f my own accord,
rather than consent to live, the cause of death to so many others: and
by putting myself to death, I should have cut in two the fatal chain of
their succession, and saved their lives by the substitute of my own. And
now, instead, I have been as it were their murderess, and a death to
them all in female form. And now the Deity has avenged them, by sending
to me at last the God of Love in human shape, whose death will be a
grief to me a hundred fold more awful than any death I could have died.
And I myself shall not survive him. Then why waste time in chiding one
who has but one more day to live? For as soon as night arrives, he must
go like the rest to meet his doom: and certain it is, that I shall not
live to see the sun rise again without him.

And as she spoke, they gazed at her, astonished. For she seemed like one
that has burst the bonds of all restraint, and thrown all consideration
to the eight quarters of the world. But as soon as she stopped, the old
King uttered a doleful cry. And he exclaimed: Yashowati, O daughter,
what words are these? Is it any fault of thine that thou art beautiful?
And wilt thou talk of abandoning the body? Then what will become of the
family, of which thou art the only hope? But Aja laughed: and he said: O
lovely lady, waste not thy grief on such a thing as I am: and O
father-in-law, cease from bewailing calamities that are only the shadows
of thy own fears cast upon the dark curtain of the future. For many are
they that are doomed to die, yet never perish after all. And I have not
escaped the sand, to perish lightly in any other way. Be assured that
the lamp of thy race is burning still with a steady flame, not to be
extinguished by a little puff of wind. To-morrow we will laugh together
over these idle apprehensions, which the rising sun will dissipate
together with the mists of night.

But Yashowati turned, and looked at him with steady eyes. And she said:
My husband, for such indeed thou art, the first that I have ever
chosen[18], and the last that shall ever claim my hand: dost thou think
that I would have so far forgotten the reserve that is becoming to a
maiden of my caste, as to offer myself like an _abhisarika_, but that I
know, as thou canst not know it, the absolute and utterly inevitable
certainty of thy doom, and that this is the very last day we shall spend
together, though it is also the very first? And Aja looked at her with
affection: and he laughed aga