The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story

13Sadguṇa means good quality, also “good thread.”

14 The epithet refers also to the arrows and means “bright with excellent heads.”

15 So in Heliodorus, Æthiopica, Lib. III, cap. XIII.

ἀλλά το͂ις τ’ ἀφθάλμοις ἄν γνωσθε͂ιεν ἀτενὲς διόλου βλέποντες καὶ τὸ βλέφαρον οὔ ποτ’ ἐπιμύοντες.—In the third canto of the Purgatorio Dante is much troubled at finding that Virgil, being a disembodied spirit, casts no shadow.

16 Kali is the side of the die marked with one point. Dvápara is the side marked with two. They are personified here as demons of gambling. They are also the present, i. e., the fourth and the third Yugas or ages of the world.

17 Cp. Milton’s Comus, v. 421 and ff. The word “might” also means “fire”. This “fire” burnt up the hunter.

The pun in the previous sentence cannot be rendered in English.

18 Here there is a pun. Ambara also means the sky.

19 Preller in his Griechische Mythologie, Vol. II, p. 475, refers to a Servian story, in which a shepherd saves the life of a snake in a forest fire. In return for this service, the snake’s father gives him endless treasures, and teaches him the language of birds.

20 For the jewels in the heads of reptiles see the long note in Benfey’s Panchatantra, Vol. I, p. 214. The passage in “As you like it” will occur to every one. Snakes’ crowns are mentioned in Grössler, Sagen der Grafschaft Mansfeld, p. 178, in Veckenstedt’s Wendische Märchen, pp. 403–405, and in Grohmann, Sagen aus Böhmen, pp. 219 and 223.

21Daśa means “ten,” and also “bite.”

22 In Prester John’s letter quoted by Baring Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, New Edition, p. 43, we find, “In one of our lands, hight Zone, are worms called in our tongue Salamanders. These worms can only live in fire, and they build cocoons like silkworms, which are unwound by the ladies of our palace, and spun into cloth and dresses, which are worn by our Exaltedness. These dresses, in order to be cleansed and washed, are cast into flames.”

23 Or robe. The pun is obvious.

24 Cp. the 28th story in the 1st Part of Sicilianische Märchen by Laura Gonzenbach, “Von der Tochter der Sonne.” Here Lattughina says “Fire, be lighted,” and immediately a clear fire burned upon the hearth. Then she said “Come along, pan,” and a golden pan came and placed itself upon the fire. “Come along oil,” and the oil came and poured itself into the pan. In “The story of Shams ul dín and his son,” Hasan Badr ul dín is discovered by his skill in cooking (Lane’s Arabian Nights, Vol. I, p. 266.) De Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, p. 158,) remarks that service in the kitchen is especially dear to the young hero. Bhíma disguises himself as a cook in the Viráta parvan of the Mahábhárata. Pausanias tells us, Book I, ch. 16, Σελεύκῳ γὰρ, ὅς ὡρμᾶτο ἐκ Μακεδονίας σὺν Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, Θύοντι ἐν Πέλλῃ τῷ Διὶ, τὰ ξύλα ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ κείμενα προύβη τε αὐτόματα πρὸς τὸ ἄγαλμα, καὶ ἄνευ πυρὸς ἥφθη.

25 The Petersburg lexicographers think that sam̱vṛitti should be sadvṛitti.