346 



ON SIAMESE LITERATURE, 



tures reach the kingdom of Phra Rotthasen — who takes the liberty of 

 making all of them his wives. It so happens that a female Yak who has 

 assumed the form of a lovely woman, arrives in His Majesty's dominions. 

 The king is captivated as may be supposed. 



She becomes the favorite in the palace — and being determined to get 

 rid of all her rivals works by a stratagem the ruin of the king's twelve 

 wives. Feigning a dangerous illness she persuades the infatuated 

 Monarch to order the eyes of his other wives to be torn out on the 

 plea that she cannot recover unless the eyes of twelve persons by one 

 mother are applied to her body. The Princesses are cast into prison after 

 their sight is destroyed — and this barbarity is noticed in the story to be 

 a just punishment — because they had been accustomed to string the fish 

 — caught in angling — through their eyes !* The youngest Princess it 

 seems spiked only one eye of the fish she caught — and it was owing to 

 this circumstance that the executioners accidentally left one of her's unin- 

 jured. These Princesses bear children in prison much about the same 

 time — and all but the youngest devour their offspring through excess of 

 hunger — Phra-rot, the son of this younger Princess, grows up to manhood, 

 but the cruel Queen hearing of his adventurous disposition lays a snare 

 to get rid of him. 



She feigns a second illness and alleges that she cannot recover unless 

 the enchanted oranges and mangoes which a distant region produces are 

 plucked and brought to her. 



The King orders the great gong to be sounded, and a reward is pro- 

 claimed for whoever will undertake the perilous journey. Phra-rot at 

 once, as the Queen foresaw, offers to go — and then she pretending great 

 anxiety for his safety, gives him a letter to her daughter MarI, a Yak — 

 in which the latter is directed to slay and devour the bearer. Phra-rot 

 sets out, and in passing through a forest encounters a Roosee (or Rishi). 



* It were well if the Siamese or even other more enlightened nations would put the humane 

 sentiment herein implied into practice. 



