Story 247 - A Princess and a Prince

IN a certain country a King had an only daughter, it is said. The Princess was a possessor of an extremely beautiful figure. The King taught her the sciences to the extent to which she was able to learn. This Princess having arrived at maturity, the King ordained that a Prince who having heaped up masuran [amounting] to five tusk elephants’ loads, should show [and give] him them, may marry her.

After that, although from several countries Princes came to marry her because this Princess’s figure is beautiful, having been unable to procure masuran [amounting] to five tusk elephants’ loads their minds became disheartened, and they went away.

At last, out of the seven sons of a certain Emperor-King, one person said to his father the King,

“Father,^[1] should you not give me masuran [equal] to five tusk elephants’ loads, undoubtedly, cutting my throat (lit., neck) myself, I shall die.”

The King asked,

“What is that for ?”

“In such and such a country there is a very beautiful daughter of the King. To marry her, first it is necessary to give masuran [equal] to five tusk elephants’ loads.”

Thereupon the Emperor-King having loaded the masuran into a number of carts, handed them over to the Prince. Well then, this Prince, taking the masuran also, approached near the Princess’s father, the King. Having weighed his masuran, when he looked [into the account] still a few were short. Because of it having sold even the tusk elephant which the Prince brought, and having righted the five tusk elephants’ loads, after he showed them to the King, the father of the Princess, he gave the Princess in marriage to this Prince.

Because of this Prince’s act, the Princes who having come first to marry the Princess and having been unable went away, became angry, and formed the design to steal the Princess for themselves.

After the Prince lived in happiness for a little time at the palace of the King, the father of the Princess, he asked the King, the Princess’s father, for permission to go to his own country with the Princess. When he had asked permission even many a time because the father of the Princess was very unwilling, by very strong effort he set off to go, together with the Princess.

When going thus, the Princess’s father gave her ten masuran. As these two persons, taking the ten masuran, were going journeying they fell into a great forest wilderness. Leaving behind the forest wilderness, when they arrived at another country, because [only] two masuran remained over for them, getting a living became very diificult.

Thereupon the Princess said to the Prince,

“I know the means to earn our living, therefore be not afraid. For [the Value of] the remaining two masuran bring threads of such and such colours,”

she said.

The Prince having brought them, the beautiful Princess knitted a scarf [like one] she was wearing, and having put flower work, etc., [in it], and finished, gave it to the Prince, and said,

“Having gone taking this scarf and sold it to a shop, please bring and give me the money,”

she said. Thereupon the Prince having taken it and gone, and having sold it for twenty masuran, thereafter bought at the price the requisite threads of several colours, and gave them to the Princess. Well then, while the Princess is making ready scarves, having obtained money and rented a house at the city, she dwelt with the Prince.

While [they were] dwelling thus, a Prince came to the shop at which she sold the scarves, and buying an invaluable scarf of these, and ascertaining that it was the scarf woven by such and such a Princess, asked the shopkeeper,

“Who brought and sold the scarves ?”

Then the shopkeeper said,

“Such and such a handsome man sold them to me,”

he said.

Having said,

“When will the scarf trader come again to the shop ?”

and having ascertained it from the shopkeeper, he came on the day which the shopkeeper mentioned, in order to meet the Prince scarf trader.

Having come thus, and met with the very Prince who trades in the scarves, and conversed well, he asked,

“Who knits the scarves ?”

Then the Prince gave answer,

“My wife knits them.”

Thereupon the other Prince said,

“The scarves are extremely good. I want to get knitted and to take about ten or fifteen of them.”

Having said [this], and having come to the place where this Princess and Prince are living, and given a deposit of part of the money for the month, he got a resting-place there that day night.

In this manner getting a resting-place and having been there, in the middle of the night stealing the Princess, the Prince who got the resting-place took her to his palace. This Prince, for the Princess whom he stole and the Prince who was her lord to become unconscious, caused them to drink a poisonous drug while they were sleeping. This Prince who stole the Princess was a person who at first having gone to marry her, was not wealthy [enough] to procure the masuran [amounting] to five tusk elephants’ loads.

