Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.16.4

v1.c8.16.4

the children must stay there.’ When Kuntī heard these words of hers, she left the children there and ran quickly to her, screaming out : ‘I am death's own!’ She now upbraided Mādrī with having led the king on to being stirred with love (praharsha), and called her blessed withal in that she had gazed on the prince's face stirred with love. Mādrī told her how the king would not be held back, and Kuntī claimed as eldest wife, to die with him. Mādrī, she said, must rise, and take the children into her care. But Mādrī spoke: ‘I shall follow after my brave husband, for I have not yet taken my fill of love; let the elder one grant me this. And as he was drawing nigh to me, he lost love. How should I cut this love off from him in Yama's abode there? And I cannot fully make atonement by having borne myself impartially towards thy sons; and so a sin would be laid upon me. With the king's body shall this dead body of mine, well wrapped, be burned. Do this for love of me, O noble one! And take good care for the children, and love me.¹ I do not see anything more to charge thee with.’ After these words the law-keeping wife, the splendid daughter of the king of the Madras, climbed swiftly up to him as he lay on the funeral pyre.”[²] See, too, Rām., i, 36.5 ff.