IT was not long after this that his chief of police brought the king an engraved ring, discovered in the Ganges by a poor fisherman. The instant Dushyanta saw it his memory rushed back, but too late. Shakuntala was gone.

Months passed slowly. Then one day the grieving King overheard two women laughing because their baby boy had mistaken the word for a bird, shakunta, for his mother’s name. As Dushyanta hurried over, he picked up an amulet the boy had let fall and the ladies gasped: none but the boy or his parents could touch it, or it would turn into a venomous snake; yet of that there was no sign!

At that moment Shakuntala rejoined them, not recognising in Dushyanta the king who had so coldly rejected her. But he showed her the ring and the amulet, and at last the clouds of Durvasas’s careless curse were driven away. They lived happily ever after, and their little boy became that great Emperor, Bhárata.*