________________
365
VAJJĀLAGGAM
(646
68. The Section on the Rainy Season 646) The advance (progress) of the summer has been halted; the clouds commanding the respect (of all) are rumbling "(thundering); the peacocks too have proclaimed “May bis majesty the Rainy Season be victorious for long (or for ever)."
647) The cloud having harsh (sharp), tawny eyes, having a dark body and having the tremulous lightning for its tongue, appeared to the wife of the traveller (gone away on a journey), as if it were a meteor-goblin whose eyes are harsh (sharp) and tawny, whose body is dark in colour and whose tongue is unsteady like a lightning flash.
648) The clouds are thundering, the paths are broken (i. e. their surface has become uneven or rough with ridges and trenches due to the pouring rains), the rivers are (in spate and) spreading far and wide, and yet, oh you of virtuous (righteous, straightforward, upright) nature, you are looking forward to (waiting for) the return of your dear consort!
649) On seeing the wives of travellers, wrapt in thoughts about their consorts (or wasting, languishing away because of their absent consorts), the clouds begin to shed tears (of
sympathy), under the guise of the discharge of streams of water - (from them).
650) The peacock raising its neck aloft in the rainy season loudly said as it were : "Who, who are those that have gone abroad on journeys, leaving their wives (to pine for them) at home ?”
651) The female cuckoo chirps : "Oh traveller, go quickly, go quickly back to your house, before your wife breathes her last (so long as your wife does not breathe her last),under (or due to) the loud thunder of dark (water-laden) clouds”.
652) The clouds whose advance in the sky is not noticed - (because they move slowly), which are terrible (awe-inspiring) (to lovers in separation) with the water stored in them, which are hanging down low on the earth, and which are difficult to cross(i.e. to live through or to endure) look frightful like snakes, in whose
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