' She answered, 'O king! if the
gods will, I may have another husband and other children when these
are gone; but, as my father and mother are no more, it is impossible
that I should have another brother. That was my thought when I asked
to have my brother spared.' The woman appeared to Darius to have spoken
well, and he granted to her the one that she asked and her eldest son,
he was so pleased with her. All the rest he put to death."

This story from the Greek historian clearly supplied not merely
the thought but also the form of the reference in lines 909-912
of Sophocles' "Antigone." In Campbell's English translation of the
Greek play, the passage, which is put into the mouth of the heroine,
runs thus:--

"A husband lost might be replaced; a son,
If son were lost to me, might yet be born;
But with both parents hidden in the tomb,
No brother may arise to comfort me."

Chronologically, the next two occurrences of the story are Indian. In
the "Ucchanga-jataka" (Fausboell, No. 67, of uncertain date, but
possibly going back to the third century B.C.) we are told--

"Three husbandmen were by mistake arrested on a charge of robbery,
and imprisoned. The wife of one came to the King of Kosala, in whose
realm the event took place, and entreated him to set her husband at
liberty. The king asked her what relation each of the three was to
her. She answered, 'One is my husband, another my brother, and the
third is my son.' The king said, 'I am pleased with you, and I will
give you one of the three; which do you choose?' The woman answered,
'Sire, if I live, I can get another husband and another son; but,
as my parents are dead, I can never get another brother. So give me
my brother, sire.' Pleased with the woman, the king set all three
men at liberty."

In the Cambridge translation of this "Jataka," the verse reply of
the woman is rendered thus:--

"A son's an easy find; of husbands too
An ample choice throngs public ways. But where
With all my pains another brother find?"

In the "Ramayana," the most celebrated art epic of India, we are
told how, in the battle about Lanka, Lakshmana, the favorite brother
and inseparable companion of the hero Rama, is to all appearances
killed. Rama laments over him in these words: "Anywhere at all I
could get a wife, a son, and all other relatives; but I know of no
place where I might be able to acquire a brother. Th