[paragraph continues] I say, after receiving instruction in arts at Takkasila from a world-famed teacher, travelling about with the idea of mastering local customs, arrived at Benares, and hearing a commotion in the city and learning in answer to their inquiry what it was all about, they came and stood all five of them in a row, in appearance like so many golden statues. Kanha on seeing them fell in love with all five, as they stood before her, and threw a wreathed coil of flowers on the head of all the five and said, "Dear mother, I choose these five men." The queen told this to the king. The king, because he had given her the choice, did not say, "You cannot do this," but was greatly vexed. On asking however what was their origin and whose sons they were, when he learned that they were sons of king Pandu, he paid them great honour and gave them his daughter to wife, and by the force of her passion she won the affection of these five princes in her seven-storied palace. Now she had as an attendant a humpbacked cripple, and when by the force of passion she had won the hearts of the five princes, as soon as they had gone forth from the palace, finding her opportunity and fired by lust she sinned with the hump-backed slave, and conversing with him she said, "There is no one dear to me like you; I will slay these princes and have your feet smeared in the blood from their throats." And when she was in the company of the eldest of the royal brothers, she would say, "You are dearer to me than those other four. For your sake I would even sacrifice my life. At my father's death I will bestow the kingdom on you alone." But when she was in the company of the others, she acted in just the same way. They were greatly pleased with her, thinking, "She is fond of us and owing to this the sovereignty will be ours." One day she was sick, and gathering about her, one sat chafing her head, and the rest each of them a hand or foot, while the hump-back sat at her feet. To the eldest brother, prince Ajjuna, who was chafing her head, she made a sign with her head, implying, "No one is dearer to me than you are: so long as I live I shall live for you and at my father's death I will bestow the kingdom on you," and so she won his heart. To the others too she made signs with hand or foot to the same effect. But to the hump-back she made a sign with her tongue which said, "You only are dear to me: for your sake shall I live." All of them, owing to what had been said by her before, knew what was meant by this sign. But while the rest of them each recognised the sign given to himself, prince Ajjuna [427] when he saw the motions of hand, foot or tongue, thought, "As in my case, so also with the others, by this sign some token must be given, and there must be some intimacy with this hump-backed fellow"; so going outside with his brothers he asked, "Did you see the lady with five husbands making a sign with her head to me?" "Yes, we did." "Do you know the meaning of it?" "We do not." "The meaning of it was so and so: do you know what was meant by the sign given you