player whose breath is the Divine, whose flute is
the Heart of Man. Adoration to him who, as
the Lover of the Milkmaids, is the Soul among the Five
Senses, who, as the Lover of Radha, is the Divine that
embraces the Soul. May he who ls ‘ “oncer, the Lord
of Illusion, diffuse the attar of his presence throughout
this story, and may the passion of his music be heard in

its silences!

QDORATION to Krishna the Beloved, to the Flute-

Long ages ago a King of Jambudwipa desired a child,
but, though he had three Queens, he was childless. Great
sacrifices were performed by him and on his behalf by the
Brahmans and ascetics, who received in reward gifts of
exceeding value, and at last, on a certain day, an ascetic,
emerging from the forest where he dwelt in deepest medi-
tation, presented him with a fruit, which should be given
to the most beautiful of his Queens, that she might bear
his child.

Now these three Queens were so beautiful that each
separately resembled Lakshmi, that Sea-born who is the
Lady of Beauty, and together they formed a constellation
that even the Pleiads could not equal.

So with the fruit concealed in his breast, the King
entered the palace of his wives, that he might make his
decision. This had become a matter of great anxiety
to him; nor had he dared to speak of it to any person,
lest it should reach the Queens and provoke discord be-
tween them. Having ascended to the Hall of White
Marble, where they sat with their attendants like roses
fallen on the snows of Himalaya, the King commanded
them to continue their occupations as though they were
not in his presence, so saying that he might observe and
compare them at his leisure, deciphering, as it were, the
secrets of their beauty. And fixing his eyes upon them,
he considered them earnestly.

Now the first Queen, Urmila, was playing with a casket
of jewels, and with these she adorned her beauty. In the
small shells of her ears she fixed precious hoops of gold
set with blood-rubies. In the delicate curve of either
nostril she placed a jewel of rubies like a flower. She set
on her head an ornament resembling the outspread tail
of a peacock, glowing like the inmost essence of the heart
of the rose, and about her neck she hung chain after chain
of rubies, depending to the lowest dimple of her knee.
Her slender fingers she loaded with rubies, and on each
slim ankle she placed bangles of gold and rubies, and little
rings on the great toe of each lovely foot. And thus,
in the blood-red splendor, like a Queen of fire, or a sala-
mander in the core of the flames, she came and stood
before the King, laughing with pleasure and saying, “O
Aryaputra [son of a noble father], am I not beautiful?”

And in his heart he awarded her the prize; for her eyes
were long and dark as a gazelle’s, and in either lake of
darkness he could see a little picture of himself, seated
like Vishnu upon those waters of beauty. And her
mouth bewildered the senses, and the ruffled silk of her
hair held the heart faster than chains of iron. So, being
intoxicated with loveliness, he would have laid the fruit

THE FLUTE OF KRISHNA

By L. ADAMS BECK
Illustrations by Beriram Hartman

in her hand, but wisdom prevailed, and he said, “Sit you
on the cushion at my right hand, that I may see your
sisters.”

So he fixed his eyes on the second Queen, Urvasi, and
her person was of a pale gold color, like silver bronze, and
shaped divinely as a cup shaped by a skilful craftsman
for kings to drink from. Her lips were blood-red as
with the blood of those who had lost their lives for the
sake of her beauty, and the long lashes veiled her eyes
like shadows in which the senses might wander and be
entangled. But when she raised them, behold, a sunrise
of light and laughter that banished darkness. And this
most beautiful lady had decked herself with the greenest
of emeralds from Lanka, and about her waist that a child
might span she wore a girdle of emeralds, which hung
about the curves of her swelling hips in long fringes like
dripping waters from a fountain of green fire and tinkled
as she went, and she also came before the King and said
very softly, like a child, “Aryaputra, am I not beautiful?”

And bewildered, he had almost given the fruit to Ur-
vasi, but reason prevailed once again and he said, “Sit
on the cushion on my left hand, that I may see your
sister.”

So he fixed his eyes upon the youngest Queen, and she,
not knowing of his entrance, sat far off by the fretted
marble of a window, weaving garlands of jasmine flowers.

Her beauty resembled that of the Goddess Uma, when
she did penance in the waters of Lake Maneswar for her
passion that had disturbed the meditation of the God.
For this lady was like a figure of ivory made by a mighty
maker, and her eyes were cold as dawn, and she stood on
the verge where girlhood melts into womanhood and none
can say which it is. The heaviness of her black hair,
black as kadumba boughs, almost bowed her head;
her eyes were the dark blue of the midnight sky when the
moon is full, and her beauty must have been pronounced
the very triumph of perfection, were it not that, since
she had entered the palace of the King, she had never
smiledeno, not even when he had drawn her to his
arms.

And now she had made a crown of white stars for her
head, and to each fine ear she had hung a cluster of jas-
mine flowers, and about her neck a garland, and in her
hand long stems of _these perfumed blossoms, so that in
her white robe she appeared an image of ebony and ivory,
and her eyelashes lay like dark crescents upon the pallor
of her cheek. And her name was Malati.

So the King watched her, and suddenly it seemed to
him that he had never seen her face until that hour.
And he called her, gently, and, starting as from a broken
dream, she came and knelt silently before him, and he
spoke, forgetting the others as if they had not been and
she were alone with him alone.

“O Lotus-eyed, what shall I say?—for surely you are

‘like the Queen Draupadi, of whom it was said thus:

28

‘You might indeed be the mistress of all for your beauty.
Your heels are not prominent, and your thighs touch
one another. You have great intelligence and your words
are well chosen. And the palms of your hands and the