Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/397

 the shore: and the hermit Matanga found her there and brought her to his hermitage."

When she said this, Sundarasena's friend Dŗidhabuddhi, dancing like one bewildered with joy and despondency, said to the prince, " I congratulate you on having now been successful in obtaining the princess Mandáravatí; for is not this that very lady of whom we were thinking?" When he had said this, her companions the hermit maidens questioned him, and he told them his story; and they gladdened with it that friend of theirs. Then Mandáravatí exclaimed, " Ah, my husband," and fell weeping at the feet of that Sundarasena. He, for his part, embraced her and wept, and while they were weeping there, even stocks and herbs wept, melted with compassion. Then the hermit Matanga, having been informed of all this by those hermit maidens, came there quickly, accompanied by Yamuná. He comforted that Sundarasena, who prostrated himself at his feet, and took him "with Mandáravatí to his own hermitage. And that day he refreshed him by entertaining him, and made him feel happy; and the next day the great hermit said to that prince, " My son, I must to-day go for a certain affair to Śvetadvípa, so you must go with Mandáravatí to Alaká; there you must marry this princess and cherish her; for I have adopted her as my daughter, and I give her to you. And you shall rule the earth for a long time with her; and you shall soon recover all those ministers of yours." When the hermit had said this to the prince and his betrothed, he took leave of them, and went away through the air with his daughter Yamuná, who was equal to himself in power.

Then Sundarasena, with Mandáravatí, and accompanied by Dŗidhabuddhi, set out from that hermitage. And when he reached the shore of the sea, he saw coming near him a light ship under the command of a young merchant. And in order to accomplish his journey more easily, he asked the young merchant who was the owner of that ship, through Dridhabuddhi, hailing him from a distance, to give him a passage in it. The wicked merchant, who beheld Mandáravatí, and was at once distracted with love, consented, and brought his ship near the shore. Then Sundarasena first placed his beloved on board the ship, and was preparing to get on board himself from the bank where he stood, when the wicked merchant, coveting his neighbour's wife, made a sign to the steersman, and so set the ship in motion. And the ship, on board of which the princess was crying piteously, rapidly disappeared from the view of Sundarasena, who stood gazing at it.

And he fell on the ground crying out, " Alas ! I am robbed by thieves," and wept for a long time, and then Dridhabuddhi said to him, " Rise up ! Abandon despondency ! this is not a course befitting a hero.