Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/635

 they are full of daring wickedness." When the king said this, a minister remarked, " Yes, king ! women are fully as wicked as you say. By the bye, have you not heard what happened to the Bráhman Agniśarman here?"

Story of Agniśarman.* :— There lives in this very city a Bráhman named Agniśarman, the son of Somaśarman; whom his parents loved as their life, but who was a fool and ignorant of every branch of knowledge. He married the daughter of a Bráhman in the city of Vardhamána; but her father, who was rich, would not let her leave his house, on the ground that she was a mere child.

And when she grew up, Agniśarman's parents said to him, " Son, why do you not now go and fetch your wife? " When Agniśarman heard that, the stupid fellow went off alone to fetch her, without taking leave of his parents. When he left his house a partridge appeared on his right hand, and a jackal howled on his left hand, a sure prophet of evil.† And the fool welcomed the omen saying, " Hail ! Hail ! " and when the deity presiding over the omen heard it, she laughed at him unseen. And when he reached his father-in-law's place, and was about to enter it, a partridge appeared on his right, and a jackal on his left, boding evil. And again he welcomed the omen, exclaiming " Hail ! Hail ! " and again the goddess of the omen, hearing it, laughed at him unseen. And that goddess presiding over the omen said to herself, " Why, this fool welcomes bad luck as if it were good ! So I must give him the luck which he welcomes, I must contrive to save his life." While the goddess was going through these reflections, Agniśarman entered his father-in-law's house, and was joyfully welcomed. And his father-in-law and his family asked him, why he had come alone, and he answered them, " I came without telling any one at home." Then he bathed and dined in the appropriate manner, and when night came on, his wife came to his sleeping apartment adorned. But he fell asleep fatigued with the journey; and then she went out to visit a paramour of hers, a thief, who had been impaled. But, while she was embracing his body, the demon that had entered it, bit off her nose; and she fled thence in fear. And she went and placed an unsheathed ‡ dagger at her sleeping husband's side; and cried out loud enough for all her relations to hear, " Alas ! Alas ! I am murdered; this wicked husband of