Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/516

 princess equal in beauty, be remains, though in his fresh youth, without a wife. And I, your majesty, having beheld that king, dear to the eyes, took a faithful likeness of him, out of admiration of his beauty." When the king heard that, he said: " Have you that portrait with you?" And the painter said, " I have," and showed the portrait. Thereupon the king Rúpadhara, beholding tbe beauty of that king Prithvídhara, found his head whirl round with astonishment. And he said, " Fortunate are we to have beheld that king even in a picture; I felicitate those who behold him in the flesh. When Rúpalatá heard this speech of her father's, and saw the king in the picture, she was full of longing, and could neither hear nor see anything else. Then the king Rúpadhara, seeing that his daughter was distracted with love, said to that painter Kumáridatta, " Your pictures exactly correspond to the original, so that king Prithvírúpa must be an appropriate husband for my daughter. So take this portrait of my daughter, and set off immediately, and shew my daughter to king Prithvírúpa; and tell the whole incident as it took place, and if he pleases, let him come here quickly, to marry her." Thus the king spake, and honoured the painter with gifts, and sent him off with his ambassador, in the company of the mendicants.

The painter, the ambassador, and the mendicants crossed the sea, and all reached the court of Prithvírúpa in Pratishthána. There they gave the present to that king, and told him the whole transaction, as it took place, and the message of Rúpadhara. And then that painter Kumáridatta shewed to that king his beloved Rupalatá in a painting. As the king gazed,* his eye was drowned in that sea of beauty her person, so that he could not draw it out again. For the king, whose longing was excessive, could not be satisfied with devouring her form, which poured forth a stream of the nectar of beauty, as the partridge cannot be satisfied with devouring the moonlight. And he said to the painter, " My friend, worthy of praise is the Creator who made this beauty, and yourself who copied it. So I accept the proposal of king Rúpadhara; I will go to the island of Muktipura and marry his daughter." After saying this, the king honoured the painter, the ambassador, and the hermits, and remained looking at the picture.

And afflicted with the sorrow of absence, the king spent that day in gardens and other places, and set out the next day on his expedition, after ascertaining a favourable moment. And the king mounted the great