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AUGUST, 1878.]
METRICAL VERSIONS FROM THE MAHÅBHÅRATA.
203
I will carry it to our gossip, and we will make a cats apiece and let them go. Off they went, and trifle of porridge for the weang." He went to his as they went they found themselves that night in gossip, and quoth he, "Gossip, I bring you this a wood, and for want of better shelter they sat fowl and her two eggs to amuse your children." | themselves down under an oaktree. When they The gossip said he wanted none of it; but, as the got up in the morning, down fell the purse of fifty other insisted, at last told him to be off with his ducats. "Ah, ha! that's why our dad's gossip bird. The man took it and went off in a huff, wanted to have us at home--for this luck that's in forgetting the two eggs on his gossip's table. us.' And off they went again, and came to cross
He, looking on his table, finds the two eggs, roads; and if they did, it chanced that one was bereads the inscription, and says he, "Bad luck to hind just then; and they were parted and couldn't it! what have I done P I let my little gossip find each other. He who should win the purse of carry off the fowl, and here's all this written on the fifty ducats every morning got to one town, and eggs." He runs to the other and says that his he who should be pope to another; and he was on children are crying for want of the fowl. "Then the street, for naught had he to eat; so to win the man answered him, 'You are late, the his living he would be sexton of the church. fowl's eaten.' His gossip went home and took Now one day there was a pope to be made in that counsel of his wife, and said, 'What shall we do town, and they loosed a dove; and when she now, old woman P' She said that he should take it on that sexton's head they made him the the things (the poor man's children) and say that pope. he'd rear them; and that was what the gossip "Voilà," says M. Marc Monnier, "un nouveau did. He went to the man and says he, 'Little genre de conclave qui se retrouve dans plus d'un gossip, I want your two youngsters because you conte populaire au Italie et d'ailleurs P Pareillecan't feed them; and I'll rear them. He brought ment quand les rois sont embarrassés pour them home and put them to school; and every trouver un gendre, ils laissent tomber du haut morning his wife made their bed, and every d'un tour un mouchoir sur la foule," &c. morning she found in it a purse of fifty ducats; In India we should have let out the late lamentand she used them right well. After six or sevened's elephant to find his successor in the first years the gossip had laid in lots of money, and case; and in the second we have the Svayamthe weans were well grown. One morning the two vara. In both, the Eastern procedure seems the lads set to playing one with the other in their more dignified, and in the latter it has the addi. bed, and if they did, out fell the purse of fifty tional merits of chivalry and common sense-things ducats. When they saw that, they said, 'This is no more easily combined than most people seem to place for us now; our father's gossip has put the think, purse here to see if we'd take the money'; and To cut a long story short, after adventures of that same day they said to him that they would little import to the purpose of this note, the be off. Now he wasn't willing to let them go, bnt brothers met at the court of him who had become after many words he gave them two hundred du- 'pope, and lived happily ever after.
METRICAL VERSIONS FROM THE MAHÅBHÅRATA.
BY J. MUIR, D.C.L., LL.D., &c.
(Continued from p. 189.) VIDULA AND SANJAYA.
And, all his host dispersing, drove A Kshatriya heroine's exhortation to her son. The prince in foreign lands to rove. Mahabhdrata, vv. 4494-4637.
There, stunned by fortune's crushing blow, There lived a Kshatriya queen of old,
He lived, and pined, in want and wue. Well known to fame, far-sighted, bold,
Desponding, sad, he deemed it vain Who sate in councils, heard debate
To seek to raise his head again. Proceed on grave affairs of state,
His spirit seeing so depressed, Who, studying much and long, a store
The mother thus her son addressed :Possessed of rich and varied lore.
Vidula. She dwelt with joy 'mid war's alarms, " Of all thy friends the grief and bane, And loved to hear of feats of arms,
Of all thy foes the joy and gain,How Kshatriyas' power the proud subdued, No real son art thou of mine, And blessed the subject multitude.
No scion of the kingly line. It chanced, a foe's superior might
A Kshatriya thou wast never born; Once overcame her son in fight;
Of every warrior thou the scorn.
