Page:Tales from the Indian Epics.djvu/98

92 The same day Narada took his leave and King Asvapati began to prepare for his daughter's wedding. On an auspicious day he gathered round him the wisest Brahmans of the realm, and taking his daughter with him set out in his chariot for the hermitage of King Dyumatsena. When they reached the forest, he left his chariot and walked on foot until he found King Dyumatsena seated on a mat of kusa grass in the shade of a teak tree. King Asvapati bowed and told the royal hermit who he was. And Dyumatsena offered him a cow from his herd by way of welcome. King Asvapati took the gift and in return told King Asvapati the object of his coming. King Dyumatsena at first demurred. "How will your daughter," he asked, "bear the hardships of the forest? In the old days when I was king of the Salyas I would gladly have accepted your offer. But today when I am but a forest hermit, how can I?" "No," answered King Asvapati, "I have set my heart on the marriage; therefore do not thwart me." "If that be so," replied King Dyumatsena, "let the wedding be this very day." King Asvapati agreed. The two kings called together the Brahmans who had followed King Asvapati and those who lived in the hermitage, and that very day they united Satyavan the prince of the Salyas with Savitri the beautiful princess of the Madvas.

Wedded to Satyavan, Savitri cast aside her ornaments and her silken garments and clothed herself in bark and in coarse red rags, so that she might not shame King Dyumatsena and those round him by her finery. She soon won the love of her husband's people and she gave