humble dignity asks pardon of the king for her
rudeness, adding that she will welcome any new queen whom he genuinely
loves and who genuinely returns his love. When the queen departs,
Urvashi creeps up behind the king and puts her hands over his eyes.
Chitralekha departs after begging the king to make her friend forget
Paradise.

ACT IV.--From a short dialogue in Paradise between Chitralekha and
another nymph, we learn that a misfortune has befallen Pururavas and
Urvashi. During their honeymoon in a delightful Himalayan forest,
Urvashi, in a fit of jealousy, had left her husband, and had
inadvertently entered a grove forbidden by an austere god to women.
She was straightway transformed into a vine, while Pururavas is
wandering through the forest in desolate anguish.

The scene of what follows is laid in the Himalayan forest. Pururavas
enters, and in a long poetical soliloquy bewails his loss and seeks
for traces of Urvashi. He vainly asks help of the creatures whom he
meets: a peacock, a cuckoo, a swan, a ruddy goose, a bee, an elephant,
a mountain-echo, a river, and an antelope. At last he finds a
brilliant ruby in a cleft of the rocks, and when about to throw it
away, is told by a hermit to preserve it: for this is the gem of
reunion, and one who possesses it will soon be reunited with his love.
With the gem in his hand, Pururavas comes to a vine which mysteriously
reminds him of Urvashi, and when he embraces it, he finds his beloved
in his arms. After she has explained to him the reason of her
transformation, they determine to return to the king's capital.

ACT V.--The scene of the concluding act is the king's palace. Several
years have passed in happy love, and Pururavas has only one
sorrow--that he is childless.

One day a vulture snatches from a maid's hand the treasured gem of
reunion, which he takes to be a bit of bloody meat, and flies off with
it, escaping before he can be killed. While the king and his
companions lament the gem's loss, the chamberlain enters, bringing the
gem and an arrow with which the bird had been shot. On the arrow is
written a verse declaring it to be the property of Ayus, son of
Pururavas and Urvashi. A hermit-woman is then ushered in, who brings a
lad with her. She explains that the lad had been entrusted to her as
soon as born by Urvashi, and that it was he who had just shot the bird
and recovered the gem. When Urvashi is summoned to explain why she had
concealed her child, s