This cannot be
told, nor could the hand of man paint it. Scarcely could that
fair wife of the Pandava Prince, Draupadi the Beautiful (who bore
upon her perfect form every auspicious mark) excel this lady.
(Ashes - ashes! May Maheshwara have mercy upon her rebirths!)
Throughout India had run the fame of this beauty. In the bazaar
of Kashmir they told of it. It was recorded in the palaces of
Travancore, and all the lands that lay between; and in an evil
hour - may the Gods curse the mother that bore him! - it reached
the ears of Allah-u- Din, the Moslem dog, a very great fighting
man who sat in Middle India, looting and spoiling.
(Ahi! for the beauty that is as a burning flame!)
In the gardens beneath the windows of the Queen, the peacocks,
those maharajas of the birds, were spreading the bronze and
emerald of their tails. The sun shone on them as on heaps of
jewels, so that they dazzled the eyes. They stood about the feet
of the ancient Brahmin sage, he who had tutored the Queen in her
childhood and given her wisdom as the crest-jeweled of her
loveliness.
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