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father. I will make my heart as hard as adamant, and desert Davadantí, though she is dear to me; and then, like a beggar, intent only on the relief of my own wants, I will roam about in another land. Owing to the might of Davadantí's virtue, no harm will befall her; for to chaste women virtue is a complete panoply.'* Then with his dagger he cut off half his own garment, and wrote on the border of Davadantí's robe the following letters with his own blood:
'On the right side of the banyan-tree goes the path to Vidarbha ; But on the left side to Koçalá, if your inclination is set thither.'†
Then, with suppressed weeping, so that he could not be heard, Nala proceeded, like a thief, to walk away with noiseless foot, leaving Davadantí asleep, looking at her with neck turned back. After he had gone a little way, he said to himself again: Now that the girl is thus left asleep in the wood unprotected, some tiger or lion will devour her. Then what will become of me? For this reason, I will guard her until the sun rises; in the morning let her go where she likes.' Then Nala returned by the very same path by which he went, and when he saw her sleeping on the ground, covered with one garment only, he said to himself: Alas! Davadantí, covered with only one garment, is sleeping alone in the uninhabited wood. Alas for Nala's ladies that never see the sun! It is through the fault of my actions that Davadantí is reduced to such a condition. What am I to do? That I, miserable wretch, do not blush, when I see my wife rolling on the ground, proves that I am truly shameless, and made of adamant; or, rather, I am proved to be so by the fact that I left her in the forest. But my heart cannot bear to leave this faithful wife and go away; let me live or die with her! No! rather let me alone be a vessel of woe in the forest, teeming with a thousand dangers; but she, if she carries out my instructions written on her garment, will reach the abode May this be her
of her own family, and live in comfort.
* Compare Milton's Comus,' 420, 421.
†The second line is partly obliterated in A, and there are evidently large omissions in C.
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