210 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



absence, becomes conscious-stricken with the guifrof an old forgotten crime, 

 the punishment of which he now believes is come home to him. To his queen 

 Kaysaiya he now proceeds to give an account of the transaction, prefacing his 

 narrative with an assertion in favour of retributive justice in the present 

 world. 



" Whatever deed, or good or ill, by man, O blessed queen, is wrought, 

 Its proper fruit he gathers still by time to slow perfection brought. 



* * # * * 



Kaysaiya, in my early youth by my keen arrow at its mark 



Aimed with too sure and deadly truth was wrought a deed most fell and dark. 



At length the evil that I did hath fallen upon my fatal head, 



As when on subtle poison hid an unsuspecting child hath fed ; 



Even as that child unwittingly hath made the poisonous fare his food, 



Even so in ignorance by me was wrought that deed of guilt and blood/' 



The king goes on to recount how, when he was yet in youth's delicious 

 prime, he had set out, in the joyous season of the year, on a shooting excur- 

 sion. 



" In such a time, so soft, so bland oh, beautiful ! I chanced to go, 

 With quiver and with bow in hand where clear Sarayu's waters flow. 

 If haply to the river's brink at night the buffalo might stray, 

 Or elephant the stream to drink intent my savage game to slay, 

 Then of a water-cruse, as slow it filled, the gurgling sound I heard, 

 Nought sought I but the sullen low of elephant, that sound appeared. 

 The swift well-feathered arrow I upon the bowstring fitted straight, 

 Toward the sound the shaft let fly ah, cruelly deceived by fate ! 

 The winged arrow scarce had flown and scarce had reached its destined aim, 

 ' Ah me, I'm slain,' a feeble moan in trembling human accents came. 

 ' Ah, whence hath come this fatal shaft against a poor recluse like me, 

 ' Who shot that bolt with deadly craft alas ! what cruel man is he ? 

 ' At the lone midnight had I come to draw the river's limpid flood, 

 ' And here am struck by death, by whom ? ah, whose this wrongful deed of 



blood? 



' Alas ! and in my parent's heart the old, the blind, and hardly fed, 

 ' In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart that here hath struck their offspring 



dead ; 



' Ah, deed most profitless as worst a deed of wanton useless guilt ; 

 ' As though a pupil's hand accurs'd his holy master's blood had spilt. 

 ' But not mine own untimely fate it is not that which I deplore, 

 ' My blind, my aged parents' state 'tis their distress afflicts me more. 

 * That sightless pair, for many a day from me their scanty food have earned ; 

 ' What lot is theirs, when I'm away to the five elements returned ? 

 ' Alike all wretched they, as I ah, whose this triple deed of blood ? 

 ' Forwho the herbs will now supply the roots, the fruit, their blameless food?' 

 My troubled soul, that plaintive moan no sooner heard so faint and low, 

 Trembled to look on what I'd done fell from my shuddering hand my bow. 

 Swift I rushed up, I saw him there heart-pierced, and fall'n the stream 



besidfe, 

 That hermit boy, with knotted hair his clothing was the black deer's hide." 



His victim looks piteously at him, and asks wherefore he had slain him, 

 and in him his aged and blind parents. Then presses him to hasten to his 

 father, and entreat his pardon, ere he should curse him in his wrath. 



" ' Yet first, that I may gently die draw fo 

 Allay thy fears ; no Brahmin I not thine of 



brth the barbed steel from hence : 

 Brahmin blood the offence. 