Well then, on the day on which he went stealing the Princess, he received a letter from his father the King, that he must go for a war. Because of it, having put the Princess whom he stole in the palace, and placed guards, and commanded that they should not allow her to go outside it, he went for the war.

While she was [there] in this manner, in the morning consciousness having come to the Prince who had married the Princess and become her lord, he opened his eyes, and^; having seen that the Princess was not there, as though with madness he began to walk to that and this hand. While going thus, he went to go by the street near the palace in which his Princess is put. When going there, after the Princess had looked in the direction of the street from the floor of the upper story, she saw that her Prince is going; and at that very time having written a letter she sent it to the Prince by the hand of a messenger.

In the letter was said, " At night, at such and such a time please come to such and such a place. Then I having arrived there, and both of us having joined together, let us go by stealth to another country.”

The Prince as soon as he received the letter went near a jungle, and t hinking , " Here are no men,” read the letter somewhat loudly.

Then a man who, having gone into the jungle to draw out creepers and having become fatigued, was lying down near there, heard his reading of the letter. Because the man heard this matter, in the night time, at the time which was written in the Princess’s letter, taking a sword also, he went to the place which she mentioned. When the Princess, too, at the appointed time went to the said place, the man who went to cut creepers having waited there, seized her hand, and they quickly travelled away. While they were going, in order that the guards and city residents should not be able to recognise them, not doing much talking they journeyed quickly in the darkness, by the jungle, to the road.

The Prince who was appointed the husband of the Princess, having read without patience the letter which the Princess sent, arrived at the place mentioned before the appointed time; and having [sat down and] leaned against a tree until she comes, after the journey he made went to sleep. At this time the man who went to cut creepers came, bringing the sword. If he had met with the Prince, he would have even killed him, with the design to take away the Princess.

This Princess, together with that man, having arrived at a great forest wilderness, both persons went to sleep under a tree. After it became light, having opened her eyes, and when she looked having seen that she had come with a very ugly man, unpleasing to look at, becoming very distressed she began to weep.

Then the man said,

“After you have now come so far with me, should you leave me you will appoint yourself to destruction. Because of it, are you willing that I should marry you ?”

he asked.

The Princess said,

“I am willing; but in our country there is a custom. In that manner we must keep it,”

she said.

The creeper cutter agreed to it, that is, the woman and man, both of them, who are to marry, having looked face to face, with two ropes of fine thread are to be tied at a post, and after they have proclaimed their willingness or unwillingness for their marrying, they must marry. “Well then, because in this forest wilderness there are not ropes of fine thread, let us tie ourselves with creepers,” she said.

Because there was not anyone to tie the two persons at once (eka parata), the other having tied one person, after this one proclaimed her or his willingness the other was to be tied. Firstly having tied the Princess with a turn of creeper, after she proclaimed her consent he unloosed her. After that, the Princess, having very thoroughly made tight and tied to the tree the creeper cutter, quickly went away backward to seek her lord.

While going in that way she met with two Vaeddas. Thereupon the two Vaeddas, with the design to take this Princess, began to make uproar.

Thereupon the Princess said,

“Out of you two, I am willing to come with the skilful one in shooting furthest,”

she said.

At that time the two Vaeddas, having exerted themselves as much as possible, shot the two arrows [so as] to go very far, and to fetch the arrows went running to the place where they fell. While they were in the midst of it the Princess went off very stealthily.

The two Vaeddas having come and having seen that the Princess had gone, began to seek her. When they were thus seeking her, that creeper cutter whom she had tied and placed there when she came away, somehow or other unfastening the tying, came seeking the Princess; and having joined with these Vaeddas began to seek [her with them].

While they were in the midst of it, the Princess having gone walking, met with a trader. The trader, taking her and having journeyed, at noon became wearied, and went to sleep in the shade under a tree. Then the Princess taking a part of the trader’s clothes and putting them on, went like a man, and arrived at a royal palace. The King having said to this one,

“What can you do ?”

[after] ascertaining it, gave this one the charge to teach the King’s son and also the Minister’s son.

During the time while she is thus educating in the sciences these two Princes, one day the Minister’s son, because of an accidental necessary matter went into the room where this Princess who was made his teacher is sleeping. At the time when he went, the Princess’s outer robe having been aslant, the Minister-Prince saw her two breasts, and went seeking the King’s son to inform him that she was a woman.

