insult. Has thy reason left thee? Or where wilt thou find a husband, if not even one of all the kings of the Widyádharas can please thy foolish fancy? Dost thou not understand, that a daughter who is not married disgraces her father's house?

Then said Makarandiká: Dear father, I am far too ugly to be married. And Mahídhara laughed, and he said: What new caprice is this? Thou ugly! Why, if thou art too ugly, being far the most beautiful of all, what of thy sisters, whose beauty all united is not equal to thy own, and yet have they all chosen? And Makarandiká laughed, and she exclaimed: What! can it be? What! shall the most beautiful of all be content with others' leavings, and choose only out of what they have all rejected? As if the whole world were not full to the very brim of husbands! Shall my choice be the refuse? Moreover, I do not want a Widyádhara for a husband at all. And Mahídhara said, with amazement: And why not a Widyádhara? Then said Makarandiká: Widyádharas are fickle, and roaming about in the air, come across all sorts of other women and make love to them, deceiving their own wives. But I will marry only such a husband as never will deceive me.

Then said her father, smiling: But, O thou very jealous maiden, where wilt thou discover him? For did not even Indra himself play Sachi false? Or dost thou think that mortal men are always constant, when even gods are not? Choose, if thou wilt, a mortal for thy husband, only to discover that Widyádharas are not more treacherous than they are. Thy husband will deceive thee, as it may be, no matter what his birth.

And lo! as he looked at her, jesting, he saw her suddenly turn paler, and still paler, as if the very thought resembled poison in her ears. And she said in a low voice: Better never to be married at all, than marry a deceiver: better far for me, and better far for him. And her father exclaimed, in astonishment: What! O Makarandiká! thou hast not even got a husband as yet at all; yet here thou art already, jealous without a cause! What will it be, when thou art actually married? Truly I fear for thy unhappy husband, whoever he may be. And yet, be very careful. Bethink thee, O daughter, that if thou dost choose a mortal, it will be at the cost of thy condition. For any Widyádharí becoming the wife of a mortal man loses all her magic sciences, and is levelled with himself.

And Makarandiká said with scorn: Thy warning is unnecessary, and there is not any risk. For it will be long before I place myself in danger of any such description from a husband of any kind.

VII

So that haughty beauty spoke, ignorant of the future, not dreaming that her destiny in the form of a mortal husband was just about to laugh her vaunt to scorn. And leaving her father abruptly, she rose up into the air, and began to fly swiftly like a wild white swan away towards the western quarter, looking down upon the sea, that resembled a blue mirror of the sky that stretched above it, with foaming waves in place of clouds, and water instead of air: saying to herself: Only let me get away, where not a Widyádhara of them all is to be seen. And the wind caressed her limbs like a lover, stealing embraces as she went along, and whispering in the shell of her little ear: Be not alarmed, O vagrant beauty, if I reveal thy outline to the whole world, for there is nobody by to see. And she watched the sun go down before her, and went on all night long, with no companion but the new moon that sank into the sea in a little while, as if ashamed to rival her, leaving her alone with night. And at last, when dawn was just breaking, she saw below her this very temple, standing alone on the sandy shore between the forest and the sea. And a little further on, the King's palace was standing up like a tower, reddened by the young sun's rays. So, feeling tired, she swooped down, to rest for a little while. And she settled on the edge of the palace roof, taking the form of a snowy bird, with a ruddy bill and legs, as if to mock and imitate the colour of the sun.