City on the bank of the Ganges,
where a quarter of the old perfect virtue still lingers in these evil
days. There was a king named Glorious, and he deserved the name. His
bravery kept the world from being overflowed, like the shore of the sea.

In this king's city lived a great merchant, who had a daughter named
Passion. Everyone who saw her fell in love and went mad with passion.

When she grew to be a young woman, the virtuous merchant went to King
Glorious and said: "Your Majesty, I have a daughter, the gem of the
three worlds, and she is old enough to marry. I could not give her to
anyone without consulting your Majesty. For you are the master of all
gems in the world. Pray marry her and thus lay me under obligations."

So the king sent his own Brahmans to examine her qualities. But when
the Brahmans saw her supreme loveliness, they were troubled and
thought: "If the king should marry her, his kingdom would be ruined. He
would think only of her, and would doubtless neglect his kingdom.
Therefore we must not report her good qualities to the king."

So they returned to the king and said: "Your Majesty, she has bad
qualities." So the king did not marry the merchant's daughter. But he
bade the merchant give his daughter to a general named Force. And she
lived happily with her husband in his house.

After a time the lion of spring came dancing through the forest and
slew the elephant of winter. And King Glorious went forth on the back
of an elephant to see the spring festival. And the drum was beaten to
warn virtuous women to stay within doors. Otherwise they would have
fallen in love with his beauty, and love-sickness might be expected.

But when Passion heard the drum, she did not like to be left alone. She
went out on the balcony, that the king might see her. She seemed like
the flame of love which the spring-time was fanning with southern
breezes. And the king saw her, and his whole being was shaken. He felt
her beauty sinking deep in his heart like a victorious arrow of Love,
and he fainted.

His servants brought him back to consciousness, and he returned to the
city. There he made inquiries and learned that this was Passion whom he
had rejected before. So he banished from the country the Brahmans who
had said that she had bad qualities, and he thought longingly of her
every day.

And as he thought of her, he burned over the flame of love, and wasted
away day and night. And though from shame he tried to conc