Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/211

Rh who is smitten by her charms. The lovers meet in a grove outside the village in which she resides, at first during the day; but later on they have stolen interviews at night. The lover proposes to the father of the lady to marry his daughter, and obtains his consent, or he informs the lady that they must separate at least for a time, as he has to go on a distant journey. The lady’s maid tries to persuade him to stay: she warns him of the dangers of the road which is infested by wild beasts and robbers more cruel than wild animals. She asks him to remember that youth is fleeting: that it returns to no man: and that it is the season for enjoying the pleasures of life. She relates to him how sorry her mistress is if he absents himself from the trysting place even a single day, and expresses the fear that she may die of grief if her lover deserts her. If he is still determined to go, the lady entreats him to take her with him: but he pleads that timid and delicate as she is, she cannot undertake a long and difficult journey. She replies that, even in the forest, the hind follows the stag. “I shall neither eat nor drink, but ever thinking of thee, I shall die,” says she, “my heart is now a captive in thy bosom: keep it and let it not return to me lest it cause me grief” He is silenced, and the lady elopes with her lover. The mother of the young lady going in search of her, enquires of the pilgrims whom she meets, whether they had seen a girl following a young man on the road. The pilgrims console her with the advice that her daughter had not acted improperly in having eloped with the youth who loved her. “Of what use is the pearl” they say, “to the sea in which it was born? Of what use is the sandal to the mountain on which it grew? Of what use is the coral to the reef on which it was formed? They are useful only to those who would wear them. Even so, has thy daughter gone with the young man of her choice.” After some days’ absence, the daughter returns to her mother’s house accompanied by her lover, and the youthful couple are married with the usual rites. If the lover hastily departs on a long journey in the service of the king, the lady is distracted. She gives up the society of her friends. She laughs and weeps by turns. She fancies that her sorrow is shared even by the inanimate objects around her: the