Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/884

 842 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE, [ Chap, guise of a prince with her maid, Sona, who was also dressed as a young man. After a weary search—they traced out Kumara, and _ learning all about him went to the palace of the Raja, whose daughter had kept him in her vicinity as a lover. Kamini, who was a very beautiful woman, played her part as the young prince so well, that the Raja offered his daughter in marriage to her. After the marriage was over, she at once detected the guilty man, her own husband, and brought the matter to the notice of the Raja, playing her mock-anger with admirable tact. The Raja in great consternation offered the thief to his false | son-in-law saying that he might inflict any punish- ment on him that he liked,—at the same time he begged him to pardon his daughter. Kamini, on the pretext of going away for a short time on business, marched homewards with her husband who thought her to be the prince and had not recognised her as his loyal and loving wife. This passage describes what took place after she had taken the thief into custody. She gave him the name of Rama Vallabha, because it was held sacrilegeous in those days for a Hindu wife.to utter the name of her husband. ,efore we close the account of our early prose, we should note some points about it. Though the above passage is connected with the incidents of an illicit love, which forms the subject matter of the poem Kamini Kumara, the author of which belongs to the depraved school of Bharata Chandra, yet the rest of our early prose which we have noticed, shows that it was mainly employed for the purpose of metaphysical and_ religious writings.