Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 386

352
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1873.
THANH
embrace our shoulders, we feel ashamed as if we saw them for the first time. What pleasure, then, can these women enjoy who from the desire of money endure daily the embraces of many ? 6. Riches in the possession of a generous man resemble in their effects the learning acquired by a man of great natural ability. The chastity of a modest woman is like a sharp sabre in the hands of a courageous man. 7. As if when we had by us red and black gram at the same rate of six measures for a fanam, his breast, which is like a hill, after having embraced many fair womon altogether inferior to me, comes unwashed to embrace me also. My husband comes to embrace me with his unwashed breast like a hill, after having embraced the bosoms of fairbrowed ones who are not like me. 8. O poety speak not harshly to me! for if you so speak I shall be to my husband like the left side of the tambour, which gives no sound. Wherefore lift up thy feet and gently retire from me; speak to those (strange women) who are to him like the right side of the tambour, which gives forth sound. 9. I am she who was afflicted when flies flew around my husband, who possesses the cool field, where the reeds being plucked up, the waters shine. I am she who when sparks of fire fly about him and courtesans) fight against it with their opposing breasts, still endure life, though I look upon his wide bosom adorned with sandal-powder. 10. O singer, utter not that gross falsehood, saying, He who wears & garland of buds loosely strong together will be kind to me. I am not dear to him, but am like the flower of the sugarcane (which is destitute of sweetness). Speak these words to them who are like the middle joints of the cane and sweet to him.
CHAPTER 40.-De Amore. 1. O lord of the cool shore of the wideextended backwaters, whose pellucid waves dash along with unceasing noise ! if one live not in matrimony the body will suffer in health. If there are no love-quarrels between man and wife, marriage will be tame indeed. 2. The sound of the approaching monsoon booming in every quarter of the heavens from the rain. fraught clouds is like that of the death-drum to a wife separated from her husband, for he promised to return before the rains set in. They
are setting in, and therefore she fears that he is no more, or else he would have returned. 3. At eventide, when darkness prevente mechanics from distinguishing their tools, the wife will select blooming flowers, and after having strong them on a thread, will cast away the garland from her weeping, and will say, of what use will this garland be to me, whose husband is absent ? 4. Does not my wife, while reclining on her couch and counting with her taper fingers the days I had appointed for my absence, reproach me for my absence, while she wipes away one by one the tears which fall from her eyes, red with weeping as she beholds the setting sun ? 5. The kingfisher, mistaking my wife's eyes for a gyalfish, will fly after her, but when it sees her beautiful eyebrow it will forbear to strike, afraid and supposing it a bow. 6. When the henna-dyed cotton was applied to the foot of my daughter of beauteous form, and whose mouth is perfomed like the red lotus, she would say, Gently, gently, and withdraw her foot lest it should be hurt by the cotton. How then will that foot be able to travel the gravelly paths of the forest ? 7. In the golden and ruddy-tinted eventide, when the sound of the stylus on the palm leaves is hashed, the wife separated from her husband, while she thinks of his absence, will tear off her garland and cast it from her, wiping off the sandal paste which adorns her beauteous form, 8. O thou with shining bracelets ! you asked me saying, Will you be able to follow him through the paths of the forest difficult to be traversed ? As a person who has bought a horse immediately learns to ride, if I did not previ ously know how to do so, so will I learn to follow him. 9. I understood not yesterday what she meant when she so closely embraced me the mother is speaking). Now I do understand what she meant, viz. that to-day she would leave me and follow her husband through the forestpaths by which the timid deer flee away from the tiger. 10. I upbraid not the three-eyed Siva, nor the crow, nor the hooded serpent, they have not sinned against me. Nor do I upbraid my mother who bore me- thou who hast breasts like the buds of the golden-coloured congonflower! But I do complain of the path which has taken away my husband from me, who has left me for the sake of gain.
.