Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.4

v2.c11.4

Romance such as this lies already before us in the earlier mentioned tale of Satyavatī, the fisherman's daughter, and King Çāntanu. For forty years he shuns women and women's love (ratim aprāpnuvan strīshu), after his dearly loved wife Gaṅgā has vanished from his eyes, and when he then finds the gloriously beautiful, wondrous-scented fisher's maid and ferry-girl, his passion for her blazes up so fiercely that he at once woos her, and becomes quite ill and wretched because it seems as though he cannot get her (i, 100.20 ff.). Still finer rings the tale of Tapatī and Saṃvaraṇa (i, 171.6 ff.).