314 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [Chap. kitchen. Why not take early steps to save yourself from such coming danger? You are feeding a venomous snake with milk. Take care, or it may bite you and so put an end to your life.” Now, Lahana, as already said, was rather stupid. She lent a credulous ear to this mischievous advice, and asked Durvala if she could help her with any device by which she might get rid of her co- wife or otherwise bring her husband completely within her own control. Durval4 went in her turn to Lila, a Brahmin widow, versed in the charms by which a wife may fully control her husband. She prescribed a charm which required the following ingredients: tortoise-claws, raven’s blood, dragon's scales, shark’s suet, bat’s wool, dog’s gall, lizard’s intestine, and an owlet dwelling in the cavity of The arock.* Ending her advice, however, Lila said ‘‘This সা charm will doubtless have its due effect; but I am not sure how far it will help you to gain your end. In some cases it fails and I cannot say, with certainty, that in yours it will be infallible. There is one thing, however, which | can assure you, will help you to win your husband’s love, and is_ better e tomy mind, than all these medicinal charms put to- Lahana রর dismisses gether.” “What is that?” asked Lahana with eager- চি ness. “It is sweet words,” Lila said, ‘‘ and a loving temper that will act best of all to win the love
- These extraordinary ingredients for the preparation of
charms were used by the Indian gypsies who wandered all over the world during the middle ages, and were thus known to the people of East and West alike. We find them again in the description of the witch’s broth in Macbeth which includes among other things, adder's fork, eye of newt, scale of dragon, maw of shark, wool of bat, gall of goat, lizard’s legs and wings of owlet. This list strikingly tallies with that given in this Chandi Kavya by Mukundarf§m who was a Bengali, contemporary of Shakespeare.
