HINDO 
Madh. [ Examining the picture.] It is flic, I imagine, who 
looks a little fatigued; with the firing of her veil rather 
loofe j the flender ftalks of her arms falling languidly ; a 
few bright drops on her face, and fome flowers dropping 
from her untied locks. That mult be the queen; and the 
relt, I fuppofe, are her daml'els. 
Dii/hm. You jtidge well; but my affection requires fome- 
thing more in the piece. Befides, through fome defeat 
in the colouring, a tear feems trickling down her cheek, 
which ill fuits the ftate in which I defired to fee her 
painted.— [To the Damfe/.] The pifture, O Chaturica, is 
unflnilhed.—Go back to the painting-room, and bring the 
implements of thy art. 
Damf. Kind Madhavya, hold the pifture while I obey 
the king. 
Dujhm. No ; I will hold it. 
I He take's the pidlure ; and the Damfel goes out. 
Madh. What elfe is to be painted ? 
Mafr. [Afde .] He defires, I prefume, to add all thofe 
circumftances which became the fituation of his beloved 
in the hermitage. 
Dufim. In this landfcape, my friend, I with to fee re- 
prefented tht river Malini, with fome amorous flamingos 
on its green margin : farther back mult appear fome hills 
near the mountain Himalaya, furrounded with herds of 
Chamaras; and in the fore-ground, a dark fpreading tree, 
with fome mantles of woven bark fupended on its branches 
to be dried by the fun-beams ; while a pair of black ante¬ 
lopes couch in its lhade, and the female gently rubs her 
beautiful forehead on the horn of the paale. 
Madh. Add what you pleafe ; but, in my judgment, the 
vacant places lhould be filled with old hermits, bent, like 
me, towards the ground. 
Du/hm. [Not attending to him.] Oh! I had forgot that 
my beloved herfelf mult have fome new ornaments. 
Madh. What, I pray ? 
Mifr. [ Afde .] Such, no doubt, as become a damfel bred 
in a foreft, 
Dujhm. The artift had omitted a Sirilha flower with its 
peduncle fixed behind her loft ear, and its filaments wav¬ 
ing over part of her cheek; and between her brealls mult 
be placed a knot of delicate fibres, from the ftalks of wa¬ 
ter-lilies, like the rays of an autumnal moon. 
Madh. Why does the queen cover part of her face, as 
if fhe was afraid of fomething, with the tips of her fingers, 
that glow like the flowers of the Cuvalaya ?—Oh ! I now 
perceive an impudent bee, that thief of odours, who feems 
eager to fip honey from the lotos of her mouth. 
Dujhm. A bee ! drive oft’ the importunate infect. 
Madh. The king has l'upreme power over all offenders. 
Dujhm. O male bee, who approached: the lovely inhabi¬ 
tants of a flowery grove, w'hy doll: thou expofe thyfelf to 
the pain of being rejefted ?—See where thy female fits on 
abloffom, and, though thiffty, waits for thy return: with¬ 
out thee fhe will not tafte its neflar. 
Mi/r. [Afide.] A wild, but apt, addrefs! 
Madh. The perfidy of male bees is proverbial. 
Dujhm. [ Angrily.] Should!! thou touch, O bee, the lip 
of my darling, ruddy as a fre Hi leaf on which no wind has 
yet breathed, a lip from which I drank lweetnefs in the 
banquet of love, thou lhalt, by my order, be imprifoned 
in the centre of a lotos.—Doll thou ftill dilobey me ? 
Madh. How can he fail to obey, fince you denounce fo 
fevere a punilhment ?— [Afdc, laughing.] He is ftark mad 
with love and affliction ; whilft I, by keeping him com¬ 
pany, ihall be as mad as he without either. 
Dujhm. After my pofitive injunction, art thou ftill un¬ 
moved ? 
Mifr. [AJide.] How does excels of paflion alter even the 
wife! 
Madh. Why, my friend, it is only a painted bee. 
Mijr. [Af.de.] Oh ! I perceive his millake : it fnows the 
perfection of the art. But why does he continue mufing ? 
