The princess of the country to which our king and the Sannyasin had come was
having one of these interesting ceremonies. She was the most beautiful princess
in the world, and the husband of the princess would be ruler of the kingdom
after her father's death. The idea of this princess was to marry the handsomest
man, but she could not find the right one to please her. Several times these
meetings had taken place, but the princess could not select a husband. This
meeting was the most splendid of all; more people than ever had come to it.
The princess came in on a throne, and the bearers carried her from place to
place. She did not seem to care for any one, and every one became
disappointed that this meeting also was going to be a failure. Just then came a
young man, a Sannyasin, handsome as if the sun had come down to the earth,
and stood in one corner of the assembly, watching what was going on. The
throne with the princess came near him, and as soon as she saw the beautiful
Sannyasin, she stopped and threw the garland over him. The young Sannyasin
seized the garland and threw it off, exclaiming, "What nonsense is this? I am a
Sannyasin. What is marriage to me?" The king of that country thought that
perhaps this man was poor and so dared not marry the princess, and said to
him, "With my daughter goes half my kingdom now, and the whole kingdom
after my death!" and put the garland again on the Sannyasin. The young man
threw it off once more, saying, "Nonsense! I do not want to marry," and walked
quickly away from the assembly.
Now the princess had fallen so much in love with this young man that she said,
"I must marry this man or I shall die"; and she went after him to bring him
back. Then our other Sannyasin, who had brought the king there, said to him,
"King, let us follow this pair"; so they walked after them, but at a good distance
behind. The young Sannyasin who had refused to marry the princess walked
out into the country for several miles. When he came to a forest and entered
into it, the princess followed him, and the other two followed them. Now this
young Sannyasin was well acquainted with that forest and knew all the intricate
paths in it. He suddenly passed into one of these and disappeared, and the
princess could not discover him. After trying for a long time to find him she sat
down under a tree and began to weep, for she did not know the way out. Then
our king and the other Sannyasin came up to her and said, "Do not weep; we
will show you the way out of this forest, but it is too dark for us to find it now.
Here is a big tree; let us rest under it, and in the morning we will go early and
show you the road."
Now a little bird and his wife and their three little ones lived on that tree, in a
nest. This little bird looked down and saw the three people under the tree and
said to his wife, "My dear, what shall we do? Here are some guests in the
house, and it is winter, and we have no fire." So he flew away and got a bit of
burning firewood in his beak and dropped it before the guests, to which they
added fuel and made a blazing fire. But the little bird was not satisfied. He said
again to his wife, "My dear, what shall we do? There is nothing to give these
people to eat, and they are hungry. We are householders; it is our duty to feed
any one who comes to the house. I must do what I can, I will give them my
body." So he plunged into the midst of the fire and perished. The guests saw
him falling and tried to save him, but he was too quick for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment