The Cranes Leave Their Homeland, Part One

The Cranes Leave Their Homeland

On the wide plain of Artashi the moonlit night was more than half gone, and at the foot of the mountain, on the bank of a silent spring, a pair of sarus cranes were making ready to leave their homeland. Although their brains (that is, the seat of human feeling) lacked the power that would have set before their eyes the drawbacks and hardships of this venture, the effect of parting from their homeland showed in their bodies and in their every movement. Both stood silently, gazing with longing at the high peaks of the mountain. Waterfalls tumbled from the heights, and the hearing of these simple creatures, thanks to the sharp gusts of wind, was working harder than usual. For an hour and a half or two this pair gazed intently at this charm of nature and at the walls and doors of their homeland, until at last the waning of the moonlight broke into the crane's attention, and the volcanic mountains that had shown clear and bright in the light of the full moon began to look dim. [TN: the sarus is the great grey crane of India, proverbial for its lifelong faithfulness to its mate.]

The earth, turning on its axis, brought the night to the edge of morning. The lions and leopards whose roars had raised the whole forest to an uproar began to go off to their caves, and some sweet-voiced bird from a palm tree announced the glad news of the true dawn.

Though he had been absorbed in one particular thought for so long, the male's power of imagination did not serve him much. He could not think what troubles would befall them in a strange land, and what hardships they would have to bear. The moonlight was growing paler moment by moment. Suddenly the crane turned his face towards the female, laid his neck on her shoulders, pressed to his eyes her lovely dove-grey feathers, and having thus given vent to the feelings of his heart, began to say: "Come, come, dear mate! Let us fly off now. We shall get far away while it is cool; otherwise the eastern horseman will appear on the throne of the sky, and then your delicate wings may not easily stand up to the hot wind. Rise, rise, my enchanting mate, and set off; all the joys of my life are hidden in these shining feathers of yours. This bewitching beauty of yours is enough to keep me alive and make me always successful."

Since the crane had made known his intention of travelling, his resolve to leave his homeland, ever since evening, the female first brought her pinkish-red cheeks close and answered his true love, and then addressed him thus:

"I make no excuse for obeying your command; but what can I do? Nature has placed in my disposition this quality, that I feel the parting from every leaf of the meadow where I grew from little to big. The peaks of the mountain have been before me since my eyes first opened; the voices of the waterfalls have been in my ears since I was able to hear them. These leaves of the trees and the wild flowers on the bank of the stream, which have always dwelt in my eyes: to part from them will be very painful to me. When we reach the other side there will be a new earth, a new sky, new grain, new water; but this land, every inch and every corner of which my feet have walked, will be left behind, and this breeze, which has patted me and sung me lullabies, will be miles away from me. Let me at least know what it is that has so disheartened you that you are bidding farewell for life to a thing like one's homeland."

The crane: "I do not wish to live in a place where faithless and selfish man can come. I fear that, influenced by the ideas of so self-indulgent a creature, my future offspring will be ruined."

The female: "If you will give me leave, I would dare to say this much: that for us to hate man to such a degree is a kind of ingratitude to a benefactor, which is not our way. The world would have been utterly desolate; only cawing creatures like ourselves would have lived all round; the whole of creation would have been the leaps of langur monkeys, the shrieks of kites, deer and antelope, swamp deer, snakes, fish, earthworms, tortoises and so on."

"Nature needed a creature that would applaud the order of the world, and seeing the craftsmanship of the world, acknowledge the perfection of the true Craftsman. So the creation of man was a need of nature; and it was the work of this very creature that by his labour and his reason he made springs flow from the mountains, and reached the sky without wings or feathers so as to learn the truth of the moon and stars. Do you deny that these fruits of every kind, these green fields, these waving trees with which the land around us is enriched, have come to us purely through man's effort? Otherwise the pebbles of the mountains would have been our food and the slurry of the volcano our water."

"So good and useful a creature, from whose labour we benefit in every way, does not deserve so much hatred."

The crane: "But a treacherous thing like man, who in your eyes is the noblest and in my opinion the basest, is not worth liking at all. Deceit is in his nature, treachery in his clay, and selfishness was fed to him with his first milk. Alas, so early in the morning I have spoken the name of a most ill-omened thing: man! What man? A treacherous cheat! Whose love is false, whose words are made up, whose heart is a house of darkness, true feeling miles away from him and good thoughts leagues beyond him. Look, the sun's rays have begun to fall on the mountain peaks. It is not right for us to sit here any longer. Alas, today's journey is put off. Come up the mountain, and hear from me what human life is like."

"Eight or ten years ago, when I was little more than a chick, one night when the moonlight was spread all round, my father went out and looked: a kind of radiance was raining on the leaves of the trees and the peaks of the mountains. Dear wife! You have never had occasion to go abroad. If my old home falls on our way, I shall show you what a delightful place it is. The way the springs come down from the foot of the mountain, swaying and frolicking, will tell you what an enchanting and pleasant place nature chose for my upbringing. Well, the moonlit night, all decked out and adorned, was showing herself on the stage of the world, and my late father had a wish to go out and see it. He took me and my mother with him, and the three of us flew up into the air. The stars had made the carpet of the sky into a bride's forehead. We had no particular place in mind; the gusts of wind pushed us eastwards, and we set off that way, enjoying the moonlight."

"The night was going on its way, swaying coquettishly. When we reached the island of Arsivan, our way took us over the royal palace. What do we see but that Prince Ilyas too, like us, was enjoying the moonlit night, and his beloved sat beside him chattering playfully. Ilyas was gazing fixedly at her face. A strange kind of love was dripping from his eyes. Since that quality of love is higher and loftier than our brains and our beauty, I am unable to describe it. It seemed that every grace of the princess was wounding Ilyas's heart. He was laying himself down like a madman before the princess: now he would put her delicate hands on his eyes, now he would smell her dressed and braided hair and sway with delight. For a while he soothed his restless heart like this, and then, overcome, he began to say: 'The pleasure of the kingdom too lasts only as long as you are before my eyes; otherwise, princess, all the means of pleasure are nothing. Come, you whose body is a rose! Give me a cup from your own dear hands.'"

"Perhaps it is in the very nature of woman: seeing Ilyas so infatuated and so devoted, the princess was delighted beyond measure. The radiance of her beauty doubled; a flush showed in her rosy cheeks, and a smile came to her lips. She was about to come forward and lift the flask and the cup, when Ilyas caught her hand and said: 'To give these hands this kind of trouble is against the will of nature.' Saying this, Prince Ilyas set out a crystal cup himself. The princess was preparing the cup when, as it happened, the flask broke and her wrist was all covered in blood. Ilyas's distress at that moment cannot be described. Tears came from his eyes; he wet his handkerchief, bound it on her wrist and began to say: 'Every drop of this blood is coming from my heart. Would that my whole hand had been cut off, that I had died, been martyred, rather than that this rosy-white wrist should suffer this hurt because of me.'"

"The prince had got only this far when my mother, as is her nature, turned to my late father and began to say: 'The truth is that no creature can value love more than man.' Saying this, she flew off, and father and son after her, and we came back home."

"I do not remember exactly how many days after this, one day I was coming from the east, and the island of Arsivan lay on my way. My heart would not let me pass without seeing the princess, for whom I had come to feel such sympathy that night; so I stopped at the royal palace. It was the silent hour of noon, and the heat was fierce. What do I see but Ilyas lying sad and grieving, in tears. Suddenly a man came, gave him a letter and went away. I was greatly surprised that Ilyas opened the letter, read it and put it on his head and eyes hundreds of times. At last he said aloud: 'The cruel woman still sticks to her demand that while the princess lives, any hope of a connection with me is quite in vain. Well, what is that? Come, today I will settle this quarrel too.' Saying this, Ilyas went inside and came out with a gleaming dagger. He looked at its edge, put it in his belt and came into the room that was before my eyes. Ah, dear mate! My heart is torn to go on with it. That same princess, who had once been the undisputed mistress of Ilyas's heart and owner of the whole kingdom, sat with her hand on her head, and tears were falling drop by drop from her eyes. As soon as she saw Ilyas's face, the princess rose in alarm. Although she stood quite still, she was from head to foot a picture of despair. Her large, soft eyes, which had turned pink now, were on Ilyas's face in grief and longing, and the distress of her painful thoughts showed in her face. Her soft and delicate cheeks had withered like rose petals under sudden calamity, and the heart in which pleasure and gladness had once reigned was now a bundle of troubles."

"Mate with the little heart in your breast! I fear that what follows may make you weep. When the bloodthirsty Ilyas drew the dagger from his belt, the princess shrank at its gleam; she lost her wits and began to tremble all over. Ilyas came forward, seized the princess by the hand, dragged her and said: 'The cup of your life is full. This dagger will finish you. Come here and get ready to die.'"

"Saying this he raised the dagger. He was about to finish her when the princess spoke these words in entreaty:"

"'I am innocent. The brain that fifteen or twenty years ago was full of thoughts of love for me today holds plans of murder. The eyes of the king, from which blood is dripping today, were once raised to me in love and affection. If your success depends only on my death, I sacrifice this life; but the charge of disobedience against me is a slander. Ilyas! Do not do the thing that will make my two children live in disgrace in the world. I know that in a little while my body will be writhing on the floor, and your heart cannot be at peace until your eyes have seen me dead. I forgive you my blood. I have lived twenty-two years with you, and through you I have enjoyed the pleasures of the world. To give one's life as an offering to such a companion is no great thing. Now I give you leave: fulfil your wish as you please.'"

"This first sentence was not yet finished when cruel Ilyas moved the gleaming dagger, and at the very moment when the wronged princess's eyes were gazing at her husband's face, plunged it into her heart."

"Well, mate! Do the religion and morals and law of which man is so proud, thinking that since the beginning of the world he has made great progress, teach this? Did the princess who sacrificed a thing like her honour and chastity, the woman whom Ilyas had forced to believe in his love, deserve this treatment? How could the hand of stony-hearted Ilyas be raised against an innocent woman, his companion and partner of so many years?"

"It was so painful a scene that my wings went numb and my legs went stiff; I had no strength left to fly. The sun had set; I roosted there, and at night, when I saw a new woman enter Ilyas's bedchamber and Ilyas rise to welcome her, I could not bear to look. I flew off, and reached home that same night."

"My mind was not at all sound at that time; distracted thoughts had worn away my strength. However much I wished to take a little sleep and calm my brain, the innocent princess's last words were still in my ears and would not be forgotten at all."