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

A SANSKRIT ROMANCE 57 intense passion in the waning night; [50] when damsels were tuneful¹ with the jingle of the bracelets on their tremulous, slender arms while they illumined their apartments by the light of the rays² of their milk-white teeth, revealed through their sobbing at the pain caused by the loosening of the hair which adhered to the fresh³ nail-marks⁴; [51] while their attendants, wearied with importunities for another glimpse, saw lovers con- stantly; while (the damsels themselves) felt bashful just for an instant at the endearing words of the house-parrots who had remembered⁵ a hundred shameless speeches uttered in the night⁶; [52] when they (the damsels) had the beauty, as it were, of an autumnal day with ⟨clouds not adorned by sky⟩,⁷ for their ⟨bosoms were adorned by the marks of nails⟩; when they seemed nigh unto death and had their faces set toward the ⟨city of the Lord of Life⟩,⁸ for their faces were set toward their ⟨lovers' persons⟩; when they resembled a row of trees in a forest in the spring-tide abounding in ⟨sap⟩, for they abounded in ⟨anxiety⟩; when they were embraced by their lovers; when there blew a wind that rocked the filaments of the flowers and removed their pollen from the hair [53] of damsels wearing delightsomely tinkling jewels, whilst it had an abundance of expanded white lotuses, and caused pleasure, and rejoiced in union, and rained down a fire of chaff,⁹ as it were, on lonely¹⁰ girls lightly deserted by their lovers, and surrendered them wholly to the burning arrows of love, and carried far [54] the plaint of the Brahminy duck¹¹;

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¹ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘charming.’ ² Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit ‘rays.’ ³ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text omit ‘fresh.’ ⁴ See Schmidt, Beiträge zur indischen Erotik, pp. 478–496, Leipzig, 1902. ⁵ Tel. ed., ‘who made up speeches of love’s shamelessness’; Srirangam text, ‘who remembered speeches of love’s shamelessness.’ ⁶ The same embarrassing habit of the parrot is mentioned by Amaru (see Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, 2 ed., No. 2710, St. Petersburg, 1870–1873). ⁷ Their beauty was like the dark massed clouds. ⁸ A euphemism for Yama, the God of Death. ⁹ A fire of chaff being proverbially sudden and intense; Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘powder of a fire of chaff,’ also omitting ‘rained down.’ ¹⁰ Tel. ed., ‘lonely, deserted.’ ¹¹ According to the conventions of Sanskrit literature, two indiscreet lovers were transformed into Brahminy ducks (Cascara rutila, Pallas) and condemned to pass