of Kamadeva, the eastern
Cupid. He shot Siva, who, turning on him in rage, reduced the
mischievous archer to ashes. All the gods wept over his ashes. Then
he arose in spiritual form, free from every physical trait or
quality. Literature, both eastern and western, ancient and modern,
gives us many instances of conjugal love outliving death, and, in
holy tenderness of dedication, pleasing itself with all kinds of
ideal restorations and celebrations of its object.

When Mausolus, king of Curia, died, his widow, Queen Artemisia,
seemed thenceforth almost wholly absorbed in the memory of him. She
built to him, at Halicarnassus, that magnificent monument, or
mausoleum, which was known as one of the seven wonders of the world,
and which became the generic name for all superb sepulchres. She
employed the most renowned rhetors of the age to immortalize the
glory of her husband, by writing and reciting his praises. At the
consecration of the wondrous fabric which she had reared in his
honor, she offered a prize for the most eloquent eulogy on Mausolus.
All the orators of Greece were invited to the contest. Theopompus
bore off the prize. It is said, that, during the two years by which
she survived her royal spouse, she daily mixed some of his ashes with
her drink, so that, ere their spirits met in Hades, her body was the
tomb of his. Unquestionably there is something greatly overstrained
in this; but the whole story is one of the most signal instances,
handed down from the past, of an intense wedded affection triumphant
over death, and crowning itself with death.

Still more costly honors than Artemisia lavished on her Mausolus, did
the Great Mogul, Shah Jehan, grandson of Akhar and father of
Aurungzebe, pay to his idolized wife, Moomtaza Mahul. She died, in
1631, in giving birth to a daughter. Shah Jehan's love for this
exquisite being appears to have been supreme and irreplaceable. In
her last moments, she made two requests: one, that he would build an
imposing tomb for her; the other, that he would never marry again. He
assented to both requests, and kept his word. His reign was the
culminating period of the prosperity, power, and pomp of the empire.
The gorgeousness of his state beggars description; but those terrible
British, destined to overshadow and destroy it, were already
beginning to get a foothold in India. Little, however, did the
imperial mourner, Shah Jehan, heed them.

He at once set his architects at work, wit