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APRIL, 1895.)
NARSINH MEHETANUN MAMERUN.
108
Now that the happy occasion is come, Sri Hari will provide the gifts." 185 Kunvarbai said with emotion : -"You have not brought any gifts with you ? How shall we keep up our prestige before the Nagar community P Why have you come
without any resources ? The poor man is considered worthless in this world; those who have no money are
regarded with contempt. A poor man counts for nothing; people do not even let him stand at their doors.
Even the cleverness of the poor man is mistaken for eccentricity. 190 What is worse than to be called a pauper in this world?
Neither do you work for your living, father, nor lay by anything from what you get (as alms). Think, father, how you will meet the demand that will be made on your resources on
this occasion. You have neither broaght a pinch of kurkube with you, nor a môd, 60 nor strings, 61
Nor any earthen pots, 62 nor clothes.63 How empty-handed you have come ! 195 How shall my honour be preserved, father P Why did I not die when my mother died ?
What is the world to the motherless ? What is life without a mother? The child who lores its mother algo forfeits all claims of relationship on its father. The father's love after the mother's death is as (cold and ineffectual as) the rays of the
setting sun. As the calf struggles for existence after the cow is dead, or as the fish gasps when out of
water, 200 Or as the doe feels when separated from the herd, so feels the daughter when left alone
without her mother. As food is unpalatable without salt, or dinner is disagreeable to him who has no appetite, Or as the eye is without the pupil, such is the father's heart (towards his child) in the
absence of its mother, Why did you come, if only to excite ridicale, with fifty Vêrîgis in your wake P
Do conch-shells and strings of beads and bells form the maternity gifts ? 205 If you have nothing, father, better turn back, and so saying the daughter wept bitterly. - The Mêhêtî placed his hand on her head and said: “The Lord of Vaikunth will provide
us with the maternity gifts. Go and make a list of all the persons to whom these presents from us are due. Write the names of all your husband's relatives, and do not forget a single article."
Hearing these words of the Mêhêtají, Kunvarbai went to her mother-in-law (and said): - 210 “My father has sent me to you, to (ask you to write on paper whatever is required." But the mother-in-law turned her face in resentment and cried :- "Fruitless labuar !64
What is the good of writing ? What more can he do than place the tuļasî-leaf in a basket and stand blowing into his conch-shell ?"
Refrain. He will (only) stand blowing his shell; (it is) useless expecting a môsálun from Narsinh." Hearing this discourse between mother and daughter-in-law, the grandmother-in-laws put in sneeringly :
। 150 मध्यो जमाइ जमाइनो भ्रात मळयो सउकोना परनो कडवू ५ मुं.
HY
कपटे भेठी पाछां खशे जोर जोर सामग्रीने हसे. TIT TATT.
उतरवा घर आप्युं एक झाझाचांचड मच्छर बसेका सुणी श्रीरंग मेहेतोआष्वाधार भावे भेटया बे वेवाइ. खाडा टेकरा वसमो ठाम उपर नळीभानु नहीं नाम. * This was spoken in irony, as they did not see any signs of its being in kind, 0, 61, 62, 63 Materials required at the ceremonial.
# The meaning of the text is not quite clear. • The paternal grandmother of Kuóvarbit's husband. The same Big as the first canto.
ग वसेक in poetically used for वसे.
