________________
54
Prakrit Verses in Sanskrit Works on Poetics
447. Alas! We are simply killed by this son of a wayfarer. Whatever wayfarer
he meets/ sees he < Us him with the word “O father!". 448. For translation vide ŚP S. No. (153.73) supra.
(Verse 449 is corrupt and obscure.) 450. Seeing the village-chief's son waving a freshly plucked tender creeper the
limbs of the young damsel, moving about in the village - streets, again come suddenly to life.
451. O fair lady, in spite of having a charming wife that son of the farmer has
become so very emaciated for you that even his jealous wife has undertaken to run errands for him.
452. O ungrateful, shameless one, even today the muddy slushy roads of the village
on which I walked in rainy nights, to meet you, come before my eyes ! 453. From him begin all conversations, they centre round him alone : and they
come to an end in him only. I should therefore conclude, dear friend, chat
here in this village there is just one single young man ! 454. While instructing her messenger she felt so excited at the mere mention of
the name of her charming man that she sweated profusely and went into a trance, as it were, and walked the whole way to his house (lit. the court-yard of the house of her lover himself.)
455. O young boy as you went, to catch your glimpse, she turned her neck so
much that her tears rolled right down the centre of her back.
456. It is only now when the fever of love like poison, is shaking me in a convulsion
that people have started advising me against such an affair. But where were they and why so silent, before it began?
457. When the relatives of the young wife / bride paraded or displayed an
artificially tinged bed-sheet or under - vest (with a view to convincing the people of her unscathed virginity) her former lover looked on with smiling mischievous eyes (as he knew that the claim that it was stained with the blood of her first menstruation was false.)