" The sly weaver"
The old Indian tale „The weaver as Vishnu“ (collection:
Pancakhyayika, text: Stenzler, Elementarbuch der Sanskritsprache, 16.th
ed., Berlin 1970), translated from Sanskrit into Latin.
Read with classical pronounciation of Latin (pronuntiatio restituta).
Booklet with glossary and an extract from a Latin translation of the
Kamasutra made by the indologist Richard Schmidt.
A poor weaver falls in love with a princess so ardently that he swoons
away hit by the arrow of the god of love. As he awakes again, he asks
his friend, a cartwright, to build him a funeral pile, because he does
not see any possibility to approach the princess and therefore he
cannot bear his life. But the friend finds a way: He builds for
the weaver a flying machine that looks very much like the Garuda, bird
of the god Vishnu, and fits out the weaver with all insignia of
this god. At night the weaver flies into the bedroom of the princess,
introduces himself as the god Vishnu, affirms her that he felt into
love with her and therefore - he as a god allowed to do that
– he would marry her by a Gandharva-marriage, that is immediately
and without any formalities. The naive girl agrees feeling herself
deeply honoured; so they spend this night (and many following nights)
according to rules of the Kamasutra.
When the king and the queen alarmed by keepers of the harem on the body
of their daughter notice traces of love bites, first they are indignant
and swear cruel revenge to the seducer of their daughter. But when they
come to know that at night the highest god approaches their daughter,
their indignation turns into true enthusiasm, pride and lust for power:
The king, who with the support of his prominent son-in-law is ready to
take over the world supremacy, attacks instantly all neighbour states.
But when these states strike back, conquer the king’s country and
finally he has nothing but the capital, he asks his son-in-law urgently
for divine support at the latest exspected. But for the weaver the
situation now gets extremely difficult: Despairing he wants to die in
the battle. But in the last minute the true god Vishnu is intervening...
This exciting and humorous story corresponds to the type of novellas
called by Otto Weinreich „the fraud of Nektanebos“. The
same type is found in Boccaccio’s novella of Fra Alberto, who in
order to spend the night with a beautiful and pious woman passes
himself off as the archangel Gabriel...
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