Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/197

 by his ministers, and supposing that the god of the moon-crest had given her a son under the form of a fruit, he considered the fulfilment of his wish to be not far off.

Then, in a short time, Vásavadattá became pregnant with a child, glorious inasmuch as it was an incarnation of the god of Love, and it was a feast to the eyes of the king of Vatsa. She shone with a face, the eyes of which rolled, and which was of palish hue, as if with the moon come to visit her out of affection for the god of Love conceived in her. When she was sitting down, the two images of her form, reflected in the sides of the jewelled couch, seemed like Rati and Príti come there out of regard for their husband.* Her ladies-in-waiting attended upon her like the Sciences that grant desires, come in bodily form to shew their respect for the future king of the Vidyádharas † conceived in her. At that time she had breasts with points dark like a folded bud, resembling pitchers intended for the inaugural sprinkling ‡ of her unborn son. When she lay down on a comfortable couch in the middle of the palace, which gleamed with pavement composed of translucent, flashing, .lustrous jewels, she appeared as if she were being propitiated by the waters, that had come there trembling, through fear of being conquered by her future son, with heaps of jewels on every side. Her image reflected from the gems in the middle of the chariot, appeared like the Fortune of the Vidyáharas coming in the heaven to offer her adoration. And she felt a longing for stories of great magicians provided with incantations' by means of spells, introduced appropriately in conversation. Vidyádhara ladies, beginning melodious songs, waited upon her when in her dream she rose high up in the sky, and when she woke up, she desired to enjoy in reality the amusement of sporting in the air, which would give the pleasure of looking down upon the earth. And Yaugandharáyana gratified that longing of the queen's by employing spells, machines, juggling, and such like contrivances. So she roamed through the air by means of those various contrivances, which furnished a wonderful spectacle to the upturned eyes of the citizens' wives. But once on a time,