वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

104 VĀSAVADATTĀ foam, as it were, of the mighty ocean of the sky; a quicksilver ball, one might imagine, of the dark metallurgist¹; a silver jar, so to say, spangled with shoots of millet-grass²; [192] lovely as the wheel of Kāma’s chariot³; the dove, it might be termed, of the palace of the heavens; even as the beauteous crest-jewel of the eastern mount⁴; like unto Āirāvata’s frontal lobe when deprived of its minium⁵; resembling a fragment of the head of an old and broken-horned cow belonging to the field of heaven with its white wheat of stars; a silver vessel,⁶ as it were, yellowish with balls of sandalwood, fallen from the hands of a divine maiden. [193] And it was the white lotus of the bees of the eyes⁷; like to⁸ the sand bank bed of the geese⁹ of the mind; the crystalline fan of the fires of separation; the round white whetstone of Kāma’s arrows. [194–195] Meanwhile there were equivocal and jealous¹⁰ con- versations, full of innuendoes and broken with emotion,¹¹ (delivered by the lips) of female messengers sent to sweethearts by hosts of women anxious for a rendezvous. [196] As for example¹²: ‘Be- ware of evil women’s wiles, beloved! Thou dost not truly know thyself! [Beware, destroyer of bliss! Truly thou knowest not that thou art made a wretched woman!]’; [197–198] ‘Thou art a lover,¹³ (even though) not one among them that draw and kiss (women and) make (them) run! [Thou utter rascal! Thou art ¹ Tel. ed., ‘the celestial metallurgist.’ ² Tel. ed. and Srirangam text add ‘for the anointing of the Mind-Born God (Kāma).’ ³ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘the white wheel, as it were, of Kāma’s chariot.’ ⁴ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, interchanging this adjective with the one preceding, ‘even as the crest-jewel of the serpent-king of the eastern mount.’ ⁵ Tel. ed., ‘laved in the river of heaven’; similarly the Srirangam text. ⁶ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘fan.’ ⁷ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘the eyes of the world.’ ⁸ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit ‘like to.’ ⁹ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘flamingoes.’ ¹⁰ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit ‘jealous.’ ¹¹ Tel. ed., ‘displacements (of words).’ ¹² The passage following is certainly the most difficult in the entire Vāsavadattā, and only the most probable of the many interpretations suggested by Śivarāma and Krishna- machariar have been adopted. The renderings here given do not attempt, therefore, to exhaust all the possibilities. The reproachful translation is placed in brackets. ¹³ Ironical.