Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/268

 " So you see that females are naturally wicked and treacherous." When the parrot had told this tale, the curse imposed on him by Indra lost its force, and he became once more the Gandharva Chitraratha, and assuming a celestial form, he went to heaven. And at the same moment the maina's curse came to an end, and she became the heavenly nymph Tilottamá, and went at once to heaven. And so their dispute remained undecided in the judgment-hall.

When the Vetála had told this tale, he again said to the king, " So let your Majesty decide, which are the worst, males or females. But if you know and do not say, your head shall split in pieces."

When the king was asked this question by the Vetála, that was on his shoulder, he said to him, " Chief of magicians, women are the worst. For it is possible that once in a way a man may be so wicked, but females are, as a rule, always such everywhere." When the king said this, the Vetála disappeared, as before, from his shoulder, and the king once more resumed the task of fetching him.

Oesterley tells us that in the Vetála Cadai the two stories are told by two parrots, and the same is the case in the Turkish Tútínámah, Rosen, 2, p. 92. The Ist story is found in the Turkish Tútínámah. The principal difference is that the parents of the extravagant man die after his first crime; after he has spent his property, he begs in a cemetery, and is there recognized by his wife; they live some time together, and then set out to return to his house. On the way they pass the old well, and there he murders her. There are some similar points in the 11th story of the Siddhikür. [See Sagas from the Far East, pp. 120-125.] The second story is found in Babington's Vetála Cadai, p. 44. The lover receives a mortal wound, being taken for a thief, and in the agony of death bites off the nose of the adulteress. She smears her husband's betel-knife with the blood, and accuses him of the murder. The city- guards clear the matter up. The 2nd story is found in a very different form in the Siddhikür, No. 10; in Jülg, p. 100. [See Sagas from The Far East, pp. 115-119.] Here a younger brother is not invited to supper by an elder, so he determines to rob him out of revenge. He observes his brother's wife go to a cemetery to see her dead lover, who, when she tries to feed him by force, bites off her nose and the tip of her tongue. Of course when she accuses her husband, the younger brother reveals the secret. The story in the Turkish Tútínámah, Rosen, 2, p. 96, Wickerhauser, p. 212, closely resembles Somadeva's. The lovers are surprised by the city-guards, who crucify the man, and let the woman go. The man in the agony of death bites her nose off, and she accuses her husband of the deed; he is then condemned to lose his nose. But a thief, who has crept into the house, and has then followed the adulteress, reveals the secret, and the woman is thereupon drowned. The story in the Panchatantra, Benfey, II, p. 40, only resembles this in its conclusion. [See Johnson's Hitopadeśa, p. 85.] It is no doubt a clever adaptation of the end of this story. The tale has been traced through all its migrations by Benfoy, Vol. I, p. 140. (Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí pp. 187-191.)