At this moment voices are heard and the queen appears with her retinue.  She had already sent a message to the king to inform him that she was no longer angry and had made a vow to fast and wear no finery until the moon had entered the constellation of Rohini, in order to express her penitence and conciliate her husband.  The king, greeting her, expresses sorrow that she should weaken her body, delicate as lotos root, by thus fasting.  “What?” he adds, “you yourself conciliate the slave who ardently longs to be with you and who is anxious to win your indulgence!” “What great esteem he shows her!” exclaims Urvasi, with a confused smile; but her companion retorts:  “You foolish girl, a man of the world is most polite when he loves another woman.”  “The power of my vow,” says the queen, “is revealed in his solicitude for me.”  Then she folds her hands, and, bowing reverently, says: 

“I call to witness these two gods, the Moon and his Rohini, that I beg my husband’s pardon.  Henceforth may he, unhindered, associate with the woman whom he loves and who is glad to be his companion.”

“Is he indifferent to you?” asks the viduschaka.  “Fool!” she replies; “I desire only my husband’s happiness, and give up my own for that.  Judge for yourself whether I love him.”

When the queen has left, the king once more abandons himself to his yearning for his beloved.  “Would that she came from behind and put her lotos hands over my eyes.”  Urvasi hears the words and fulfils his wish.  He knows who it is, for every little hair on his body stands up straight.  “Do not consider me forward if now I embrace his body,” says Urvasi to her friend; “for the queen has given him to me.”  “You take my body as the queen’s present,” says the king; “but who, you thief, allowed you before that to steal my heart?” “It shall always be yours and I your slave alone,” he continues.  “When I took possession of the throne I did not feel so near my goal as now when I begin my service at your feet.”  “The moon’s rays which formerly tortured me now refresh my body, and welcome are Kama’s arrows which used to wound me.”  “Did my delaying do you harm?” asks Urvasi, and he replies:  “Oh, no!  Joy is sweeter when it follows distress.  He who has been exposed to the sun is cooled by the tree’s shade more than others;” and he ends the same with the words:  “A night seemed to consist of a hundred nights ere my wish was fulfilled; may it be the same now that I am with you, O beauty! how glad I should be!”

Absorbed by his happy love, the king hands over the reins of government to his ministers and retires with Urvasi to a forest.  One day he looks for a moment thoughtfully at another girl, whereat Urvasi gets so jealous that she refuses to accept his apology, and in her anger forgets that no woman must walk into the forest of the war-god.  Hardly has she entered when she is changed into a vine.  The king goes out of his mind from grief; he roams all over the forest,