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he brought her up, since she was left an infant.

Dushm. Left? the word excites my curiosity; and raises in me a desire of knowing her whole story.

Anu. You shall hear it, Sir, in few words.—

When that sage king had begun to gather the fruits of his austere devotion, the gods of Swerga became apprehensive of his increasing power, and sent the nymph Ménacà to frustrate, by her allurements, the full effect of his piety.

Dushm. Is a mortal's piety so tremendous to the inferior deities? What was the event?

Anu. In the bloom of the vernal season, Causica, beholding the beauty of the celestial nymph, and wafted by the gale of desire—

[She stops and looks modest.]

Dushm. I now see the whole. Sacontalá then is the daughter of a king, by a nymph of the lower heaven.

Anu. Even so.

Dushm. [Aside.] The desire of my heart is gratified.—[Aloud.]—How, indeed, could her transcendent beauty be the portion of mortal birth? Yon light, that sparkles with tremulous beams, proceeds not from a terrestrial cavern.

[Sacontalá sits modestly, with her eyes on the ground.]

Dushm. [Again aside.] Happy man that I am! Now has my fancy an ample range, yet, having heard the pleasantry of her companions on the subject of her nuptials, I am divided with