Being asked by the king which of the three she would take, the woman said, "Cannot your majesty give me all three?" "No," said the king, "I cannot." [308] "Well, if I cannot have all three, give me my brother." "Take your husband or your son," said the king. "What matters a brother?" "The two former I can readily replace," answered the woman, "but a brother never." And so saying, she repeated this stanza:--

A son 's an easy find; of husbands too
An ample choice throngs public ways. But where
Will all my pains another brother find?

"She is quite right," said the king, well-pleased. And he bade all three men be fetched from the prison and given over to the woman. She took them all three and went her way.

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"So you see, Brethren," said the Master, "that this same woman once before saved these same three men from peril." His lesson ended, he made the connexion and identified the Birth by saying, "The woman and the three men of to-day were also the woman and men of those bygone days; and I was then the king."

[Note.--Cf. for the idea of the verse Herodotus 118-120, Sophocles Antigone 909-912; and see this passage discussed in the Indian Antiquary for December, 1881.]

Footnotes

^165:1 Cf. 'femme couverte.'

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