let her receive the reward due to her return home. I will slay her and cutting her body into seven pieces send one to each of the seven kings," and so saying he repeated another stanza:

In pieces seven Pabhavati to hack, it is my will,
One piece for each of these seven kings, who came her sire to kill.

This saying of his was noised abroad throughout the palace. Her attendants came and told Pabhavati, " The king, they say, will cut you in seven pieces and send them to the seven kings." She was terrified to death and rising from her seat she went, accompanied by her sisters, to her mother's state chamber.

The Master, to make the matter clear, said:

Comely though swart of hue uprose the queen and moved before
Her train of handmaids, clad in silk attire and weeping sore.

She came into her mother's presence and saluting her broke into these lamentations:

[302] This face with powder beautified, here mirrored in a glass
To ivory handle deftly fixed, so winsome now alas!
With innocence and purity in every line expressed,
By warrior princes spurned in some lone forest soon will rest.

These locks of hair so black of hue, bound up in stately coil,
Soft to the touch and fragrant with the finest sandal oil,
In charnel ground though covered up the vultures soon will find
And with their talons rend and tear and scatter to the wind.

These arms whose finger tips are dyed, like copper, crimson red,
In richest sandal oil oft bathed and with soft down o'erspread,
Cut off and by proud kings in some lone forest flung aside,
A wolf will seize and carry off where'er he's fain to hide.

My teats are like the dates that on the palms with ripeness swell,
Fragrant with scent of sandalwood that men of Kasi fell:
Hanging thereon a jackal soon at them, methinks, will tug,
Just as a little baby boy his mother's breast may hug.

These hips of mine, well-knit and broad, cast in an ample mould,
Encircled with a cincture gay, wrought of the purest gold,
Cut off and by proud kings in some lone forest flung aside,
A wolf will seize and carry off where'er he's fain to hide.

Dogs, wolves, jackals and whatsoe'er are known as beasts of prey,
If once they eat Pabhavati, can suffer no decay.

Should warrior kings that come from far thy daughter's body flay,
Begging my bones, burn them with fire in some sequestered way.

Then make a garden near and plant a kanikara tree,
And when at winter's close it blooms, mother, recalling me,
Point to the flower and say, "Just such was dear Pabhavati."