Dujhm. What ill-natured remark was that ?—Whilft I 
am enjoying the rapture of. beholding her to whom ihy 
OSTAN. 159 
foul is attached, thou, cruel remembrancer, telleft me that 
it-is only a picture. [Weeping. 
Mifr. [AJide.] Such are the woes of a feparated lover! 
He is on all tides entangled in forrow. 
Du/hm. Why do I thus indulge unremitted grief ? That 
intercourfe with my darling which dreams would give, is 
prevented by my inability to repofe ; and my tears \vi 11 
not fuller me to view her diftinCtiy even in this picture. 
Mifr. [Afide.] His mifery acquits him entirely of having 
deferted her in his perfeCt fenles.-- 
A Warder enters with a leaf. 
Ward. May the king profper!—The chief minifter fends 
this meffage: “ I have carefully ltated a cale which has 
arifen in the city, and accurately committed it to writing : 
let the king deign to conlider it.” 
Dujhm. Give me the leaf.— [Receiving it, and reading.]— 
K Be it prefented at the foot of the king, that a merchant 
named Dhanavriddhi, who had extenlive commerce at fea, 
W’as loft in a late Ihipwreck : he had no child born ; and 
has left a fortune of many millions, which belong, if the 
king commands, to the royal trealury.”— [With forrow.] 
Oh! how great a misfortune it is to die childlefs ! Yet 
with his affluence he mult have had many wives:—let an 
inquiry be made whether any one of them is pregnant. 
Ward. I have heard that his wife, the daughter of an. 
excellent man, named Sacetaca, has already performed the 
ceremonies ufual on pregnancy. 
Dufim. The child, though unborn, has a title to his 
father’s property.—Go : bid the minifter make my judg¬ 
ment public. 
Ward. I obey. [Going. 
Dufim. Stay awhile-■ 
Ward. [ Returning.] I am here. 
Dufk. Whether he had or had not left offspring, the 
eftate lhould not have been forfeited.—Let it be proclaim¬ 
ed, that whatever kinlinan any one of my fubjeCls may 
Ioffe, Dulhmanta (excepting always the cafe of forfeiture 
for crimes) will fupply, in tender affeClion, the place of 
that kinlinan. 
Ward. The proclamation Ihall be made.— [He goes out.. 
[Dulhmanta continues meditating.] 
Re-enter Warder. 
O king ! the royal decree, which proves that your virtues 
are awake after a long Humber, was heard with burfts of 
applaufe. 
Dufim. [Sighing deeply.] When an illuftrious man dies,, 
alas, without an heir, his eftate goes to a llranger; and 
fuch will be the fate of all the wealth accumulated by the 
Ions of Puru. 
Ward. Heaven avert the calamity. [ Goes out. 
Dufim. Wo is me ! I am llripped of all the fel.icity which 
I once enjoyed. 
Mifr. [AJide.] How his heart dwells on the idea of his 
beloved! 
Du/hm. My lawful wife, whom I bafely deferted, re¬ 
mains fixed in my foul •, Ihe would have been the glory 
of my family, and might have produced a lbn brilliant as 
the ricbeft fruit of the teeming earth. 
Mi/r. [Af.de.] She is not forl’aken by all; and fo'on, I 
trail, will be thine. 
Damf. [Afde.] What a change has the minifter made in., 
the_king by lending him that mifehievous leaf! Behold,., 
he is deluged with tears. 
Dufim. Ah me ! the departed fouls of my aneeftors, 
who claim a lhare in the funeral cake, which I have no 
Ion to offer, are apprehenfive of lofing their due ho¬ 
nour, when Dulhmanta Ihall be no more on earth :—who 
then, alas, will perform in our family thole obfequies 
which the Veda preferibes ?—My forefathers mull drink,, 
inllead of a pure libation, this flood of tears, the only of¬ 
fering which a man who dies childlefs can make them. 
[Weeping. 
Mdfr. [Afde.] Such a veil obfeures the king’s eyes, that 
he thinks it total darknefs, though a lamp be now .finning 
brightly. 
Damf 
