A Heifer of the Sun: The Wax of a New Moon: Mango

The Wax of a New Moon.

MANGO.

THEN in the early morning, on the first day of the light fortnight, the young King arose before the sun, and went out of the temple, and wandered on the steps that went down into the pool, in which all the lotuses were preparing to welcome their lover, as he rose from behind the eastern mountain. And as he looked through the trees, suddenly he saw coming towards him with twinkling feet along the edge of the pool, a chétí a, resembling an incarnation of the night of new moon, for like it, she was clothed in dark blue, and she carried in her hand a mango blossom, as it carries the digit

b? And what, O King, is thy folly, in forsaking all, for the sake of the fickleness of a woman? Are not women by nature more fickle than the very leaves of the bamboo? And wilt thou plunge into the sea of infinite sorrow, because, after its kind, the bamboo leaf has fluttered into the pool?

Then she laid at his feet the mango flower, and turned, and went away quickly through the wood, and vanished among its trees. But the King stood in astonishment, looking after her as she went. And his eyes, as if rebels to his will, reflected in spite of him the grace of her figure, bending and swaying like a swan gliding over a pool. Then he stooped down, and picked up the flower, and smelled it. And he said: Mango, very sweet is thy smell, and musical was the voice of this audacious damsel, arguing for her mistress: but

Footnotes

13:a In all Hindoo love stories, the chétí or sakhí, a hand-maiden, or female confidante, is a sine quâ non. All messages, all business, and even all conversation, is transacted through her, for the heroine never even speaks for herself, but requires a mouthpiece: being prevented from speaking by bashfulness, timidity, custom, and her own agitation.

16:b οἵν περ φύλλων γενέη, τοίηδε καὶ ἄνδρων.