36 
The Bengali Poem ) Candl. 
All sat awaiting what would happen next, 
While the old Brahman read the sacred text; 
The unfriendly merchants laughed or jibed aloud, 
While Dhanapati sat with head low bowed. 
A passage is then read from the Harivamga which illustrates, by the 
story of Ugrasena’s queen, how dangerous to female chastity lonely 
wanderings in the forest may prove. Earn Kunda then proposes that the 
passage from the Ramayana should be read which describes how Rama, 
after rescuing his wife Sita from her imprisonment in Lanka, only received 
her again after she had proved her purity by entering unharmed a burning 
house of lac. 
Then Alamkara Datt next wags his tongue: 
“ Our host may well suspect there’s something wrong; 
His wife kept goats and wandered without let,— 
Who knows what drunken ruffians she has met ? 
So let her pass the ordeal; till that’s done, 
Who ’ll taste the food she cooks ? Hot I, for one. 
Or if the ordeal’s risk unwelcome be, 
Then let him pay a lac and so be free.” 
Here Lakshapati* threatens: “I shall bring 
The whole affair at once before the king.” 
Then Qankha Datt: “ Has pride your heart so filled 
That you must play the king upon the guild ? 
Take care, for Garud’sf son his caste defied, 
But the sun scorched his wings and tamed his pride. 
If it’s the king to whom we must resort, 
Let us all go in a body to the court; 
But kings know more of criminal penalties, 
These caste disputes the caste itself best tries. 
Huryodhana, they say, though stout and brave, 
Scorned the advice of ten, and found a grave. 
* Dhanapati’s father-in-law. 
f The king of birds ; his son was Sampati. 
