[Dark Saint Alaick]

Story of Upakosá and her four lovers.

Upakosá on her part anxious for my success, remained in her own house,
bathing every day in the Ganges, strictly observing her vow. One day,
when spring had come, she being still beautiful, though thin and
slightly pale, and charming to the eyes of men, like the streak of
the new moon, was seen by the king's domestic chaplain while going
to bathe in the Ganges, and also by the head magistrate, and by the
prince's minister; and immediately they all of them became a target for
the arrows of love. It happened too somehow or other that she took a
long time bathing that day, and as she was returning in the evening,
the prince's minister laid violent hands on her, but she with great
presence of mind said to him, "Dear Sir, I desire this as much as you,
but I am of respectable family, and my husband is away from home. How
can I act thus? Some one might perhaps see us, and then misfortune
would befall you as well as me. Therefore you must come without fail
to my house in the first watch of the night of the spring-festival
when the citizens are all excited." [53] When she had said this,
and pledged herself, he let her go, but, as chance would have it, she
had not gone many steps further, before she was stopped by the king's
domestic chaplain. She made a similar assignation with him also for
the second watch of the same night; and so he too was, though with
difficulty, induced to let her go; but, after she had gone a little
further, up comes a third person, the head magistrate, and detains the
trembling lady. Then she made a similar assignation with him too for
the third watch of the same night, and having by great good fortune
got him to release her, she went home all trembling, and of her own
accord told her handmaids the arrangements she had made, reflecting,
"Death is better for a woman of good family when her husband is away,
than to meet the eyes of people who lust after beauty." Full of these
thoughts and regretting me, the virtuous lady spent that night in
fasting, lamenting her own beauty. Early the next morning she sent
a maid-servant to the merchant Hiranyagupta to ask for some money
in order that she might honour the Bráhmans: then that merchant also
came and said to her in private, "Shew me love, and then I will give
you what your husband deposited." When she heard that, she reflected
that she had no witness to prove the deposit of her husband's wealth,
and perceived that the merchant was a villain, and so tortured with
sorrow and grief, she made a fourth and last assignation with him for
the last watch of the same night; so he went away. In the meanwhile
she had prepared by her handmaids in a large vat lamp-black mixed
with oil and scented with musk and other perfumes, and she made ready
four pieces of rag anointed with it, and she caused to be made a large
trunk with a fastening outside. So on that day of the spring-festival
the prince's minister came in the first watch of the night in gorgeous
array. When he had entered without being observed Upakosá said to him,
"I will not receive you until you have bathed, so go in and bathe."