Lives of Alcyone

FORTY-SEVENTH LIFE 259
him gradually by slow poisoning so that she should not be
suspected. She therefore, began to introduce the poison very
cautiously into his food, increasing the dose little by little. Before the
nefarious plot had fully succeeded, Alcyone one day discovered it,
and was violently angry. His first instinct was to expose the whole
affair, and deliver Thetis to his friend the King for judgement, but
Mizar, though much horrified at the discovery, begged him earnestly
not to do this. Eventually Alcyone consented to say nothing about it,
but declared that he could never again feel safe in the same house
with Thetis, so he stipulated that Mizar and his wife and child should
retire to their country house, to which he himself had previously
been banished. Mizar thankfully accepted this as a comparatively
satisfactory arrangement, and at any rate more than he could have
expected after Thetis’ s treachery. Unfortunately the discovery had
come too late to save Alcyone’ s son, who lingered on for some
time, but could not be cured by such physicians as were then
available, and eventually died in the year 590. Alcyone was
inconsolable, full of despair, and sometimes almost of hatred for
Thetis, he seemed to lose his hold on life, and no longer cared for
anything.
In the first year of the reign of King Bimbisara the Lord
Gautama came to Rajgriha and was asked by the King to preach;
but He would not then do so, and went on His way to attain
Enlightenment. After He became Buddha the Lord Gautama
remembered King Bimbisara’ s kindly request, and came and
preached at Rajgriha in the year 588. He was then thirty-five, having
been born in the year 623. Alcyone went to hear Him, and was
immensely impressed, and lifted clear out of his hopelessness and