The poet would answer; "No, but also to sip the honey of the spray of
spring flowers."

And they all laughed in the king's hall. And it was rumoured that the
Princess Akita also laughed at her maid's accepting the poet's name for
her, and Manjari felt glad in her heart.

Thus truth and falsehood mingle in life--and to what God builds man adds
his own decoration.

Only those were pure truths which were sung by the poet. The theme was
Krishna, the lover god, and Radha, the beloved, the Eternal Man and the
Eternal Woman, the sorrow that comes from the beginning of time, and the
joy without end. The truth of these songs was tested in his inmost
heart by everybody from the beggar to the king himself. The poet's
songs were on the lips of all. At the merest glimmer of the moon and
the faintest whisper of the summer breeze his songs would break forth in
the land from windows and courtyards, from sailing-boats, from shadows
of the wayside trees, in numberless voices.

Thus passed the days happily. The poet recited, the king listened, the
hearers applauded, Manjari passed and repassed by the poet's room on her
way to the river--the shadow flitted behind the screened balcony, and
the tiny golden bells tinkled from afar.

Just then set forth from his home in the south a poet on his path of
conquest. He came to King Narayan, in the kingdom of Amarapur. He
stood before the throne, and uttered a verse in praise of the king. He
had challenged all the court poets on his way, and his career of victory
had been unbroken.