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40
Prakrit Verses in Sanskrit Works on Poetics
touched her lover. 8° Another maiden begs of the night to stay for ever, when the morning comes she will have to bear her lover's departure. The lover who is on his travels bids the thunder and lightning do their worst on him, if they but spare his beloved at home: 82
A tender (-hearted) wife rejoicing at her husband's return does not put on gay dress lest she adds to the grief of her neighbour whose husband has not yet come home.83 One of the loveliest gåthås, steeped in pathos, says:
"When of the two who have long shared joys and sorrows together, one dies, the one that dies is really alive, the other is dead."84 This beautiful sentiment has a distant paralled in Bhāsa's line :
“Vāsavadattā (lit. Mahāsena's daughter) who is dead is not dead if the King (Udayana) has such a soft feeling for her;"85 and also in Bhavabhūti's line, 'He is not dead of whom a beloved thinks, in other words, surely he is not dead who lives in the memory of a loved person. 86
But absence may be a joy where the heart is false; "the faithless one bemoans her unprotected state, and begs her (neighbour-) friend to come to her house, merely to ensure her safety."87 Another gāthā tells us of a naughty wife who pretends to be bitten by a scorpian in order to go to the house of the physician - her paramour. 88
80) 1.16 81) 1.46 82) V1.66 83) I. 39 84) HH-
Ha-grafafc.3.no ITT E-HITI मिहुणाण मरइ जं तं खु जिअइ इअरं मुअं होइ । (HRTBU-G:&- Rarefcet: sista parautant : 1 मिथुनयोर्मियते यत् तत् खलु जीवति इतरन्मतं भवति ।।]
- GS II. 42 85) guraj at Hortaya sangat menargator
- Svapnavāsavadattam VI.9-10. 86) OTT WIRST OF THE T I (au # 346 RUAH: Fra 1]
- Mālatīmādhava V. 24-25 87) GS N. 35 88) H. 37