The Princess, ascertaining this circumstance, stealing from the palace the clothes of a royal Prince and putting them on, went away very hastily. She went away thus in the disguise of a Prince, by a street near a palace of the chief city in another country.

Because a handsome husband, pleasing to the mind of the daughter of the King of that country, had not been obtained by her, she remained for much time without having married. Although many royal Princes came she was not pleased with them. But having been looking in the direction of the street from a window of the upper story floor, and having seen this Princess of extremely beautiful figure going in the disguise of a Prince, very hastily she sent to her father the King, and informed him, " Please give me the hand of that Prince who is travelling in the street, as my lord-husband.”

Then the King, having sent a messenger and caused this Prince to be brought near the King, and shown him the Princess, said,

“You must marry this Princess. If not, I shall appoint you to death.”

This Princess who was in the disguise of a Prince through fear of death consented to it.

After that, having appointed the wedding festival in a great ostentatious manner, they married these two persons. In that night the Princess who was in the disguise of a Prince, having told the other Princess all the dangers that occurred to her, and told her that she is a Princess, said to her,

“Don’t inform any one about it.”

Remaining in this manner, the Princess who is in the Prince disguise began to seek her husband. It was thus:—This Princess having caused to be made ready a very spacious hall which causes the minds of the spectators who saw it to rejoice to the degree that from the outer districts men come to look at it, began to cause donations [of food] to be given to all who arrive there.

Having caused her own figure to be made from wax, and having put clothes on it, and established it at a place in front of this hall, she caused guards to be stationed around, and commanded them,

“Any person having come near this wax figure, at the very time when he has touched it you are to bring that person near me.”

She said [thus] to the guards.

While a few days were going, men came from many districts to look at this hall. Among them, having walked and walked seeking this Princess, were her Prince and the: creeper cutter, the two Vaeddas and the trader, the royal Prince and the Minister-Prince. The whole of them having come and seen this wax figure, touched the hand of the wax figure. The guards who were stationed there, because the whole of these said persons touched the wax figure, arrested them and gave charge of them to the Princess.

Thereupon the Princess commanded them to kill the creeper cutter. Having censured the Vaeddas she told them to go. To the son of the King who caused her to teach, she gave in marriage the Princess whom, having come in the disguise of the Prince, she married. Taking charge of her own Lord she from that time lived in happiness.

Western Province.

 

Notes:

The story of the Prince and Princess (No. 8, vol. i) bears a close resemblance to this tale in some of the incidents; see also No. 108 in vol. ii.

In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. iii, p. 62) the story of Ali Shar and Zumurrud also contains similarities. When the two had no other means of support, Zumurrud sent her master or husband to buy a piece of silk and thread for working on it. She then embroidered it for eight days as a curtain, which Ali Shar sold for fifty dinars to a merchant in the bazaar, after she had warned him not to part with it to a passer-by. They lived thus for a year, till at last he sold one to a stranger, owing to the urging of the merchants. The purchaser followed him home, inserted opiates into a half plantain which he presented to him, and when Ali Shar became unconscious fetched his brother, a former would-be purchaser of Zumurrud, and they carried ofi the girl. By arrangement with an old woman, a friend of the youth’s, she lowered herself from a window at midnight, but Ali Shar, who waited there for her, had fallen asleep, and a Kurdish thief in the darkness took her away, and left her in charge of his mother. When this woman fell asleep she escaped on horse-back in male attire, was elected King at a city at which she arrived, and by giving a monthly feast to all comers in a great pavilion that she erected for the purpose, seized all her captors, and caused them to be flayed alive. At last she found her husband in this way.

In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 301, the marriage of the disguised wife of a Prince to a Princess occurs. While they were travelling the Prince was imprisoned on a false charge, his wife dressed as a man, was seen by a Princess who fell in love with her, and agreed to marry the Princess if according to the custom of her own country the vermilion were applied to the bride’s forehead with a sword (the marriage to the sword). When she told the Princess her story the latter informed the Raja, who released the Prince and remarried his daughter to him.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Piyaneni.