Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.80.3

v2.c13.80.3

I am speaking the truth, and as I swear this oath I touch my own body.¹ Take me in love, O great-eyed one, me that came herself to thee as a maid, that have never belonged to another, and that yearn for thy tenderness.’ But Çālva gave no more heed to the daughter of the lord of Kāçi, who thus spoke, than does a snake to its sloughed skin. Although the prince was besought by her in this wise with many words, yet did he not believe in the maiden. Then spoke the eldest daughter of the king of Kāçi, filled with anger, her eyes weeping, her voice choked with tears: ‘Repulsed by thee, I go into the wide world. There may the good be my refuge, as truly as truth stands firm.’ But while the maiden thus spoke, and bitterly wailed, the lord of the Çālvas was making renunciation of her. ‘Go, go,’ the Çālva kept on saying to her; ‘I fear Bhīshma, O thou with the lovely hips, and thou art Bhīshma’s own.’ Thus addressed by the Çālva, him the short-sighted one, the mournful one walked out of the city, wailing like a sea-eagle. But as she walked out of the city, she was thinking to herself in her dreadful sorrow: ‘There is no young girl on earth who could be worse off than I am. I am bereft of my kindred, and I have been repulsed by the Çālva; and I cannot go out again to Hāstinapura, after Bhīshma for the Çālva's sake has let me go away. Whom shall I now upbraid : myself or Bhīshma, whom it is hard to get near ? Or my blinded father, who held my Svayamvara ?